The recent heatwave has left many areas parched. But this garden is bursting with greenery and flowers thanks to its owner’s dedicated watering regime.
Every day, Geoff Stonebanks spends three-and-a-half hours watering the 1,600 individual flowering plants outside his bungalow by hand.
The 65-year-old retired Royal Mail manager estimates he fills between 50 and 70 watering cans a day – using around 154 gallons of water – to keep his blooms vibrant.
He said: ‘In the heat we’ve been having, watering the garden has become a bit like painting the Forth Bridge: As soon as one half is done, the other needs doing. It’s a continuous process.
Geoff Stonebanks, 65, spends three and half hours a day watering his 1,600 plants amid the summer heatwave
‘It has been a bit too hot this year but I’d still rather have the sunshine than heavy rain as that damages the flowers.’
His garden in Seaford, East Sussex, is packed with a mix of flowering perennial shrubs and bushes alongside annuals.

This year he spent £800 on more than 600 flowering annuals, which he has carefully tended throughout the extreme heat.
In a normal summer he waters his garden three times a week with a hose. But this year, with temperatures on the Sussex coast regularly exceeding 30C (86F), he has had to water each pot and bed daily with a watering can.
He also gives plant food to every individual plant once a fortnight – a process which takes him seven hours a time – and deadheads up to twice a day.
This meticulous regime means that Mr Stonebanks is tied to the garden between April and October and cannot go away on a summer holiday.
‘I can only really leave it overnight at the most,’ he said. ‘It’s not the sort of garden you can ask a friend to look after for you.’

This year he spent £800 on more than 600 flowerings plants which he has carefully tended to this summer

The retired Royal Mail manager fills 50 to 70 watering cans a day and uses an estimated 154 gallons of water
He is also bracing himself for a large bill at the end of the summer, after his water supplier insisted he had a meter fitted at the start of the year.
He said: ‘I expect it will be somewhere in the region of £1,500 but I haven’t dared look at the meter yet. There’s nothing I can do about it – the garden needs watering.’
It is all for a good cause as Mr Stonebanks opens his 100ft by 40ft garden to visitors in return for a donation to charity. In ten years he has raised more than £110,000.

Mr Stonebanks is bracing himself for a large bill at the end of summer after his water supplier insisted he had a meter fitted at his East Sussex home