Why North/South gardening divide will matter mower than ever in future
IF you are the sort of gardener who is not overly keen on the back-breaking work of weeding and mowing the lawn, you might want to consider a move south.
There, you can look forward to an easier garden routine involving little more than occasionally pruning your palm trees.
Climate change is set to create a major north/South divide that will change the shape of the British countryside forever.
Above a line that runs roughly through northamptonshire, we can expect cooler and wetter weather.
This will extend the growing season, say the Royal horticultural Society. And that translates into more weeding to keep unwanted species down.
It also opens up the possibility of Scots developing a taste for immaculate lawns – well, those prepared to get the mower out with increased frequency, anyway.
meanwhile southern gardeners will struggle to keep their lawns well-watered enough and may have to switch to tending more exotic species able to handle more variable weather.
Predicted milder temperatures will mean growing plants in greenhouses could be a thing of the past for all of the uK while grassy lawns down south face being replaced with Astroturf.
The RhS predicts that we can expect a more ‘variable’ summer – with the possibility of heavy downpours making it necessary to have shelter, such as verandahs, for when the heavens open.
The RhS research, compiled with help from the met Office and Reading university academics, analysed the potential impact of our changing climate on the nation’s gardens.
The report said: ‘Variability in the weather has always challenged uK gardeners, but this aspect may get worse and lead to frustrations when attempting to grow some species.’ It added: ‘Advocates of immaculate, well-watered lawns and Edwardian herbaceous borders in the south may have their work cut out to maintain standards.’
Another change could be an abundance of the Chinese Windmill palm. The tree – a common feature in many gardens – normally has difficulty spreading its seed because the weather is too cold.
But warmer weather could mean the palm’s seeds will take over from more familiar trees.
According to the report, the palms have already begun escaping from gardens and self-seeding in parts of southern England.
But oak trees may disappear, as processionary moths that kill them are predicted to thrive.
Experts admitted predictions made a decade ago that summer would become drier and allow us a relaxed, mediterranean-style outdoor lifestyle had not come true.
more frequent days of ‘extreme rainfall’ in the winter will see Britons face a greater challenge to maintain their gardens.
An RhS survey of 1,000 gardeners found those in the north reported mowing their lawns more often than those in the south as milder winters keep growth levels growing.
The report said: ‘Variability in the weather has always challenged uK gardeners, but this aspect may get worse.’
however, the survey found only one in five gardeners would be happy with a fake lawn, and around 85 per cent said they would be ‘disappointed’ if parks swapped real grass for synthetic.
Co-author of the report, Dr Eleanor Webster, said: ‘The threat to our gardens and green spaces from climate change is very real and is happening now.’
‘Threat to our gardens is real’
GreATer butterfly orchid. Yellow rattle. Ox-eye daisies. Bird’s foot trefoil. These wild-flower names are redolent of the glorious British countryside.
I defy anyone not to have their spirits lifted when they spot the colours of these plants bursting up through the grass. But, tragically, since the 1940s more than 97 per cent of wildflower meadows have been lost as a result of urbanisation and intensive agriculture.
Surveys of 50 counties in Scotland and england have found that species once common are now no longer seen in some regions.
Banffshire in Scotland has lost more than two species every year in the past 40 years, while Aberdeenshire and Angus have suffered because of the draining of peat bogs and loss of moorland.
In addition, 76 species have disappeared from Middlesex in the past 40 years; Warwickshire has lost two species a year (including pheasant’s eye — a red perennial now restricted to as few as 18 sites in southern england); while Northamptonshire has lost 74 species since 1970, including fritillary and meadow saffron. In total, around a third of the total 1,346 plant species in Britain are now endangered.
How ironic, therefore, that one of their remaining havens are areas normally associated with pollution, piles of litter and fly-tipping — namely roadside grass verges.
According to the conservation charity Plantlife, they’ve become one of the last refuges for Britain’s rarest plants.
Intensive farming and using land for new housing means that species once abundant in meadows and woodland are now, sadly, clinging on for survival beside roads.
Some, such as the exquisitely named velvet lady’s-mantle, wood calamint and fen ragwort are now found only on road verges, with the latter hanging on in just one native spot near a burger van on the A142 in Cambridgeshire.
PLANTLIFe says: ‘Over 700 species of wildflower are known to grow on verges somewhere in the UK, that’s 45 per cent of our entire flora.’
It lists five categories of verge — and the different flowers that can be found in such habitats.
There are ‘lowland grassy’ verges — the most widespread, home to meadow flowers such as cowslips, scabious, clovers, vetches, knapweed, orchids and meadow crane’s-bill.
‘Upland grassy’ verges, with more acidic soil, are home to flowers such as bistort and melancholy thistle.
‘Damp verges’ provide a different type of flora: ragged-robin, meadowsweet, purple loosestrife, insectivorous sundews and butterworts along with bog asphodel and cottongrass.
‘Heathy verges’ found on dry, poor soils are host to heathers and the delightfully subtle yellow tormentil.
‘Wooded verges’ offer flamboyant spring displays of primroses, bluebells, celandines and violets — followed in the summer by foxgloves and red campion. However, even these flowers on grass verges are at risk.
For they are often mown by careless council workers before they have had the chance to produce seed and thus have a chance to flourish the following year. In addition, they are often removed because health-and-safety busybodies demand that verges are cut regularly.
Surely, for councils to scythe down a patch of precious wildflowers involves an unthinking kind of bureaucratic cloth-headedness.
But that is precisely what happened a few years ago at Mascoombe Bottom in the Meon Valley, Hampshire. Council chiefs admitted that workmen had massacred one of the last remaining habitats of the narrow-leaved helleborine — a white orchid that’s one of the UK’s rarest species.
Meanwhile, many residents across the country have demanded that councils cut grass verges more often, so as to give drivers a clearer view.
For example, a pensioner contacted Suffolk County Council over the condition of verges in her village of Copdock, near Ipswich. She claimed that if the grass was allowed to grow too high, it risked causing a major accident. reluctant to wait, she used her own sickle to slash the greensward.
In Londonderry, transport chiefs are said to have been ‘on the warpath against unsightly weeds’ and have a programme of chopping, mowing and spraying.
The problem was worse last year because more rainfall than usual produced a lush and tall grass that grew more quickly, too.
Collectively, our verges cover an area of almost 1,000 square miles — that’s almost the same size as Oxfordshire.
According to Plantlife: ‘We
They’ve become the last haven for some of nature’s most bewitching plants. But now council jobsworths are targeting our gloriously unkempt grass verges
receive more calls on this subject than any other, from people distraught and angry that their favourite verges, full of cowslips and orchids, are being mown down in the name of neat management.’
It’s easy to think that our roadsides are only home to grass, thistles and nettles (and, sadly, litter!). But take a closer look and you’ll find hundreds of kinds of wildflowers.
They don’t just cheer us up when we’re stuck in a traffic jam, but they create a haven for wildlife. Flowers provide nectar and pollen for bees and butterflies, which, in turn, pollinate fruit trees. When they go to seed in the autumn, they offer a food supply for birds and mammals such as goldfinches and field voles.
In turn, more voles mean more kestrels hovering overhead by day, and more barn owls floating around at night. The miles of verges alongside motorways and trunk roads (and these ones are sometimes very wide) also form vital ‘wildlife corridors’, which allow wild creatures to colonise new areas by moving up and down what are effectively linear nature reserves.
As Chris Baines, author of how To Make A Wildlife Garden, explains, they also replace much of the precious habitat for wildlife lost through intensive farming.
‘Roadside verges have been the salvation of cowslips, primroses and ox-eye daisies in many parts of the country. Verges play a key role in weaving the living landscape together and providing safe routes for wildlife, in towns as well as the wider countryside.’
Back in the Nineties, I remember visiting the naturalist eric Simms — for many years the voice of BBC radio’s nature programmes for schools — at his home near Grantham in Lincolnshire. Well into his 70s, his enthusiasm for creating havens for wildlife was as great as ever.
he took me to what he called his ‘new nature reserve’ — which turned out to be a grassy verge on the side of a busy slip-road leading to the A1.
To my astonishment, this narrow strip of land was carpeted with meadow flowers. Bumblebees buzzed from bloom to bloom, and marbled white butterflies flashed their piebald wing pattern as they floated low over the long grass.
Then eric showed me a patch of rare and beautiful bee orchids. They are designed to look like a female bumblebee and fool male bees into ‘mating’ with them — and thus help the flower reproduce by spreading its pollen from plant to plant. But the current obsession with cutting grass verges within an inch of their life puts all this under threat.
It also has another long-term effect on Britain’s flora.
Regular cutting benefits those plants that are quick to colonise newly-mown ground, such as stinging nettles. Unlike plants such as eyebright (with its delicate violet-like flowers with purple veins and yellow centres), nettles are unloved brutes — described by Plantlife as ‘thuggish’.
And for hard-pressed councils — and even harder-pressed council taxpayers — all the verge-cutting costs money.
So what’s the best way to manage our verges? Plantlife suggests mowing twice a year — once early on, before the growing season gets going, and once in the late summer, when the flowers have finished blooming and the seeds have been distributed.
Also, it’s sensible to identify potential blind-spots at busy road junctions and trim those areas more often, to make sure motorists can see oncoming traffic.
After coming under pressure, the Government announced a £3 million pilot project in 2014 to help enhance these ‘green corridors’ and encourage pollinating insects. There are other benefits. More vegetation on roadside verges means they cushion traffic noise and so less is spread into local neighbourhoods.
Vegetation also helps to absorb pollutants from the surrounding air. That’s especially important in towns and cities, where our children’s health is under increased threat from diesel fumes.
These issues fascinate Tony Sangwine, a senior environmental officer at the highways Agency, who, for many years, has strived to improve the way roadside verges are managed to promote wildlife.
he believes the tide against the ‘men with mowers’ may finally now be turning.
‘It is crucial that — from Cornwall to Cumbria — we enhance the local landscape by maintaining green corridors for wildlife and to improve the appearance of our roadsides.’
BUT that doesn’t mean abandoning the verges to nature — they need careful management to bring out their best side. That’s why Plantlife urges councils to manage their roadside verges for wildlife and people — and save money by doing so. Local authorities from Shropshire to Dorset and Cambridgeshire to Oxfordshire have signed up.
At Wychwood Forest, on the edge of the Cotswolds, volunteers are collecting seeds from plants in local nature reserves to sow alongside the roads.
As project director Sharon Williams points out: ‘Road verges can play an important role in bringing the countryside into people’s everyday lives.’
In Dorset, rural roadside verges are home to some of Britain’s rarest wildflowers. And in Cambridgeshire, drivers near ely are being asked to look out for new colonies of bee orchids, which are making a comeback.
If the mowers win this war, it will be bad news for us all. As naturelover Chris Baines says: ‘The country will lose an extremely valuable natural resource, wildlife will suffer — and our car journeys will become much less interesting.’
Stephen MoSS (with Brett Westwood) is author of Wonderland — A Year of Britain’s Wildlife, Day By Day.