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On a more gardening than gloating note there are some interesting gardens and some fabulous plants over here, which certainly helps when it comes to looking at our unpredictable future climate. There's no doubt that the weather will become more extreme with more flash floods in the summer, as well as long hot dry periods too - what to plant seems to have become a damage limitation exercise for some.

In the South West of France, where I currently am, they experience hot dry summers with the occasional tropical downpour, but also have pretty cold winters too, with temperatures dropping to a freezing -8 degrees C. I've been snooping around to see what plants they grow here, and cope well with those extremes. Most of the plants here are familiar to us, with more and more people planting pines, cypress trees, and walnut and Indian bean trees. They all seem to cope really well with the varied climate. Roses do well too as they are pretty tough plants despite their delicate flowers.

Even though this isn't the Med, there are the more Mediterranean types of lavender, rosemary and grape vines, which all thrive and prove they don't seem to mind the really cold spells either. What surprises me though, considering how cold it does get in the winter is the amount of mature oleanders, pittosporum tobira, palms and banana, as well as wisteria and jasmine. Here they plant them directly into the ground and then just leave them to grow, and as a result they all do just fine.

I suppose it shows that these plants can really cope well with the cold weather, as long as their roots don't sit in too wet for long periods over the winter. I have to say though, that even though they do love their plants in France, their average garden and the range of plants they like to grow just aren't a scratch on ours! A bientot.