With its record breaking temperatures and extended heatwaves, it's safe to say this summer's weather has been unprecedented. While the lack of rain may have allowed for long lingering evenings outdoors and actually being able to make weather-sure social plans, the subsequent drought has wreaked havoc on our gardens – barren lawns, shrivelled shrubs and dry, cracked soil that you can't get a shovel into are just some of the challenges faced by gardeners countrywide this August.
You only have to look at the drone images on the news, showing how our green spaces have been transformed into acre upon acre of brown, barren expanse. At House and Garden we were intrigued by the way the heatwave revealed some rather extraordinary centuries-old ghost gardens at some of our favourite stately homes.
But if you're on the verge of giving up hope that your garden will ever look lush and flourishing again, the experts have stepped in to share their advice. From re-greening your lawn to revitalising your beds with colour, there are things you can do now to help nurture your patch back to its former glory and ensure it stays in good shape for more heatwave summers to come.
Mulch – but wait until the timing is right
Contrary to what you might think, mulching a garden is not a solution for re-invigorating your dry beds during a drought. In fact, it can actually do more harm than good right now. ‘Never mulch a bone dry soil. Mulch traps whatever’s already there, so spread it over parched ground and you’ve locked in the drought, not solved the problem,’ warns award-winning garden designer Ann-Marie Powell. ‘Mulching is a brilliantly effective thing you can do for a parched bed, but only if you get the timing right – it slows water evaporation, stops roots from cooking below the soil and, over time, feeds the soil biology quietly getting on with the real work of holding onto moisture for your plants.’
Award-winning garden designer and co-founder of Harris Bugg Studio, Hugo Bugg, says we should think of mulching more as a preventative method than a cure. ‘Mulching doesn't revitalise dry beds or soil but it can hugely help prevent moist soils from getting too dry in the first place. When beds and soil dry out excessively they can become hydrophobic, which results in water beading off the soil rather than soaking in.’
So, when is the right time to mulch? Ideally you should wait until late winter or early spring when the soil is already naturally moist, but if you're keen to get going, Ann-Marie advises: ‘Wait for a proper soak of rain first.’ This means regular rain, rather than a short shower or two, to really rehydrate the soil. Ann-Marie adds: ‘Ahead of autumn the soil will still be warm, so the mulch will start breaking down and working itself in with the help of earthworms before winter rain arrives. Add a generous, 5 to 7cm layer of well rotted manure, garden compost or fine (never large pieces) composted bark, keeping clear of stems and crowns so you're not inviting rot.’
Hugo adds: ‘Mulch is also very good at helping regulate soil and preventing roots from getting too hot or too cold. Over time, organic mulches can really feed the soil and improve the bed structure, helping it drain and retain water more efficiently.’ And, Ann-Marie points out you shouldn't ‘underestimate just how good a good layer of mulch looks’. ‘It pulls a border together beautifully,’ she says.
Have patience with your lawn
You may be panicking that your drought-ravaged lawn is beyond saving, but have faith, encourages Ann-Marie. ‘My honest advice is to sit on your hands. A parched, brown lawn isn't a dead lawn. It's dormant, and that’s a big difference. Most UK lawn grasses are built to shut down and turn brown as a survival strategy, protecting the crown of the plant while the leaf above ground sacrifices itself. As soon as consistent rain returns, your grass will definitely green up, often inside a fortnight.’
So resist the urge to fork out on expensive seed or feed. ‘Re-seeding into baked, cracked ground now will be a waste of effort,’ Ann-Marie explains. ‘Seed needs regular moisture to germinate, and a hosepipe ban means you can’t give it that.’ And, even it you are tempted to water your lawn during the summer (if hosepipe bans are not in place, that is), this can actually be detrimental to its future health, explains Hugo. ‘Regular watering through summer trains the grass [not to root especially deep] as it never needs to search deeper for moisture. Leaving it unwatered avoids that habit forming and lets it rely on the deeper root system that a well-established lawn will have built up. Once the lawn does return to its green state come autumn, you can then assess any remedial action that may need to be taken, such as re-seeding bare patches.’
Ditch the mower
If you can't bear the sight of a brown, barren lawn, there is a way to keep it looking better for longer if you are anticipating a future drought. Debbie Roberts, co-founder of award-winning garden and landscape design practice Acres Wild explains: ‘We are likely to experience more summers of drought so we are going to have to get used to brown, ‘desert-looking’ lawns over summer. We could however reduce the amount of lawn we cut each year (if we don’t need the space) and let the grass grow longer.’
There's both a scientific and ecological benefit to this. ‘Leaving grass to grow longer helps the lawn retain moisture and better survive dry weather as taller blades shade the soil, trap moisture in the turf canopy and slow down evaporation,’ Debbie explains. ‘Mowing the grass short forces the grass to use its energy to regrow blades above ground rather than growing deeper roots to seek out water.’ Leaving the grass long also allows for wildflowers, bees and butterflies to flourish and the practice is promoted through campaigns such as Plantlife's No Mow May movement. ‘We also need to ask ourselves if we need so much mown grass in our gardens,’ challenges Debbie. ‘Leaving grass to grow long or even sowing a meadow is hugely beneficial, as long as you mow a neat edge or a path to provide access, which also shows that the area is being cared for.’
Another option is to integrate other species into your lawn. Tom Massey, founder of award-winning garden design company Tom Massey Studio, says: ‘Incorporating clover and other flowering species can create a much more resilient and biodiverse lawn. Yarrow (Achillea millefolium), common daisy (Bellis perennis) and selfheal (Prunella vulgaris) are all good additions that can be introduced as seed or plug plants.’
Be wary of switching to paving or gravel
As tempting as it may be when you look out of the window to a sea of brown rather than green, you might want to think twice before cutting your losses and turning your lawn over to paving or gravel. Ann-Marie implores: ‘I’d definitely ask that people think carefully before giving up on the lawn completely. Personally I love an emerald green sward through winter, and hard surfaces actually soak up the heat through the day then and radiate it back out in the evening.’ It's the opposite of what you want if you're looking for cooling garden ideas in the summer.
‘Wildlife gets nothing from expanses of gravel or paving either,’ adds Ann-Marie. ‘Unless you go for a genuinely permeable option, you’re adding to water runoff, which matters more than ever given how wildly the weather is swinging between drought and deluge at the moment.’
This doesn't mean that you have to rule out gravel entirely though if you prefer the aesthetic. ‘If you are set on reducing or removing your lawn for longer-term water or maintenance reasons and you have thin, free-draining soil, you could consider creating a permeable gravel or sand garden with drought-tolerant planting,’ advises Hugo.
Anne-Marie adds: ‘A real gravel garden, properly planted, is a different story and can be a genuinely brilliant, low water alternative to a struggling lawn. Go for a proper Mediterranean palette, including things like thyme, euphorbia, verbascum and stipa tenuissima, planted through it, rather than a bare expanse of beachy nothingness.’
And if you do decide to introduce paving, Tom recommends considering leaving ‘generous pockets for planting or gravel planting channels between areas of paving’. ‘This helps retain permeability and creates opportunities for plants to soften and cool the space.’
Re-think your watering routine
Hosepipe bans are, of course, one of the biggest challenges facing gardeners during the dry weather. However, there are ways that you can water more efficiently and effectively. Ann-Marie shares: ‘I’ve been filling ten gallon watering cans from my water butt (until it ran dry, and now use the garden tap), each placed into a large plastic trug to collect any overspill, which in turn goes straight onto the borders.’ This is a good way of ensuring not a drop is wasted.
‘Always water the roots, not the leaves, in the cool of early morning or evening. Watering in the midday sun means a good proportion will evaporate before it even reaches the roots.’ Finally, think about what needs water most. ‘Prioritise the water you have on anything newly planted or on young trees that haven't built the root systems to fend for themselves yet,’ Ann-Marie recommends. ‘Established planting can often cope, and the obvious wilt will show you which need some emergency watering.’
Add large pots in groups
When it's particularly hot, as it has been this summer, retaining a colourful palette in the garden can prove difficult, with beds and borders too dry for planting anything new, but container planting is one way to inject some instant vibrance. However, ‘you do have to be careful with the size of the pot, as small pots can dry out extremely quickly,’ Hugo warns. For that reason, he says, ‘it's best to go as large as possible – the larger the pot, the more moisture it can hold for longer.’
Consider the practicality, not just the aesthetic, when it comes to the colour and material of containers, too. ‘Copper and steel planters can get very hot and create difficult conditions for plant roots, increasing evaporation rates,’ cautions Hugo. Ann-Marie adds: ‘Grouping pots together also helps, as they shade each other and create a slightly more humid pocket of air around themselves.’
If you're wondering what to plant in pots for colour and texture during a drought Tom suggests: ‘Mediterranean herbs such as rosemary, thyme, sage and oregano are great choices, alongside plants such as lavender, Salvia, Euphorbia and drought-tolerant grasses.’ And to maximise the effect of your watering efforts, Ann-Marie stipulates: ‘deep watering rather than constant fussy dribbles’. She also suggests investing in a moisture probe to check how dry (or wet) your pots are before watering, as well as adding a layer of horticultural grit on the compost surface. ‘This does the same job as garden mulch – reducing evaporation from the pot. Always leave a couple of centimetres clear at the top of the pot to allow water to collect and percolate down through the grit rather than simply run straight off.’
Future-proof your garden for hot summers ahead
While getting our gardens back to looking their best after this scorching summer may be a priority, we also need to be thinking more long-term and thinking about how we can plan ahead through the rest of the year to make our green spaces more resilient to future heatwaves.
‘Mulching borders [in late winter] is a given, and planting densely and with ground cover to avoid bare soil is good practice,’ Debbie shares. ‘Planting in autumn will give the best results, allowing new plants to get their roots established over winter, or in spring before the soil dries out.’ You also need to be considering what to plant, adding in more drought-tolerant flowers and plants for more resilient borders. ‘Herbs, sun-loving perennials, ornamental grasses and even roses are all proving to be very resilient this year,’ Debbie explains. Ann-Marie adds ‘I’ll be leaning hard on a proper drought tolerant palette: Verbena bonariensis, Salvia nemorosa, Achillea, Euphorbia, Nepeta, and Cistus and a wide range of grasses too, including Miscanthus and Calamagrostis. Lavendar and rosemary are also good choices – look out for anything with fine, coated leaves, as opposed to large, lush ones.’
Hugo suggests some preparation that can be done through the rest of the year, such as improving drainage in the garden and beds; creating bunds around newly planted trees ‘so that when it rains, water doesn't run off and can soak into the ground where the roots are’, and installing water butts and water harvesting tanks ‘so that you have as many water sources as possible during the dry months.’
Finally, Tom reminds us that we should embrace and enjoy the seasonal transitions, while adapting our gardening techniques to work with rather than against the unpredictable and changing climate. ‘I think summers like this are a reminder that we shouldn’t be trying to force our gardens to look exactly the same throughout the year. A lawn turning golden or perennial planting drying into seed heads can be part of the seasonal character of a garden rather than something that immediately needs fixing. Designing with those changes, rather than fighting them with huge quantities of water, will become increasingly important as our climate changes.’
Will a little patience, faith and some professionally recommended techniques, your dry, heat-stricken garden can make a full recovery. But, as this summer is likely a sign of things to come, it's worth making a note in your gardening diary to do some pre-emptive planning ahead of next summer to ensure your garden is in the best possible shape to cope in a heatwave.
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