Gardeners are more aware than many how the weather affects them and their interests.

Over the last four decades, extreme weather events have severely damaged many gardens and resulted in major economic losses. These events include:

• severe winter weather in 1962/63 that killed many hardy plants

• drought in 1976, which weakened trees and dried out lakes

• storms in 1987 and 1990 that felled millions of trees

• torrential and prolonged rain leading to soil erosion, flooding and drowning of plant roots in 2000 and 2001

These events highlight the vulnerability of gardens to the vagaries of weather and climate.

© NTPL

‘The Impacts of Climate Change on Gardens in the UK’

A workshop was held in London in April 2000, attended by gardening organisations, commercial horticulturists, landscape consultants, the horticultural press, and representatives from local and national government, universities and research organisations, to consider how gardens would be affected by climate change.

The primary outcome of the meeting was the commissioning of a technical report, entitled ‘The Impacts of Climate Change on Gardens in the UK’, by Richard Bisgrove and Professor Paul Hadley, of the University of Reading (2002).

The authors assembled and evaluated evidence on how plants and garden components respond to altered climatic conditions. They assessed the likely impact of the UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP) climate change scenarios* on gardens in the United Kingdom.

'Gardening in the Global Greenhouse' summarises their report. It describes effects on garden plants, domestic gardens, nationally important heritage gardens, the landscape industry and the retail horticultural industry.

It discusses aspects of gardening that might benefit from climate change and identifies techniques and practices that might reduce undesirable effects of climate change on gardens.

It also highlights the important role that gardens can play in raising awareness of environmentally sustainable practices which can minimise the effects of climate change, and identifies areas for further research.

• 'Gardening in the Global Greenhouse' (summary)
  (PDF/4.4MB)

© National Trust

Download ‘The Impacts of Climate Change on Gardens in the UK’:

• Preface, contents & executive summary
  (PDF/67KB)

• Chapter 1: Introduction
  (PDF/61KB)

• Chapter 2: Changes in the UK climate
  (PDF/1.6MB)

• Chapter 3: The physiological basis of plant responses to climate change
  (PDF/143KB)

• Chapter 4: Plants in natural and managed communities
  (PDF/204KB)

• Chapter 5: Garden character and responses to climate change
  (PDF/64KB)

• Chapter 6: Garden management in a changing climate
  (PDF/385KB)

• Chapter 7: Climate change and garden visitors
  (PDF/54KB)

• Chapter 8: Climate change and garden-related industries
  (PDF/65KB)

• Chapter 9: Research and other actions
  (PDF/55KB)

• Conclusion, references & appendices
  (PDF/125KB)

* The UKCIP02 scenarios describe how the climate of the UK is likely to change over the course of the 21st century. They were produced for UKCIP by the Hadley Centre at the Met Office and by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research with funding from the Government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.