climate change – Charlton and Blackheath Amateur Horticultural Society

Visit to Beth Chatto’s garden

For those who haven’t visited, Beth Chatto’s Garden is a horticultural paradise located in Essex, England. In March, visitors can expect to see a range of unique features and highlights that make Beth Chatto’s Garden a must-see destination for anyone with an interest in gardening or nature.

One of the most striking things about Beth Chatto’s Garden in March is the abundance of early spring blooms. As winter fades and the weather begins to warm up, the garden comes alive with an array of colourful flowers and blossoms. The famous Gravel Garden is a great place to start exploring the garden. This innovative garden was created in the 1990s, and features plants that are adapted to dry conditions, making it an ideal spot for early bloomers like crocuses, daffodils, and tulips. Visitors can expect to see bright pops of colour as they stroll along the winding paths that wind through the garden.

In addition to the early spring blooms, March is also a great time to explore the woodland areas of Beth Chatto’s Garden. The woodland gardens are home to a wide range of plant species, including ferns, shrubs, and trees. Another highlight of Beth Chatto’s Garden in March is the chance to see the garden’s many rare and unusual plant species. Beth Chatto was a pioneer of ecological gardening and her garden is a testament to her commitment to sustainable practices. Visitors can expect to see a range of native and non-native plants that are perfectly suited to the local climate and soil conditions.

Vija

There is wild and then there is wild

I have never visited the Botanical Garden at Ventnor on the Isle of Wight, but the gardens have recently become the subject of some controversy with factions divided over the way in which the gardens are currently being managed (or not). The significance of the garden lies in its situation in a micro-climate which makes it ‘the hottest garden in England’ and the previous head gardener gained a reputation for bringing in plants from far flung regions. From its foundation in 1970 until it was sold to an American businessman, John Curtis in 2012, the garden was publicly owned, and run by the Isle of Wight council, but as the council struggled with significant financial losses the garden was sold.

Over the course of the next few years a number of visitors noted what they described as a decline in the gardens – weeds were appearing and there seemed to be a general feeling that it was no longer being managed properly. John Curtis defended the garden arguing that the methods being used supported gardening in a time of climate change. Unlike a typical botanic garden, plants are no longer labelled which the current head gardener, Chris Kidd describes as creating an ‘immersive experience’ and the idea is to garden with nature.

With opinions sharply divided on both sides, ultimately, much seems to depend on what one describes as a ‘natural garden’ and the nature of a ‘botanic garden’. What is wild gardening, or gardening with nature? How natural is a natural garden? Ventnor’s dilemma seems to embody much of current horticultural conversation.

Pat K

May 2022: Val Bourne on ‘Butterflies in Gardens’

CABAHS welcomed Val Bourne to speak at our May meeting, sharing her photographs, experience and knowledge of butterflies in the garden. She emphasised that she is not a butterfly expert (but she knows one!), she’s an organic gardener who has spent a lot of time observing butterflies, their habits and preferences – and, sadly, their decline in recent years.

Photograph of the FSC's Butterfly ID chart

As a starting point, Val recommended a book and a tool: ‘The Philips Guide to Butterflies’ and the Field Studies Council’s butterfly identification chart. Butterfly Conservation also provide a range of identification guides online. Photographs of a wide range of species – 24 different ones have been spotted in the Spring Cottage garden – showed us the beauty of even the smallest, brownest examples!

Val explained how useful even a small meadow area is for many species, how some species rely on quite a narrow range of plants for nectar, and how the timing of a butterfly lifecycle is intrinsically linked to the lifecycle of their food plants. She stated that climate change – causing plants to flower at different times – is demonstrably messing up this synchronisation, so as gardeners it’s important to grow a wide range of butterfly-friendly plants to try to mitigate that situation.

Some examples of butterfly-friendly plants, and the butterflies that particularly need or enjoy them:

Member Angela B has submitted this article about her concerns for the environment and her ideas on how gardening, even in flats, can help:

“The Extinction Rebellion demonstration over the Easter Weekend has dramatically brought to the public’s attention once again the problem of Global Warming and the abuse of the planet by humans. Gardening, which we keen gardeners all do for pleasure, can make a small but significant contribution to mitigating these effects.

Take one example: pollution. It is a major problem in London, including in Greenwich, parts of which are above the legal limits. Plants take in carbon dioxide and secrete oxygen, which helps purify the air. Greenwich residents should be encouraged to garden and plant as many pollution-absorbing plants as possible.

Unfortunately, there is an increasing shortage locally of gardening space. Many residents have paved their front gardens to provide space for parking their cars. Also many back gardens are now astroturfed or covered in decking which does not help. Nor has Greenwich Council’s policy of building high rise flats in the borough rather than houses with gardens. And what few of the latter are built usually have small gardens. For example, many thousands of flats have already been built in the borough and many thousands more are planned for the Thames Riverside site between the Thames Barrier and the Yacht Club and around Woolwich Town Centre.

Given this situation, one solution if gardening is to be encouraged locally, is for blocks of flats to become a focus of balcony gardening in the borough. Greenwich Council and its Planning Department is apparently in the process of declaring a climate emergency. That being the case they should encourage developers to build all flats with large wide balconies which would allow for a significant amount of gardening. Also the Council might like to encourage the managing agents of blocks of flats to set up residents gardening clubs.

Flat dwellers are already showing an interest in gardening as it has become very fashionable to grow indoor plants, especially succulents. So if they were provided with sizable balconies they are very likely to start growing other plants as well.

If any of you are interested in promoting these ideas. Perhaps you could spread the word and if you come into contact with Greenwich Council Councillors or staff you might bring up the subject of promoting gardening in flats.”

Additional thought: Perhaps we should copy Stefano Boeri’s fantastic apartment blocks in Milan which won many awards when it was built in 2014. Here is Bosco verticale, the ultimate in balcony gardening!

Milan flats 1

Milan flat vertical forest