Last year we discussed global warming and in particular how it will affect our homes and gardens. Time then to take another look at what has changed and how science can help us with our problems.
As a reminder, we are told we should expect a trend towards warmer, wetter winters and hotter, dry summers. Of course these are general trends and not specific forecasts, as we know from this year’s wet, early summer!
Scientists are working hard to reduce the effect of the coming changes to our lifestyle and we can use the world of horticulture to examine progress that has been made.
Great emphasis has been placed in reducing carbon dioxide gas in our atmosphere, which has been increasing as the world has mechanised.
Here our gardens are doing their bit, but we can do more!
Maybe, you have a mature tree in your garden? One tree alone can absorb 27 kilos of carbon dioxide annually. Add to that our shrubs and even the lawns, the effect country-wide is substantial!
If we are to expect warmer summers then we need more water storage to maintain our gardens. New designs of containers have joined our traditional water butts and containers can now be arranged in series changing automatically as one empties!
New watering equipment is entering the market to target valuable water direct to the plant roots and not get lost in evaporation.
Quite rightly, we are using less pesticides in our gardens as we have come to realise the detrimental effect on our wildlife and indeed our own health.
The use of biological controls has come to the fore, where the pests natural predators are used to replace pesticides.
As an example lets consider that bane of most gardeners lives – slugs & snails!
There is now a biological control available in the form of a microscopic nematode (or worm), which bores into the slug and leaves its offspring to devour the slug.
I doesn’t sound too great for the slug, but it’s a real boost for the environment!
Keep an eye open for more biological controls of most troublesome pests and diseases!
