Garden Plants for Climate Change

It's Not All About Heat

I've lost count of all the plant lists I've seen recommended for drought and heat. To be honest, it's pretty easy - just look at anything growing around the Mediterranean. 

It's odd, though, that commentators focus exclusively on this aspect of changing weather patterns. Climate change here has had two faces. Between the hot dry summers are warm wet winters. 

Planting Tips For Drought

We've only lost a few plants to drought since 2021. This isn't because we water obsessively. Top planting tips?

• Select the right plants for local conditions
• Plant in November and December 
• Use Mycorrhizal fungi to quickly establish healthy root systems.
• Add good quantity of woodchip mulch, particularly from Salix spp..
• Keeping the base of new plants clear of grass. 

We've planted many new hedges like this with no watering and no failures at all. Interestingly and encouragingly, many native species seem able to deal with the heat and drought - so far.

...But There Will be Casualties

I worry about the obvious though. Just look around you; Beech, Willow, Downy birch, Guelder rose and Alder have a tough time of  these summers. Beech woods took many years to recover after the summer of 1976. God help them now. Curiously Dogwood and Common buckthorn, which like wetter soils, seem reasonably resilient.

My guess is that native plants' provenance is also going to help with this. 

All Year Round Resilience

I don't need lists of plants which are drought tolerant. What I do need is ideas for plants which will ALSO survive sitting with their feet in our heavy clay soil all through increasingly wet winters, without the soil freezing. While most native plants seem more or less ok with this, ornamentals and non-natives most definitely aren't.

This is what has killed many more plants here, including semi-mature trees. Winter saturation restricts deep rooting and when the upper clay then dries hard in summer the plant hasn't developed the deep root system it needs to reach moisture. It leads to oxygen deprivation too.

Winners and Losers

Mediterranean plants - just the sort of thing recommended for hotter summers - are particularly badly affected. I only grow Lavender in well drained raised beds and pots, for example. There's a nice Teucrium x lucidrys hedge along the veg patch, which the bumblebees like, but I can only keep it going by adding lots of grit.

Prunus are susceptible to prolonged wet too. We've lost Greengages as well as plums, which struggle too with bacterial canker. Even on a relatively resilient rootstock like St Julien 'A', they're not going to make it on heavy clay. Damsons are much better, by the way, and Westmorland seems once of the hardiest. The best fruit trees here are heritage apples, as you might expect historically in the West Country, grown on MM106. We have medlars, crab apple espaliers too, and pears (on Quince 'A'). They have all sailed through flood and drought and, as I write, they look great.

Our Viburnum tinus and ornamental Crataegus look healthy too, and the irises have been ok, but the big winner in the formal garden this year has been roses. We gave them a lot of TLC last autumn and this spring, and they've all been fantastic.

The More Exotic

I've also been monkeying about with more obscure plants over the last few years. Evodia hupehensis ("Bee tree") has done well in a tricky spot. Our Hovenia dulcis is looking good too. Both trees have ornamental as well as wildlife value, both planted from small specimens in 2020.

I planted an Autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) in our forest garden last year and it's looking in remarkably good shape, with no watering. I planted three Shipova pears in November, too, which should be fine in the wet and which also look amazingly well. 

This year I'm trying a Himalayan Strawberry tree and an Amur maackia from Edible Canopy, which should help bridge the mid-season gap for pollinators.

The Most Obvious

Lastly, a hat tip to the most resilient of all our garden features - the wildflower meadows. There's a real lesson here which people seem unwilling to put into a wider context. I look at them now and they look desert like, but there are already signs of growth following the recent hay cut. Many meadow species have deep root systems and are well able to withstand drought: