{"id":16404,"date":"2024-09-09T08:50:24","date_gmt":"2024-09-09T08:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/?p=16404"},"modified":"2026-04-18T19:34:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T19:34:30","slug":"how-to-garden-in-a-changing-climate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/2024\/09\/how-to-garden-in-a-changing-climate\/","title":{"rendered":"How to garden in a changing climate?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Autumn on the horizon. Will we know the difference? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has felt like October for much of the summer this year. But today a mischievous sun peeks through fluffy clouds (such flirts!) and in the garden I find a buzz of pollinators partying among the plants. Great opportunists. True survivors. Perhaps they can help me plot a course for 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to plan for our new climate of uncertainty? I\u2019m searching for ideas in the era of adaptation. The RHS gives excellent advice on planting for flood, wind and drought<\/a>. Woodland Trust lists trees to Combat Climate Change<\/a>. Wildlife Trust names plants for a nectar cafe<\/a>. I can also learn a lot by walking round our wild and windy plot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a>
Midsummer self sown mix of foxgloves, and meadow sweet among planted rodgersia, cirsium and sedges<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve grown wary and weary of the wind, and even more tired of relentless heavy rain. But our trees are made of sterner stuff [see Every Tree Tells A Story at Pond Cottage<\/a><\/em>]. A lot of  them are on the Woodland Trust list and standing up well to wind and rain \u2013 birches, crab apple, willows and hazels, all in good health. Although conifers seemed to suffer some kind of needle dieback earlier this year they have recovered \u2013 much to our relief, Scots pine of all ages are looking properly green and happy again. Against expectations even many ash trees are looking more robust than last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And plants are full of surprises. A fitful spring made for a shorter than usual seasons of snowdrops, daffodils, bluebells and wild garlic. Tulips were spectacular but the Camassia meadow didn\u2019t last as long as we expected. Disappointing for us gardeners, a matter of life and death for insects who arrive too soon or too late for flowers they feed on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to find a new natural rhythm?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the crux for wildlife gardeners. Gardens can be sanctuaries for species at ever-greater risk of dying out. How do we meet the needs of birds, bees and butterflies when storms blow the blossom off our wild fruit trees and flowering times are thoroughly out of sync with birds, bats and insects hatching?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps answers are growing in the garden. When rabbits leave them alone, many of our planned (and paid for) flowers have put on a good show. As the weather finally warmed up a degree or two, cottage garden favourites \u2013 nepeta, geraniums, alchemilla, salvias, sedums \u2013 have been joyfully full of bees (bumble and honey), hoverflies and other winged creatures I can\u2019t name. Echinops, buddleja and crocosmia are humming too despite the battering of summer storms<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Exclamation marks! We spread self-sown verbascums round the garden and they thanked us.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s the beautiful self-seeding opportunists that have been the real stars of the show in our garden this year. I\u2019ve never seen so many verbascums. So<\/em> many! I think last year\u2019s building work at the cottage must have churned up layers of dormant seed in poor soil. The result was a soft carpeting of velvety rosettes among the rubble. We transplanted and spread as many as we could dig up. From early summer, the cottage borders and new waterbank garden were punctuated with exclamation marks: handsome stands of native greater mulleins; here and there a dark mullein Verbascum nigrum<\/a> and a positively promiscuous looking Verbascum densiflorum<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mulleins are beneficial to wildlife as a pollen and nectar source when in flower, seeds are a food source for birds and in winter hollow stems act as a refuge for insects<\/p>\nRHS Verbascum nigrum<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

And foxgloves? Like verbascums, they seem to have benefited from disturbed ground. They clearly have no objection to being replanted around the garden and happily introduce themselves to all kinds of unlikely places. Clustering in the new raised beds, winding through ferns and loosestrife in shady woodland areas. Random mixes of red, pink and white, everywhere sending out signals to bees. On those days when it stops raining it\u2019s such a heart-warming, smile-teasing treat to watch the bees burrowing deep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lots more: possibly now too many umbellifers but insects of all stripes and colours love them. In the last few weeks \u2013 while sharing a delightful half hour with a Common Darter dragonfly (as featured above) \u2013 I\u2019ve discovered a happy accident in the vegetable garden. On sunny days, patches of bolted spinach and flowering parsley are absolutely fluttering with wings. And, oh my, just come and see the flowering leeks! Like alliums on steroids, they are paradise for pollinators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Velvety soft, a young verbascum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So what\u2019s the plan for 2025?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Good question. Two days after starting this blog post I\u2019m staring out of the window at bucketing rain. But the weather forecast promises more sun during the coming week and insects will be back looking for food. Even today there are bees and wasps feeding amongst dripping wet herbs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With insect numbers still dropping alarmingly<\/a>, I\u2019m increasingly aware that we need to plan and plant for greater supplies of nectar-rich flowers of many shapes and sizes in all seasons, at all times \u2013 night feeders like moths and bats are hungry too. We\u2019re discovering that a thriving community of wildlife needs more than long stretches of rough grasses, nettles, docks and thistles. The plant lists are growing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For autumn I can add michaelmas daisies, valerian, and devil\u2019s bit scabious ( \u2018Easy to grow from seed\u2019 says RHS) to what we call \u2018meadows\u2019. Camassia meadow? Ray thinks that\u2019s too grand a description but it is coming on and we will invest in more of these beautiful insect-pleasing bulbs for next spring. For summer we can spread sweet-scented blooms beneath trees, through borders, between grasses. And of course in winter \u2013 the best time for dead hedging and rabbit proofing \u2013 we can add to berries, seedheads<\/a>, cones, nuts. In whatever order the seasons arrive, a richer \u2018naturally\u2019 buzzing habitat likes a helping hand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First published on the author’s website: Plants Pollinators People <\/a> (Pond Cottage Garden is open to the public through Scotland’s Gardens Scheme<\/a>) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Featured image: Common Darter dragonfly ( identified by Buglife<\/a> after I tweeted the picture )<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further reading and research survey: How is climate change affecting gardens? <\/a> Royal Horticultural Society survey in collaboration with Universities of Sheffield and Reading runs until 15 October<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Camassia meadow. A mix of white and blue camassias interplanted with late flowering pheasant eye narcissi. First bulbs planted in October 2022. We\u2019ll add more this autumn.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

First published on the author’s personal site<\/a>. Images by her.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How do we meet the needs of birds, bees and butterflies when storms blow the blossom off our wild fruit trees and flowering times are thoroughly out of sync with birds, bats and insects hatching?<\/p>\n

Perhaps answers are growing in the garden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":16405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[196],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16404"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18451,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16404\/revisions\/18451"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}