More exotics can be grown in the UK as we get hotter summers and temperate winters. Why not try a Pomegranate or Punica granatum a large shrub or small tree.

Pomegranate tips

• Good drainage and a warm sunny wall position will help.
• The leaves are green coppery when young changing to yellow as they age with brilliant orange flowers.
• A showy variety Flore Pleno is worth growing even if the fruit don’t have time to ripen in poor summers
• Nana is a very low growing dwarf variety.

Growing Chestnuts

Two Chess fanatics were showing off in the front of a posh hotel – they were ‘Chess nuts boasting in an open foyer’.

Chestnut Tips

• You can grow your own chestnuts on a Castanea sativa or Sweet Chestnut tree.
• It is a large, fast growing tree and will do better in a hot summer.
• Marron de Lyon is one of the best fruiting clones bearing nuts at an early age
• The tree produces male and female catkins in July.
• Best grown with plenty of space the tree can be coppiced.