Planting for Climate...

Planting for Climate...



To Plant, or Not to Plant, that is the question! “To be, or not to be...” is Shakespeare’s actual quote, part of Hamlet’s contemplation of life and death. Strange thoughts you might think while planning planting in a garden... but not so strange when coping with the vagaries and extremes of climate. In every garden there are dried up dead leaves, a plant fighting, and hopefully, a plant showing resilience to drought.

Thinking of our wildlife needs, traditional British species spring to mind as first choice. But our ten-year old kids won’t be experiencing the same climate as us when they have ten-year olds. Serious, non-sensational, scientific predictions are that they will be feeling the warmth of our holiday destinations: the Mediterranean, south-east Africa (Photos 1, 2, 3 in the Scillies), parts of Australia (


in the Scillies), China, USA and South America. Species from these regions are predicted to be flourishing here in the future.

Nothing new there! New plants from exotic places were essentials in the fashionable Victorian garden (lilies and rhododendrons from the Himalayas) and they linger on as some of today’s garden standards – e.g. Forsythia


, collected in China by Robert Fortune in 1844. Their local habitat and climate mirrored ours, so they thrived. A bit of physical danger

, politics, bribery and deceit involved added to competitive acquisition and ‘cool’. (Fortune penetrated deep into forbidden countryside of China, totally disguised with shaved head and pigtail... but unable to eat in public for fear of giving himself away by his chopstick technique!)

Wildlife Gardening Tips: Our pollinators don’t discriminate between foreign and endemic species. It’s the energy content

that counts. Some flowers provide good food, some don’t – these you might consider as “Not to Plant”. Robert Fortune’s Forsythia is a welcome splash of sunny yellow on grey days for humans, but it doesn’t cut the mustard for insects.

In my garden, besides the popular wild marjoram, the insect vote goes to Mediterranean herb flowers – lavender, savoury


, rosemary, marigolds and for borage (also West Asia) and nasturtiums (7 Andes, South America).

A persistent Victorian favourite for hedges is Cherry Laurel (from Black Sea region Europe and southwestern Asia). Currently increasingly popular, it contains hydrogen cyanide so is potentially harmful to humans and pets, and unpalatable to most invertebrates. 


– Its staining berries seem only attractive to a few birds such as Wood Pigeons. It naturalises and potentially invades wild hedges, so another candidate for the “Not to Plant” category.

Tree planting is an investment in and for the future – a gift, a necessity for today’s children. What trees to plant for a warming future? Kew’s scientists recommend: Photos 




If you are considering a garden visit, ‘Of the Oak’ is a stunning 6m high installation on the workings of trees at Kew Botanic Gardens at present (until 28th September), also the new Carbon Garden is immensely impressive and helpful...


.

Photos: Nicolette Scourse 1, 2, 3, 4 in Abbey Gardens Tresco; 9, 10, 11 in Royal Botanic Gardens Kew.

6 from ‘The Victorians and their Flowers’ Nicolette Scourse (Croom Helm1983).

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