Gardens
Wot scorcher?
Ursula Buchan
Panning' is perhaps too strong a word. As my overplanted garden has evolved, from time to time I have been unable to bear a particularly disagreeable combination of colour any longer and have moved the offending elements. In a normal year, therefore, a sort of harmony prevails.
But what is 'normal'? The last two winters have been generally dry and warm. This March temperatures touched the 70s, playing havoc with my sort of harmony. Usually it is shortening nights which cause the buds of summer flowers to form (Spectator readers know this as 'photo- periodism'). However, not all plants are deeply attached to this concept and are prepared to break ranks at the slightest encouragement. This year, bearded irises, viburnums, Osmanthus and lilacs flowered with the daffodils and early tulips. Not only that but, under the unusually strong sun, everything went over disappointingly quickly.
Believing everything I read in the news- papers, I began to think that there was a chance the climate really was changing and that, accordingly, some radical alterations were needed in the garden. Plant associa- tions would have to be reconsidered and the flowering times given in basic text books questioned. If high temperatures and brilliant sunshine were going to shor- ten flowering periods, a greater emphasis should be placed on long- or repeat- flowering plants, as well as those grown principally for good foliage. The exciting prospect of growing plants hitherto consi- dered too tender for the chill East Mid- lands presented itself.
I wrote an article about it. I should have known better. No sooner had the fax machine's transmission report printed `OK' than we were hit by the first of a succession of damaging night frosts. These were not, strictly speaking, late frosts, but they might just as well have been, because plant growth was generally three or four weeks ahead of what is usual. These frosts not only devastated the blossom in the country's orchards, thereby jeopardising the livelihoods of dozens of fruit farmers, and burnt the new growth off a hundred million roses and hydrangeas, but, worst of all, they blackened the emerging shoots of my new potatoes. Most hardy garden plants are now recovering and have made new growth but the frosts set many back and, in some instances, ruined their chances of flowering.
Not having learned by my mistake, I am allowing myself a modest weather forecast, which is just as likely to be wrong: that we are in for a dry, hot summer and therefore many plants will suffer from lack of water, particularly in areas of naturally low rain- fall. Surely here I am on safer ground for we have recently experienced a week-long heat wave which followed an exceptionally sunny and relatively dry April. There have been times this spring when my allotment has been too dry to dig, which is unheard of. A March dust may be worth a king's ransom but it will clap the rest of us in chains — particularly in those areas, such as Kent, where early hosepipe bans are expected.
There is not a great deal to be done about late frosts, except for some panic covering of small, vulnerable plants and perhaps the spraying of fruit blossom with water, but there is plenty we can do to conserve moisture. Applying a good thick mulch may seem blindingly obvious, but I know many garden owners who have yet to get round to this most important of all spring tasks. Yet an average soil, support- ing plants, will lose the equivalent of an inch of rain a week in the summer by evaporation. Shrub and flower borders should therefore now be watered well and a three-inch layer of mushroom compost, home-made compost, well-rotted manure, pulverised bark (the more pulverised the better, for the coarser grades lend the `Mad Howe disease.' garden the air of a local authority adven- ture playground) or J. Arthur Bower's `Mulch and Mix', made from recycled paper, laid on top. It is desirable, and possible, to do this in the vegetable garden too, particularly around peas, beans and potatoes. I remain open-minded and unconvinced that some long-term change has occurred in the weather. It is usually a mistake to chase fashion, whether it be sartorial, liturgical, horticultural or climatological. As the cold nights slowed the helter-skelter progress of this season, it occurred to me that perhaps the only greenhouse effect to be seen in my garden this year will be the replacement of my awful old aluminium glasshouse with a beautiful new cedar construction.
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