We are trying to keep a pre?industrial flora alive in a post?industrial climate, writes Richard Eltringham
Your report (Half of England officially in ‘exceptionally serious’ drought, 29 July) makes me think that perhaps it’s time to admit what horticulturists have whispered for years: the native?plants?only doctrine has had its day. We can keep insisting that every garden, park and verge must resemble a 1790s botanical inventory, or we can face the obvious – the climate those plants evolved for no longer exists.
We are trying to keep a pre?industrial flora alive in a post?industrial climate. Oak saplings are crisping, beech woods are browning, and “rewilded” meadows are going from hopeful to tinderbox in a single heatwave. Meanwhile, drought?tolerant non?natives – Mediterranean shrubs, prairie perennials, desert grasses – sit ready to do the job: hold soil, feed pollinators, stay green, stay alive.
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We are trying to keep a pre?industrial flora alive in a post?industrial climate, writes Richard Eltringham Your report (Half of England officially in ‘exceptionally serious’ drought, 29 July) makes me think that perha...
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