The green-fingered father stockpiles water to keep his tropical front yard lush while his neighbor's lawn turns brown.
Mike Clifford has stored thousands of liters of rainwater to protect his 25-year-old jungle from an impending drought. Millions of Britons face a hose ban.
The 61-year-old has spent decades transforming the back lot of his suburban bungalow into a tropical paradise filled with rare plants.
This patch is only 65 feet long and 35 feet wide, but it's filled with extraordinary species native to South America, Central America, Africa, and China.
Due to record heat, many of his plants flowered months earlier than expected.
But others, accustomed to warm, wet climates, are at risk of dying from lack of rain.
Mike, from Poole, Dorset, lives in Mexico He said he installed an underground water system because the broadleaf trees like daisies that grow wild in the cloud forests of the city are "withering" in front of him. ass.
It contains over 2,000 liters of rainwater collected over the winter, which he hopes will be enough to save the garden.
He Some of the plants drink up water continuously for 30 minutes each day, but a ban on hosepipes in the south of England may force Mike to turn off the faucet soon.
A father of one whose neighbor's front yard looks brown and dry said:
"Normally, we expect the flowers to bloom in September a few weeks before we need to pack up for winter, so it's nice to be able to enjoy them a little earlier.
}"But plants with big leaves don't like the heat. They wilt badly. If you go outside at noon, you'll see it happening.
"There are many. but I'm trying to reduce it. I buried water butts 4 feet underground.
"I'm a little worried about the possibility of a horsepipe ban, but it's nearing the end of the season, so as long as it's in time for September, I'll be happy."
Hampshire, Isle of Wight A hosepipe ban has already been implemented in the Isle of Man, and will come into force in Kent and Sussex from 12 August, amid a prolonged dry season and 'record demand'.
Welsh Water also announced that people living in Pembrokeshire will not be able to use hosepipes or sprinklers from 19 August, and Thames Water has announced a future Greater "London, Thames Valley, Surrey, Gloucestershire and northern Wiltshire could be restricted." Several weeks', following heat wave temperatures.
Mike is currently soaking the plants using a submersible pump and two of his hoses attached to the butts.
If his reserves last until his September, he will be able to save the garden for next summer.
He then digs up and packs most of Microhis jungle in a painstaking effort to protect him from the winter cold.
Mike replants seeds in the spring, and in the summer an unusual plant he grows up to 12 feet tall.
This year he has seen several new additions come to fruition, including the incredibly rare Saint Helena his Ebony, which is endangered in the wild. rice field.
The four-foot-tall plant with broad white flowers was thought extinct until scientists discovered two of his smaller plants clinging to rocks in Mexico.
They took a cutting from the plant and sent it to his garden at Kew in London to grow more of the same kind.
Hosepipe ban 'a bit worrisome'
Mike started his tropical gardening in the 1990s, inspired by a television documentary.
He and his wife regularly open up the garden under the National Gardens scheme, raising thousands of pounds for charity over the years.
The couple moved into the bungalow ten years before him and dug up most of the plants from the old address.
Their gardens are home to giant dandelions from the Canary Islands and his Pararistolochia goldieana, a Central African plant that flowered only once in Europe.
There are also angelic trumpets, whose hallucinogenic properties were traditionally used by shamans in South and Central America to conjure visions. Alongside my full-time design job, I tend to my plants in the evenings and weekends.
His son Harry, 26, helps him lift heavy objects.
Mike keeps plants in three greenhouses and one in his summer house during the winter. What must be excluded and wrapped in fleece.
It often takes him two to three weekends to complete the work.
