Drought-Resistant Plants and a Glimpse of Gardening Future at Chelsea
British gardens could be filled with chickpeas, coastal grasses, and sand rather than soil to cope with a drier future, according to gardeners at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show, as reported by The Times. With one of the driest springs on record setting the stage for drought across England and Scotland this summer, experts said that it was time to experiment to adapt to a changing climate.
The Times reports that conditions have been particularly dry, with Josh Parker, a gardener, describing the dry conditions in most areas over the last three months as "unreal". His Garden of the Future at Chelsea features sweet potatoes, which are already being grown in drier, hotter counties including Kent, plus millet and chickpeas, which are now being grown commercially in the UK. “The garden’s basically the near future,” Parker said, according to The Times.
The Garden of the Future, produced with the Gates Foundation, also includes a $20,000 prototype “reinvented toilet”, a low-water device that turns human waste into biochar for plants rather than producing sewage. The goal is to bring the cost down to $1,000 and make it a real-world product by 2027. “It used to be somebody else’s problem [a lack of water], and now it’s becoming our problem [in the UK],” said Matt Collins, one of the inventors of the toilet, from Cranfield University, as quoted in The Times.
Coping with a hotter, drier Britain due to climate change could also mean rethinking what we put our plants in, The Times reports. “Growing in sand, there’s a lot of interest in that now, as opposed to rich topsoils. It’s the opposite to traditional gardening where you try to put as much compost and manure as possible,” said Nigel Dunnett, the designer behind the Hospitalfield Arts Garden, which drew inspiration from the east coast of Scotland, according to The Times.
Growing in sand and gravel helps plants that tolerate dry conditions to survive droughts, but also works well in wet conditions such as in the soggy winter of 2023-24, because it drains easily. “It does look different. I think that is one of the things about drought-tolerant, more resilient gardens. We are going to have to get used to a different look,” Dunnett said, as reported by The Times. That look includes more spaces between plants, and perhaps different colours: the drought-tolerant coastal plants Dunnett has chosen mostly tend to have silvery or blue green leaves.
Several British coastal landscapes have been brought to the centre of London for the show, The Times reports. The garden for the Scottish charity Seawilding features seagrass in a salt water tank, a first for Chelsea. “I thought it would be quite exciting to bring an ocean plant here for the first time. It’s not a seaweed, it’s got flowers and seeds and produces pollen,” said Ryan McMahon, the designer whose garden also features several drought-tolerant plants from Scots pine to thyme, according to The Times.
Lucy Hutchings, of the seed supplier, She Grows Veg, said: “It stopped raining about a month and a half ago entirely, because we’re in East Anglia, and it’s super, super dry there. We are growing some future-proof crops that are drought-resistant. Things like the amaranth that we sell. And we also have plantain, which grows like a weed. And we have red orach as well, which is a fantastic spinach substitute,” as quoted in The Times.
The show gardens on display this year are watered and as lush as usual, however, the months-long dry conditions are visible in the yellowing lawns in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, the show’s venue. “I think we tend to be worried about the future,” said Dunnett, who explained that it was important to curb emissions to slow climate change but added that we also need to adapt to a warming world. “I think if we embrace it and really change the way we think about our gardens, we can have a very exciting future as well,” he said, according to The Times.
In conclusion, The Times reports that the RHS Chelsea Flower Show is showcasing innovative and forward-thinking gardens that could shape the future of gardening in the UK. As Parker said, “I think the whole thing’s about trying out things, experimenting. Don’t stick to what you always know, what you always grow.” This approach could lead to the development of more resilient and sustainable gardens that are better equipped to cope with the challenges of climate change.
