Wakehurst, which describes itself as a "Kew Gardens' wild garden in the country", has taken decisive action due to rising temperatures.
The results of last year's creation of a new American prairie grassland with 12 million seeds, over 100 different plant species and 50,000 live plants are on display.
The reason for the prairie was to think about the future and this summer is a good example of what we think will be, which is much hotter and dry.
We want to create landscapes at Wakehurst that are more resistant to the changing climate by moving away from the conventional form of gardening, which requires a lot of irrigation, weeding and mulch.
These are landscapes made from live plants that knit together and create a community of plants that will adapt to the conditions and, rather than just survive in summers like this, will actually thrive because those are the conditions they are more accustomed to.
The biggest project at Wakehurst over the past decade has been worked on by American gardening expert Larry Weaner.
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Parkinson said the dry summer had slowed progress despite the fact that the plants were able to adapt to warmer climates.
It takes up to five years to develop a living plant community. We were expecting to see more diversity this year, but the hot and dry weather has delayed some of the growth.
The conditions have been very dry, so the seeds are sitting on the ground. That means the seed hasn't sprouted, the seedlings aren't growing, or they haven't had enough water to bloom.
It will take a long time for it to be balanced. It already looks amazing.
Black-eyed Susans are some of the pioneer plants that have already come through. The plants will diminish and the grasses will show up.
The staff at Wakehurst are interested in learning how the UK can adapt to hotter summers.
Parkinson said that Wakehurst can't pretend that climate change isn't happening. Research will inform our decisions moving forward.
We think that everyone will have to garden in the UK in the future due to the resilience of theprairies. We can't rely on irrigating everything to keep it alive, so we're going to have to change the way we garden
Some of our collections are struggling due to the susceptibility of certain trees. We are also seeing milder winters and wet summers. It's not easy.
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