The Climate Change Garden
Sally Morgan and Kim Stoddart
The long predicted greater extremes of weather caused by climate change are well and truly upon us and our gardens are suffering.
There’s no getting away from it; our climate and weather patterns are changing and fast. Our gardening practices need to catch up.
It’s no longer gardening as usual. Learning how to protect our gardens against the extremes of torrential rain, storms, heatwaves and drought and the goodness knows what else will be key. We need to learn which plants will be better suited to deal with such extremities in the first place and which techniques, practices and equipment can be put to use in our gardens, or future designs, to help provide a greater robustness over all.
Sally Morgan and Kim Stoddart’s Climate Change Garden book is a gardener’s guide to climate change. It’s a practical gardening book that shows you how to adapt and cope with the volatile weather extremes that lie ahead – storms, torrential rain, flooding and drought for example. There’s an in-depth look at how to adapt in the vegetable garden, what types of fruit to grow, how trees and wildlife can help in the battle against climate change and what changes may be necessary in the flower garden.
Sally Morgan says: “Our traditional gardening books are full of ideas dating back to the Victorians who lived through very different times. We need to learn from our gardens and adapt. Our book will help gardeners do just that.”
Kim Stoddart explains; “It’s as much about building resilience in the gardener, as much as it is the garden itself, by building confidence to get connected with these new (but actually old), pre-Victorian ways of growing. Working with the natural world, rather than trying to so meticulously control it is key, and this form of climate change savvy gardening is fun, productive and much lower-maintenance over.”
Meet the authors
Sally Morgan
I’m a botanist with a life-long interest in gardening, especially growing interesting and quirky plants. I’ve written articles and books on food, farming and the environment and own an organic farm in Somerset where I teach courses on smallholding and grow-your-own on small plots (www.empirefarm.co.uk)
Kim Stoddart
I’ve been writing for publications such as the Guardian about climate change savvy growing since 2013. I edit The Organic Way magazine for Garden Organic and have resilient growing columns in the press. I also run courses (in person and online from my training gardens www.greenrocketcourses.com and for many others across the UK.
“Evidence is mounting about carbon release from tilled and dug soil. This great book shows how you can help to reduce climate problems by adopting a no dig approach. Keep carbon in the ground, improve soil biology and plant growth, and eat healthily with wonderful no dig microbes”
Charles Dowding – no-dig guru
“I love this book. It’s the savvy guide to future proofing your garden against the increasing extremes of weather through climate change. Lots of easy, accessible advice to shore up the defences and the good news is that working with the natural world in harmony holds a lot of the answers.”
Frances Tophill Gardeners’ World presenter and author of Rewild Your Garden.