Climate crisis prompts RHS to plan for sending rhododendrons north

Plants are thought more likely to thrive at Harlow Carr in Yorkshire than at their current home at Wisley in Surrey

In Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier’s unnamed narrator was shocked and bewildered by the over-proud “slaughterhouse red, luscious and fantastic” rhododendrons she encountered at Manderley on the southern coast of England. She might be even more thrilled if she’d seen them in Yorkshire.

The climate crisis has prompted the Royal Horticultural Society to plan a move of its important collection of rhododendrons from its flagship Wisley garden in Surrey to Harlow Carr in North Yorkshire, the Guardian can reveal.