Gardeners are used to coping with change. Month by month, season by season, our gardens come into spring growth, flowers flourish through the summer, seeds are set and foliage dies away as the plants hunker down for another winter.
Well that's how it used to be, but now things are less predictable and the consensus of scientific opinion is agreed, our climate is changing, our weather is set to become warmer, wilder and wetter and we all need to adapt and do our bit to lessen the impacts wherever and however we can.
Many of us have garden ponds and these can be beneficial in so many ways, brilliant for wildlife, lovely to sit by on a nice day and as the water evaporates in the sun it gives the surrounding plants a more humid atmosphere and that's just for starters.
Mine is fed by rain from the roof via the down pipe so that if there is only a little rain the pond is better refreshed and in heavy prolonged downpours a little less water goes into the main drains and instead the outfall from the pond takes the excess on a meandering route through a border of shrubby willows and other moisture lovers, giving me another planting opportunity and my garden another habitat for wildlife.
There are so many things we can do as individuals which collectively make a difference, like not buying peat based compost, reducing food miles by growing a few of our own fruit and vegetables, reducing the number of times we mow the lawn or reducing the area we mow, thereby reducing the amount of fuel burned and carbon released by the mower.
Planting even just one tree is worthwhile, not a huge Leyland cypress in a small garden of course but an appropriately sized one for the space we have. As trees grow they give off oxygen, absorb pollutants, reduce rain run off and soil erosion, provide food for insects and birds and eventually when mature offer a shady place to sit.
We may not be the ones doing the sitting, but planting a long lived species is planting for the future so that generations to come can enjoy our trees as we enjoy those planted by past generations, and in doing so we contribute if only in a very small way to saving the planet, one garden at a time.
