By Head Gardener Paul Scriven

October 2019 began the transformation of the walled garden from wilderness to a space of tranquility that we hoped would provide relaxation, education and inspiration. During the five plus years, the climate proved extremely unpredictable which, when you are planting up a new garden is major challenge.

Our first winter was exceptionally wet and by January, aided by a mini digger, the garden was more akin to the local tank ranges! Spring (and the dreaded lockdown) arrived and brought with it weeks of cloudless skies and warm sunshine, a truly surreal time where Dan our Garden Designer and myself worked in the near 4 acre garden accompanied only by magnificent bird song.

A pretty decent summer followed but once again, the 2020/2021 winter proved better than average. A cold, very dry Spring followed which began a trend or the next two years. 

Seed sowing and planting out had to be delayed. A dry end to the year heralded the arrival of 2022. Surely the most climatically bizarre year in my near 40 year horticultural profession. 

The spring remained very dry with temperatures by the end of April in the mid-20’s. The drought continued all summer with temperatures in our walled garden consistently in the 30’s! ‘North Stream’, Careys own man-made offshoot of the River Piddle that normally supplies our water had completely dried up. 

By early autumn, our newly planted garden looked a parched, sorry state with much of our hedging and fruit trees having almost defoliated. 

Finally in late September the rain arrived and much like the nature documentaries on TV, the entire garden began to green up as though waiting for the rainy season, new growth appearing on everything. 

Then in early December, almost overnight, the country was hit by an Arctic blast that brought widespread snow and ice and freezing temperatures day and night for almost two weeks. This had significant impact in particular on our fruit trees, many of which had produced new shoots and even blossom! It actually killed several of our apricot and nectarine trees, their new growth destroyed by the rapidly plummeting temperatures. Our mature hazel trees gave us another sad reminder of the changing climate, their fresh green leaves hanging frozen solid from the boughs! 

Fortunately, 2023 proved a relatively uneventful year but a very mild and very wet start in 2024 brought a new problem, an infestation of slugs and snails which cause havoc, not only with new germinating seeds and emerging new growth on perennials but they were also feasting on our tiny cherry fruitlets! 

As I’m sure you don’t need reminding, the remainder of the year continued generally wet and cool with little or no seasonal definition. The general lack of warmth and sunlight hampered our harvests significantly and late summer propagation was made difficult by a lack of suitably ripe material. 2024 did indeed set a new UK record - the most sunless days! 

These observations over the past five years as Careys are generally in line with the summary given out in the 2017 RHS report ‘Gardening in a Changing Climate’, namely;

• More and more erratic fluctuations in temperature and rainfall are to be expected

• An increase in rainfall intensity 

• Longer and more intense periods of drought

• A longer growing season with fewer autumn frosts 

• Less seasonal definition

Next month I will be looking more closely at what we gardeners can do to help mitigate climate change in our own gardens and also looking at which trees, shrubs and perennials are more likely to cope with the extreme conditions whilst continuing to provide our native wildlife with food and shelter. 

A foundation stone at Carey was designing in anticipation of the ‘climate weirding’ we had already begun to see. As Gardeners we see first hand the results of variable climate patterns beyond simply odd weather anomalies. We joke with Paul that he has seaweed on the washing line as he spends more than a healthy amount of time studying meteorological reports nightly and always knows the wind direction when I ask. 

At Carey we are focused on a truly holistic process when designing the garden incorporating all aspects of a shifting climate. As Paul describes, we’ve experienced strong unsettled weather patterns from the first day on site which made Paul, Dan and the garden teams work highly volatile. Equally we have seen the results of global temperature changes with our work with those seeking asylum, several of whom have arrived from regions who feel a disproportionate impact of climate change. Areas such as the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Ethiopia and Northern Kenya for example) where drought causes livestock to die and people are forced from their homes.

This being the case we think it’s vital to draw attention to how this impacts us from a garden level to a global level and hope that we can provide inspiration and insight or at the very least create a conversation as to how best we can adapt. 

Simon Constantine, Garden 'Finder'