How to help your garden recover from a heatwave
UK gardens took a battering this summer as a heat dome settled over western Europe, and much of the green and pleasant land turned a dusty beige. Some areas went without rain for almost two months. The “joy of gardening” turned into waiting until the cooler evening period, then laboriously trailing out from the kitchen with buckets of water to keep the patio plants alive. But as the rains begin to return, what can gardeners do to restore their garden’s lustre? And what have we learned as we look around our parched borders and fractured lawns? Let’s start with the good news. Nature is resilient and many plants may still be alive despite appearing bedraggled, wilted or defoliated. They just implemented strategies that help them survive a drought. Leaf wilting and abscission is the plant’s natural response to conserving water and protecting its vital phloem (which transports sugars from the leaves to the rest of the plant) and root tissues from desiccation. So, gardeners don’t need to take the hacksaw to the shrub border yet …
