My Climate Change Garden

Today is the first day of the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show and gardeners all over the country will be heading to the Palace grounds for 6 days of  horticultural fever. Good news that temperatures are now a comfortable 20c. Still plenty of sunshine around and most importantly we are having lots of lovely rain falling from the sky.

I am planning to visit the RHS Hampton Court Show later in the week  – waiting to see what the weather does.Really keen to explore the amazing RHS Garden Energy display that has been created by Sarah Eberle which explains exactly what I am trying to encourage gardeners all over the world to think about:

* how we plant and maintain our gardens as climate change develops

* to consider the environment

* to explore new energy sources in the garden

* to use water wisely and harvest /recycle whenever possible

The RHS and Global Gardening messages are exactly the same – its just that they have much larger budgets to spend on promoting these ideas! Still, great to think that the above concepts are gradually seeping into the traditions of English Horticulture and that, maybe in 50 years, we will look back on this period as a defining moment in the history of English Gardening – when we all realised that we have to make BIG CHANGES TO THE WAY WE GARDEN!

If you are planning to visit the Show, do let me know what you think about the RHS Green Energy Garden- either post a comment here or e-mail me at [email protected]

THE RHS GREEN ENERGY GARDEN IS LAID OUT IN THREE ZONES

Zone 1: 1950-2050 climate change Presented by the Met Office, the zone focuses on the changes that have already occurred and are forecast in the 100 years between 1950 and 2050. As the timeline advances, plants are introduced that used to be too tender to survive the 1950s winters. Lawns gradually decrease in size as water becomes scarcer and culminates in a dry garden.

Zone 2: Industrial green energy area in our gardens This illustrates different energy-generating schemes – great ideas like wind power, willow and hazel coppicing for bio-mass fuels, ground source heat pumps, solar power and water management schemes.

Zone 3: Garden energy generation Different technologies are on show, providing information on a range of ecological subjects. These include RHS research projects aimed at helping gardeners to be more sustainable and avoid contributing to climate change. If you are planning to visit the Show, do let me know what you think about Sarah’s  – either post a comment here or e-mail me at [email protected]