Rhubarb is very easy. You can choose a main crop or an early variety. It likes a good feed in the spring - a mulch of rotted manure or some compost, but it will grow quite well without. Don't pick any stems in the first year and go very easy in the second. Always leave more stems than you pick or you will weaken the plant. The ordinary UK climate is all it needs - never heard of it needing it to be cold.

If it should flower remove the flower stem.

As for hearing it grow I think you would need a very sensitive microphone - this was probably a joke - but it does grow pretty fast as the spring warms up.

Agree with Stera...

Well, deserved or not, the UK has a reputation as a cold, misty, drizzly island. That said, in the States, Rhubarb does very well north of the "Mason-Dixon Line", but only at high elevations south of it.

There was an article on the BBC news recently highlighting the rhubarb triangle. The sound of growing is the 'pop' as the leaf buds burst open. That said, the rhubarb is grown in sheds so that any sound would be amplified.

There used to be lots of fields of it round Pontefract years ago.

Back again with a link for the non-believers. Using your preferred search engine, type in 'BBC news rhubarb ' and watch Richard Sillito listening to rhubarb growing!