I enjoy many lively and thought provoking conversations with my friends about climate change. Not everyone agrees on the causes but there are certain inescapable facts: ice caps are melting, sea levels are rising and extreme weather surges have become more commonplace. We now have to learn how to adapt to these changes as many of the old ways are no longer valid.
I have had to relearn how to garden successfully. For half a lifetime I enjoyed gardening on rich Sussex Wealden clay. When we moved to Devon I quickly found matters were different in a milder and much wetter climate and many of my most loved plants simply did not survive.
This year has been exceptional in many respects. A long hot summer was notable for three months of lower minimum average night time temperatures, which trend dramatically reversed in autumn. We were still picking beans until mid-November, something which has never happened before in my lifetime. Finger aubergines grew outside and we enjoyed a large harvest, most of which ended up in home-made curries. This would have been unthinkable in my grandparents’ day, as the plants need a lot of heat. Mind you, in their day they had probably never even heard of this vegetable! You are never too old to learn new tricks!
Winters now seem to be milder with fewer serious frosts and snowfalls, springs appear wetter but light levels can be lower, heavier rainfalls now leach out more nutrients from the soil but no two years are the same.
It is not just our gardens which are undergoing dramatic changes. Insect species are expanding their
range northwards. Upward pointing radar has recorded clouds of insects arriving over our shores and this year I have recorded unprecedented numbers of new moth species which ordinarily live in Europe and Africa. One of the most beautiful has been the Crimson Speckled, a stunning small white moth with crimson, black and orange speckling. Until this year I had only ever seen it on thorn scrub on the arid Akrotiri Plain in Cyprus. Matthew Oates believes that when nature speaks in this way we should and must listen!
This year lack of berries has driven larger numbers than usual of ‘Scandinavian thrushes’ to our fields – redwings and fieldfares which will over-winter here before returning to the far north in spring. Our large holly tree had the heaviest crop of berries since we bought the house – that is, until the fieldfares arrived and gobbled them all up in 3 days flat, before moving on to the apples and the rowan. Just how they are going to survive the winter remains to be seen.
