Gardeners are being urged to grow plants that can cope with extreme heat and cold after the Royal Horticultural Society was bombarded with letters from members asking why species they had cultivated successfully for years were now dying.
“It seems to be because of the temperature fluctuations,” said Nikki Barker, a senior horticultural adviser at the RHS. “We’ve gone from severe drought with an initially very mild autumn that turned cold. It’s the combination of weather patterns rather than one single event. And plants find it hard to deal with that fluctuation.”
This year has seen the driest February in England for 30 years, according to the Met Office, while March was the wettest for 40 years. April so far has had conditions ranging from lower than average temperatures to severe wind warnings. But late last week forecasters were finally predicting an improvement, with the temperature tipped to reach 21C in the capital over the bank holiday weekend.
Concerns about the fast-changing conditions have led experts at the Chelsea flower show to change some blooms for hardier varieties.
The designer behind a special garden in memory of Queen Elizabeth and in celebration of King Charles is concerned that all the vibrant blooms he has planted may not be in full flower by the time Chelsea comes around on 23 May. Dave Green said it was “nerve-racking” and “a lot of pressure” that members of the royal family might visit the garden, and added: “I just hope everything flowers” after the cold spring.
The country has faced cool weather in March and April before – the springs of 2013 and 2018 both featured snow and ice. However, this year’s weather has flummoxed many. While traditionally, gardeners have a strict calendar of what to plant when, in order for it to flower or crop at its best, the changing climate means this is being turned on its head.
Sheila Das, a garden manager at RHS Wisley, said: “The only way to have a successful garden now is to plant diverse plants, some which can deal with extreme heat, and others that can deal with a deluge of rain. Really being diverse and having a broad range of approaches to gardens and gardening is the only way we can deal with what is really climate variability.”
Das added that people should work with the climate by looking at the forecast: “It’s about learning how to win with a changing climate; it’s about responding a bit more, having a relationship with the weather. I’m a big spreadsheet person normally, but things can’t always happen the way you planned them to be. ”
The confusing conditions have also affected businesses. The May bank holiday weekend normally prompts people to flock to garden centres to stock up on summer buys. But while people are still visiting them to eat – catering sales were up 15% in March on last year – overall sales were down 28%, according to the Horticultural Trades Association’s latest report.
Pippa Greenwood, horticulture manager at the HTA, which represents garden centres and plant nurseries, said the impact of the “wet and gloomy weather” of recent weeks had been “massive”.
“It’s been an incredibly slow start to the season and everybody is dealing with losses they didn’t want to see,” she said. “It’s still too wet and gloomy to get the less keen gardener to go outside, and even if you are a very keen gardener, there is a limit to the amount of time to spend in the pouring rain.”
As a result, she said, garden centres were reporting lower sales of “anything to do with gardening – whether it’s spades or containers or bags of compost”. Across the board there is a feeling that plants were not moving and sales were not happening in the way they typically would at this time of year, she said. “It will pick up. The industry is amazingly resilient. But it’s been rubbish.”
Other sectors have also been feeling the chill. For pubs that depend on beer garden business, the wet weather has put a damper on the start of the outdoor drinking season, with some reporting lower than normal sales and footfall.
Kevin and Kerri Durkan, landlords of the Fox and Hounds in Caversham, Berkshire, said 2023 so far had been “genuinely the worst start to a year weather-wise” in their 13 years running a pub. “You might as well forget about the hour gained [from the clocks going back] as it’s black and stormy,” they wrote on Twitter. “Gardens should be full of early spring drinkers by now. It’s miserable.”
Nationally, data collected by the Coffer CGA business tracker shows that sales at Britain’s biggest restaurant, pub and bar groups are up 1.4% year-on-year overall, but that March was the slowest month of 2023 to date. The mixed weather as well as pressure on consumer spending and rail strikes all contributed to the challenges.
For businesses struggling with a sluggish start to the year, there are hopes the king’s coronation and succession of bank holidays will bring a welcome boost. Emma McClarkin, chief executive of the British Beer and Pub Association, said warmer weather was “second only to the festive period” in helping drive up sales, with pubs looking “forward to the sun shining and beer gardens filling up”.
“It’s been a challenging few years for our industry, so with several bank holidays on the horizon and national celebrations for the king’s coronation coming up, pubs will be hoping people will get down to their local no matter the weather,” she said.
Ben McCarthy, head of nature conservation at the National Trust, said the “topsy-turvy weather” had been unsettling for wildlife too.
While it was too early in the season to tell how severe any impact might be, he said the unpredictable conditions had led to bumblebees and daffodils appearing in January and animals and insects, such as brimstone butterflies, coming out of hibernation early.
“They’re coming out of hibernation because there’s a short warm spell and then they’re hammered by a cold spell again,” he said. “It can have really quite significant impacts on the success of our breeding birds and other wildlife.”
