Autumn … what a wonderful time of year, the leaves are beginning to turn, the trees are glowing with colour; it’s time to lean on them rakes again and reflect on the hot dry spring and summer we have just had….
Aright, apart from March it has been a tad damp. In March, I can actually remember preparing for a long dry season like the two previous years … how wrong was I. Nevermind, at least we have the winter to look forward to, all the plans and idea’s we have ready to be implemented for the following year, but will the weather allow us to see them through?
Having been a gardener for a few years, I completely understand that the weather affects us greatly in the garden, it’s the extremes that we have experienced in the last few years, that concerns me.
I have touched on this subject in previous posts, but planning long term is getting increasingly difficult, especially on a large scale. We ourselves have an area of over 36 acres, approximately a mile long, with roughly 37000m2 of lawn (not including the wildflower areas), large cobbled areas, herbaceous borders, mixed borders, large specimen trees and the odd small hedge…
I know it is the same for all us gardeners, as it doesn’t matter if your garden is large or small. Although I am very lucky in having a great team of gardeners with varying skills and a wide range of horticultural knowledge, so by putting all our experience together, it does make future planning a little easier.
As an example, last year I stocked up on lawn wetting agents ready for this years long hot dry spell. Instead, this week I have been combating fungal problems in some of our main lawns, due to the fact that the rain has washed a lot of the nutrients out of the soil, as well as not being able to keep up with our usual lawn management again due to the weather; this has caused Red Thread to develop. Admittedly not a serious fungal condition as it rarely kills the grass, but it has attacked the finer fescues in the lawn and it looks unsightly. Aeration, a light scarify and a good feed will rectify the problem without resorting to using chemicals.
So what is the weather forecast for 2013 and what planning can we start doing now? For myself, after this year … a change of career. This has definitely been the most challenging year weather wise since I have been in gardening. Seriously I would never change my career, the weather has always been a challenge but with the extremes, it just means the weather may get a little more challenging in the coming years … so bring it on!
After looking at many sites on the internet …. you soon realise there is a lot of crap out there, including this blog. But starting with the winter 2012/2013, we are either going to have a, mild run of westerlies bringing more wet conditions or we could experience something similar to what we had in late November and much of December 2010. Many say this is because the Jet stream sticking and also the Arctic sea ice being at its lowest since records began. Well last year I brought extra Ice crystals because of the previous winter, plus also, it was predicted that we would have a very cold winter, apart from a few days days in November and again in February ; we had a rather quiet winter. So I am already geared up for the winter … probably more so than the councils will be.
What about the spring/summer of 2013. Well, scientists in the US believe there is a 50 per cent chance that the El Nino system will kick in during the second half of next year. With El Nino years tending to be hotter around the world this means, there is a chance that next summer will be hotter and a lot drier than it was this year …. here’s hoping! On the other hand, it could be a very wet spring/summer, but the truth is …. does anyone really know?
What you can guarantee is that, being from this part of the world, the weather will always be a major talking point, we will always complain it is either, too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, too windy or complain it is just right. But us gardeners are tough and whatever the weather is, will come out the other end smiling.
“Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.” ~ John Ruskin
“For the man sound of body and serene of mind there is no such thing as bad weather; every day has its beauty, and storms which whip the blood do but make it pulse more vigorously.” ~ George Gissing
I work on the basis that whatever the gardening weather pundits are saying in early Spring we will have the opposite. This year there was much dome at the allotment site about drought and how we would be able to water out crops etc – my response it will be a wet summer and guess who was right.
I do hope it isnt a snowy winter as it is just stressful and impossible to get to work. I would prefer a chilly and damp one.
Either way we get on with it dont we and some people arent happy unless they can complain about something.
Snow on Christmas Eve/day will do me, but then no more for the rest of winter. Whatever happens to the weather, us gardeners will always cope and it will always give something to talk about.
what hot summer i dident see one
Mr Nick Short, you should know what my sense of humour is like by now … you worked with me for over 12 years.
My recollection of the summer is of alternating weeks of rain and sun – perhaps not exactly that, but that’s how it seemed. The grass loved it; grew like crazy. Meanwhile, we were losing mowing days and getting farther and farther behind. By the end of the season (ie nowish – we’ll probably not be doing any more mowing unless we have a real Indian summer in very short order) we had done 7 complete cuts, as opposed to the 12-14 we normally manage.
That being said, when it was sunny, it was lovely, and when it rained, I didn’t mind too much anyway.