Wittering

 In my woke and green mood! I listened to a Green Party Witcher's Zoom meeting last night.  The person who leads the conversation is very good at sourcing her information but technically it took an age to get over the meeting functioning correctly.  Mostly down to her daughter's computer which decided to lose power at the beginning.

There is the space between how the wonders of computer land are sold to us and then there is the actuality of their performance when we use them.  The last meeting had been a talk about transforming your garden into being wildlife and insect friendly, this meeting was about drought.

Interestingly heat temperature has a significance on our insects, apart from killing them and we can take it as read that a certain amount of  our wildlife has died.  The badgers and hedgehogs would have had a hard time with trying to dig for worms in the dry soil, less water around in the rivers means it is much harder for the fish to survive.  Because of the heat flowers grow much quicker, and the sequential flow is too early for the pollinators and so flower misses insect.  Simply sad. 

I suspect that the fate of our wildlife does not find much sympathy in the world of humans, lack of wasps this year will be met with a certain amount of joy.  But wasps are pollinators as well.

Of course the answer is heat tolerant plants, the silver leafed plants will keep a garden filled.  Santolina, Rue, Wormwood, lavender, Southernwood  and even curry plant (though the smell is not welcome).  I wondered about Beth Chatto's garden in Essex, also a dry garden and found this online.  She lives with the driest of soil and uses gravel to create ponds of plants amongst it.

I had also been looking for the Derek Jarman's book on his garden.  Can't find Andrew's copy but is it wise to buy a second copy?  I love the cool of the white, is it Crambe Cordifolia - Sea Kale set amongst the shingle.  Jarman went wild with the Californian poppy and it also seeded itself everywhere.  I remember when new to gardening, I wanted to grow the yellow horned poppy that  only grows in a coastal environment - foolish!

Wiki photo

And last but not least - getting rid of the plain old boring lawns, which shrivel up in these hot droughty conditions. Sacrosanct, and I must admit you do need somewhere soft to sit in the garden.  Though you could head for a chamomile lawn, but forget the dogs and children if you do.

I remember when Rob came to mow our lawn in Normanby, I would tell him to mow round the bluebells, hen and egg plants and even the tiny violets.  He never minded....

Notes. Paste and copy: Insects are highly sensitive to heat, with effects ranging from increased metabolism and aggression to cellular damage and death, depending on species and environmental conditions.

Wasps: The recent summer has seen a notable scarcity of wasps in Britain, attributed to a combination of challenging meteorological conditions. The season began with warm, dry weather that typically favours queen wasps as they emerge from winter dormancy. However, this was disrupted by an abrupt shift to cold and damp conditions, nearly freezing temperatures during May evenings, which could prove fatal to queens or destroy fledgling colonies before they could become established. Additionally, multiple heatwaves struck the country, further impacting the wasp population. 

GB News