Further change to climate forecast - Kitchen Garden Magazine

The climate forecast is much less straightforward than we thought in 2002, when we simply envisaged warmer temperatures.

In 2002 the RHS published Gardening in a Global Greenhouse – but in the 15 years since then the climate picture has changed so dramatically that an updated report has now been produced.

The climate forecast is much less straightforward than we thought in 2002, when we simply envisaged warmer temperatures. We now know that extreme weather events are the most likely scenario for the UK, says the report. The impact of events such as flash floods and droughts is likely to be compounded by increasing housing pressure, so gardens will become more critical in providing services formerly delivered by the natural environment, like flood alleviation and the provision of wildlife habitats.

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The new report, Gardening in a Changing Climate, has been written in collaboration with researchers from the Universities of Sheffield and Reading, and incorporates the results of an extensive survey of gardeners and interviews with industry professionals. Predictably, media stories about the report focused on the projected demise of the British lawn – but the actual report is a detailed and wide-ranging piece of research which covers not only how a changing climate may alter the gardens we can grow, but also how gardeners can help to mitigate climate change by, for instance, minimising their use of petrol-powered machinery and garden chemicals, making compost, and going peat-free.

Find out more and download the report at https://www.rhs.org.uk/science/gardening-in-a-changing-world/climate-change

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Steve Ott

Steve Ott is editor of Kitchen Garden magazine and started his career as a professional grower, producing everything from cut flowers to vegetables. He has been growing fruit and veg all his life and spends most of his spare time in his garden in the East Midlands. He loves to experiment with crops and varieties he has never grown before and when he isn’t gardening is to be found out in the countryside bird watching and walking his dog Ted.