Enjoying the summer but thinking of winter

THE summer heat brought around 40,000 visitors to one of the country’s biggest home and garden shows — but it was the freezing winter which concerned many gardening enthusiasts.

As temperatures in the high teens coaxed families away from Wimbledon and GAA coverage to the Mallow Home & Garden Festival, experts were overwhelmed with queries about saving plants and hedges.

Gardener Peter Dowdall, about to start filming the second series of How to Create a Garden for RTÉ, said half the questions he fielded over the weekend were about the impact of last winter’s exceptionally cold weather.