Pirate's Cove

Hey, a doomsday cult always has to come up with new things that are doomed, right?

The climate crisis is coming for your lovely English garden

Daffodils flowering before Christmas. Roses still in bloom in January. Grapes flourishing in the home counties. Across the UK, the changing climate is upending gardening calendars. But while milder temperatures mean we can now grow species that would previously be unable to endure the cold, longer growing seasons and extreme weather events are also having negative effects on the British garden.

“Generally, winters are getting milder and wetter, and the summers are getting hotter and drier,” says Mark Gush, head of environmental horticulture at the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS). This prolongs the growing season, as plants bud and flower earlier and last for longer. A 2017 report by the RHS, citing Met Office data, suggests the growing season in Central England is about a month longer on average since the period between 1961 and 1990. (The growing season refers to the extended period of time in which average daily temperatures are sustained at five degrees or higher; there is a lot of variation across the UK, with Scotland having a much shorter growing season than the south of England.)

None of this contradicts all the naturally caused warm periods during the Holocene, nor prove that the current warm period is mostly/solely caused by the actions of mankind. Meh, it’s still your fault

But Gush warns that, ultimately, climate change will mean that we need to gravitate towards hardy species, which are capable of enduring weather extremes. “Because climate extremes are also part of the mix in terms of changing climate, there may be a number of years where there are above average temperatures and milder conditions so the plants will be able to flourish, and then there will be snap extreme cold spells, and that’ll really knock them back.”

See, you ate a burger last week, so, you cause hot and cold!