Congratulations to Suzanne Gaywood and her Grenada at Chelsea team on the award of a Silver Gilt medal for their exhibit. Photographs of the exhibit can be seen here http://www.grenada-at-chelsea.org.uk

The annual Chelsea Flower Show begins one week from today and after a break last year, following their 10th Gold Medal, Suzanne Gaywood and her Grenada at Chelsea team will be participating again this year.

Gardeners around Grenada have been picking their choicest blooms and foliage and a group of volunteers met together this evening (Tuesday) at the home of Cathy, one of the Grenada at Chelsea team members to carefully pack their contributions. In addition to the blooms from private gardens, nurseries and commercial growers from around the island, will also be packing flowers and foliage for Chelsea.

Tomorrow evening Cathy will be winging her way to London on British Airways with the precious blooms for Chelsea in the hold.  We wish Cathy bon voyage and good wishes to the whole Grenada at Chelsea team for a successful show.

A cactus with leaves! Yes there is such a thing.  Not only leaves, but a flower that looks very like a rose and a fleshy acidic yellow fruit. When it comes to thorns though, it has the rose beaten hands down.  They grow to about 2 metres tall and I'm told they plant them as hedges in Venezuela. I'm sure they make very effective barriers. 

Its called Pereskia Bleo or for obvious reasons the Rose Cactus.  This is what Wikipedia has to say about the Pereskia Bleo 

This one was planted at Hyde Park about ten years ago and is now at full maturity. The flowers close up tightly at night.

We are now half way through a hard dry season which hopefully will come to an end in June when the rains normally arrive. A combination of low humidity, endless sunshine and high winds (great for the folks who are here for the sun, sea and sand) has sucked all the moisture from the earth. Fortunately there are some plants that thrive in these conditions. A walk around the garden this morning shows the contrast.

The renanthera and arachnid(spider) orchids appear to be quite happy in the sunny dry conditions

The green lush grass has turned into hay. The upside is that no mowing is required.

A fallen coconut branch complete with dry coconuts makes a pretty picture

The great thing about a tropical garden is that even in the dry season there are still flowering trees and plants. The Frangi P ani covered in white blooms, the Cassia Fistula with its hanging yellow showers. The bromeliads, bougainvillia, congea and vanda and arachnid orchids. Even a late blooming purple crinum

We have had this orchid for four years and it is now flowering for the first time.

This is what the American Orchid Society(AOS) has to say about it.

When the builders were building the new steps up to the viewing platform on the upper level their brief was to disturb the plants as little as possible. Unavoidably they had to remove a cycad which was in the way but they very kindly brought us two pineapple plants and planted them where the cycad had been.

I always thought that pineapples were yellow. I was quite amazed therefore to see how pretty the young fruit is.