Research

RHS seeks gardeners’ climate change insights

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), University of Sheffield and University of Reading want to hear how climate change is affecting plants in gardens, as they combine forces to help future proof them.

Herbaceous borders

While warmer summers have meant gardens can accommodate a wider variety of flowering plants and some traditional favourites such as ornamental grasses, gladioli and irises are thriving, others, including hebes and Pittosporum, are being negatively affected by the increasing number of heavy rainfall events, extreme temperatures and unpredictable frosts.

The RHS published Gardening in a Changing Climate in 2017 in collaboration with the University of Reading and University of Sheffield. It highlights the importance of gardens in terms of their interaction with the natural environment and provides recommendations on how gardeners can adapt to climate change through plant choice and garden design.

Understanding what is growing well or struggling and gardeners’ maintenance habits will help the researchers to make recommendations for how to manage and protect plant diversity across the country. Information will also be used to identify what plants might thrive here in the future.

Tim Upson, Director of Gardens and Horticulture at the Royal Horticultural Society, said: “In a garden, plant diversity is everything and our extensive collections provide some insight into what grows well from year to year and from place to place. Tapping into the observations of the UK’s 30 million gardeners, many of whom will have noticed longer-lasting blooms or waterlogged perennials, will help us in better understanding how our gardens need to evolve to ensure they continue to provide the environmental and health and wellbeing benefits we currently enjoy, ten, twenty and thirty years from now.”

RHS Gardens are adapting to changes in the weather. Heat loving banana and lotus have flowered at RHS Garden Harlow Carr in Yorkshire – something not thought to have been possible ten years ago – and Lagerstroemia originating from South East Asia has been trialled successfully at RHS Garden Wisley in Surrey. However, plants from the heather and Hepatica national collections also based at Wisley are being duplicated and grown across other sites because of vulnerability to drought and the potential for loss. Vegetable trials replicated across all five gardens have also shown the difference in performance in the north, south and south west.

Gardeners can contribute to the Climate Change Survey which runs until 15th October.