Extreme weather ‘to kill off British lawns’

THE traditional British lawn will become a thing of the past as changing weather patterns make it virtually impossible to create the perfect garden, experts say.

They fear summers will become prone to extreme conditions, with periods of torrential rain and prolonged droughts becoming the norm.

As a result maintaining a classic lawn will get harder, with gardeners seeking the ‘bowling green’ look having to make do with longer grass and more daisies and buttercups.

Plants in beds and borders will also struggle to flourish in drier springs and wetter summers.

Experts from the Met Office and the horticultural world made the prediction at a recent Royal Horticultural Society conference.

Professor Richard Bisgrove, an expert in turf management and garden history, said gardeners should raise the height of their lawnmower blades in summer to ensure a healthy patch of grass. The retired University of Reading lecturer believes the changing weather will affect gardens dramatically.

‘Nobody can tell one year to the next what we will have,’ he said.

‘In terms of grass I would say to a large extent the less effort you put into it the better. People should accept a slightly higher cut of grass, more daisies and buttercups.’

Professor Julia Slingo, the chief scientist at the Met Office, added: ‘We are taking our planet into a climate that we haven’t seen for a very long time, going back to before there were gardens in the UK.

‘[The weather] will continue to be very variable, and as gardeners we need to adapt to that.’