A horticultural panic attack or a measured response?
As the autumn rains arrive, Alan reflects on whether the herbaceous border is really doomed, and makes the case for caution. After all, two or three droughts in a row do not make a Sahara.
The onset of autumn is always blessed with a heavy shower of optimism in my garden, if not a heavy shower of rain. After the driest summer on record, most commentators failed to mention that we had previously endured the wettest winter. Curious, isn’t it, that despite the deluge we still ran out of water? I remain baffled that there seems to be no will to address what will be an ongoing problem if the doomsayers are to be believed.
I read the other day of a seminar that was held by influential horticulturists to discuss the likely demise of the herbaceous border and its replacement with more drought-tolerant shrubberies. There was talk of that glorious and long-established spectacle of the British garden being consigned to history. But hold your horses. If one swallow does not make a summer, two or three droughts in a row do not make a Sahara. While I agree that we must make provision for the likelihood of more dry summers, I am also aware that we are still likely to endure the occasional washout. If we are to adjust what we grow in our gardens, then can we do so at a rational and steady pace, please?
Beware the dangers of extrapolation. We are frequently regaled with dire warnings which begin: ‘If this trend continues at this rate…’ But nothing concerning the conditions here on our volatile planet is quite so predictable. Trends change. Things develop at a different pace to that which went before.
A letter to The Times a few weeks ago, from someone with impressive post-nominals who described themselves as a ‘climate scientist’, used the phrase: ‘The science is settled.’ And there was me thinking that science and scientific knowledge evolve.
The correspondent went on to declare: ‘Our actions are responsible for causing the vast majority of modern global heating and the many negative impacts that it brings… this year’s heatwaves, floods, droughts and wildfires should have cemented the significance of human-caused climate change.’
Misleading, I thought. No-one with half a brain is denying that humanity is exacerbating global warming and contributing to climate change but, hey, you can’t assume that every year that follows the last one will have the same pattern of ‘weather’.
