Gardening Through Extremes: Survival, Heatwaves & Budget Hacks

Gardening with the RHS

Royal Horticultural Society

Home & Garden, Hobbies, Leisure

4.3 • 692 Ratings

🗓️ 21 August 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week we are diving into extremes. Tom Hart Dyke shares his amazing story of misadventure in the Panamanian jungle that led him to the brink of death… and to the founding of a ‘World Garden’ deep in Kent. Guy Barter shares some top tips on how to keep your garden looking luscious in the extreme heat and drought we’ve experienced across the UK this summer. And are you gardening on an extreme budget? Nick Turrell from the RHS advisory team has some top tips just for you! Host: Gareth Richards Contributors: Tom Hart Dyke, Guy Barter, Nick Turrell Links: Lullingstone World Garden Managing water in your garden

Transcript

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0:00.0	Save 30% on RHS membership today.
0:05.0	Enjoy unlimited access to 5 RHS gardens and 230 partner gardens all year round.
0:13.0	Delight in exclusive member only days and reduce rate tickets to RHS flower shows.
0:19.0	Plus expert gardening advice,
0:23.9	monthly editions of the garden magazine, and so much more.
0:28.8	Join today from just £56.org at rhs.org.uk.
0:32.5	Hurry, offer, end soon. Terms and conditions apply. I'm an idiot.
0:42.3	We wanted to cross an area on the Panamanian Columbia and Balder called the Darien Gap.
0:49.3	I was drawn in because of the floor of the area.
0:53.3	It wasn't the safest place to visit.
0:58.0	We were thrown to our hands and knees, tied up with what looked like garden string behind our backs,
1:03.0	and big M16 stuck to our heads.
1:08.0	And three quarters of a year in captivity we spent with them.
1:11.6	I am the luckiest person to be alive.
1:14.6	Tom Hart-Dyke isn't your average horticulturist.
1:19.6	In 2000 he found himself at the centre of international headlines,
1:23.6	kidnapped in the Colombian jungle during a plant-hunting expedition gone disastrously wrong.
1:29.3	Trapped in the depths of despair, with his life hanging in the balance,
1:33.2	Tom imagined something extraordinary, a world garden where plants from every corner of the globe
1:38.3	will grow side by side, arranged by their continent of origin,
1:42.3	a living celebration of botanical diversity.
1:48.2	And this week we're diving into the theme of extremes.
	...

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