THE home of British horticulture is now the driest place in the UK after going 43 days without a drop of rain.
The parched spell at Wisley in Surrey, home of the Royal Horticultural Society garden, began on June 17.
The mercury has topped 30C on 12 days since, turning the gardens to scorched dust.
If rain holds off for 48 hours the rainless period will equal the national drought record of 45 days set in 1976.
Trees at Wisley have begun to lose leaves and grass is frazzled. Staff caring for the hundreds of rare and valuable plants say they have never experienced a summer like it and have begun rationing water.
Environmental horticulture head Mark Gush said: “The previous record at Wisley was 36 days without rain in 1976.
“So we’ve already broken a 50-year record and that’s really significant. It now looks like we’re about to break the national record.”
Wisley visitor Paul Parkinson, 65, from Wimbledon, South West London, said: “I was 15 in 1976 and I don’t think even that was this dry.
“We have a hosepipe ban now, but it just doesn’t seem like the Government have planned for this very well.
“There is no thought being put into resilience in the water system.”
Paul Rutter, 73, of Fareham, Hants, said: “I haven’t seen grass like this since 1976.”
His wife, Angie, 70, said: “It got hot in 1976, but nothing like this.”
Parts of the South West went 45 days without rain in July and August in 1976. But this summer has seen three heatwaves already — and another is due with temperatures set to hit 35C in parts of the South East tomorrow.
And after record-breaking temperatures in May and June, England recorded just seven per cent of its average July rainfall.
Wisley is not the only place to have gone weeks without rain.
Herstmonceux in East Sussex has had 39 dry days, Heathrow in West London has notched up 37, while parts of Hampshire, Suffolk, Bedfordshire, Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire have all topped 30.
Reservoir levels are at dangerously low levels amid a 30 per cent rise in demand.
Eight water firms — Anglian, Southern, Thames, South East, Affinity, Welsh, South West and Cambridge — have imposed hosepipe bans on 23million customers. Last year, only four did.
North Wales and the Upper Severn has declared a drought, while many regions from Cornwall to Lincs are one step below that.
The Met Office’s Will Lang said: “There are signs of more changeable weather into early August, which may bring rain to some areas.
“However any rainfall, particularly across southern parts, is unlikely to be widespread or substantial.” The heat has seen wildfires, dried-up ponds and wetlands and animal rescue centres full of hedgehogs and foxes with heatstroke.
Farms are harvesting early and say yields will be lower than usual. Paul Tompkins of the National Farmers’ Union, said: “The intensity and longevity of the hot, dry weather is taking a toll.”
The UK Health Security Agency has issued an amber heat-health alert for the East Midlands, East of England, South East and London.
