Today, I start a completely new blog. The idea is to give British gardeners friendly, practical advice on growing and planting. It’s called Simply Blogging with Graham Rice and is hosted by my friends at the Norfolk mail order nursery Simply Seeds and Plants.

I’m starting off with some tips on how to deal with the Great British Drought – the use of sprinklers and hand held hosepipes is banned across the southern and eastern England from 5 April. Of course, it turned out that posting a blog about drought instantly produced a deluge. But I’ll also be talking about growing plants, suggesting planting ideas and occasionally sounding off about things that get me excited or drive me mad.

Simply Seeds and Plants are expert growers of sweet peas – they grow 30 million sweet pea plants a year… 30 million! - but they also grow patio and vegetable plants, chrysanthemums, fuchsias, and perennials. So hosting my new blog on the Simply Seeds and Plants site allows their customers find on-the-spot advice.

And let’s be clear – I’ll be blogging about what I think will help, interest and entertain gardeners. And the nursery will be offering discounts to blog readers. Sounds like a good deal to me.

So please take a look at Simply Blogging with Graham Rice. Why not subscribe to its feed, or you can sign up to get the posts by email.

* By the way... Owing to the wonders of online communication I was able to switch on the new blog at 9.45am from the back room of Joe's Bar in Union, New Jersey - just before taking my place as an extra in my nephew's latest movie...