May...

Rain, rain go away come again another day!?

No not really!  It seems strange that for this month I wanted to talk to you all about the lack of water when we have just come through the wettest April for one hundred years.  Hey ho, that I guess is how these things go.

With the hose pipe ban still at the fore of most minds I thought about changing my plans for the stocking and displays on the cash and carry this year.  Turning the wildlife friendly ideas instead in to, perhaps, the understandable drought tolerant plant displays.  But you know what we suffer with drought conditions on a regular cycle and over time our mind-set towards these plants change naturally, they fall gradually in to the garden and before we know it we have a sub-tropical paradise or a Mediterranean utopia that really doesn't cope well with our normal winter climate.  I thought to myself how superficial and shallow we are when we wholesale rip out areas of the garden; where once flouncy, bright colourful borders bared their glory through the summer and then slunk back safety to bed through the winter.  We now see sparsely populated gravelled beds where Palms, Olives and Agaves soak up the summer sun but then shiver through the winter frosts.  Now I am not saying that these changes are all bad in fact these plants have the benefit of being evergreen and therefore giving some added winter attraction to the garden, although at times they may require more work to get them through the winter.  Is it then that maybe our perceptions have changed of what we need to have in your gardens to cope with the cycle of droughts or maybe we have just forgotten that once established most plants will be drought tolerant or indeed winter hardy provided they are in the right place!

A good quick establishment of plants is most definitely the key to ensuring a far better behaved tolerant garden.  We do not always have to look to those plants that like arid conditions to create a drought tolerant garden though.  Why not give nature a helping hand and go back to basics thoroughly improving the soil structure with lots of organic matter which will aid both water and nutrient retention in the soil.  You could use a mycorrhizal product which works symbiotically with the plants taking some sugars and nutrients but providing a greater root network for the parent plant. Watering in well when first planted, watering in the evening or installing a drip irrigation system red for the first year after planting will help.  Finally a good feeding regime with the right nutrients will help the plant to grow stronger cells making them more able to cope with stressful seasons.  Now the other main way to improve the garden so that it can cope with bouts of drought it to use the right plant in the right place.  It would be of no use improving the borders of an open sunny site and planting the shade loving Euphorbia amygdaloides var. robbiae, for instance.

We could spend hours debating the most effective use of irrigation systems, the properties of Mycorrhizal fungi, water management systems and climate change in general, but does it really matter.  At the end of the day if you want to replace your cottage garden borders with a Mediterranean style garden, with a mind to our changing climate, then the effort involved in improving the conditions or the amount of after care is just the same.  We have seen the wholesale panic buying of fuel come about because someone said there was going to be a tanker driver strike!  Does this mean that now with the hosepipe ban in full swing we need to start panic buying cacti!  I think not!  A good garden develops over time, works with nature and evolves with the climate.  Let's not jump ship just yet, we do need to be mindful of our use of water as a resource but there are plenty of others ways we can help our gardens through this period of dryness.

Chris

Polemonium reptans
'Stairway to Heaven'