Graham Porter’ gardening: Weather the weather to earn best results

Nov 21 2009 By Graham Porter

You can expect to find one or other of these systems being used on plant labels to assist you when choosing a new plant but, of course, there are many other factors to take into account if you are to get a fully accurate impression of whether a plant will survive the lower temperatures in your garden, let alone the higher ones.

Climate change is already having an effect and will continue to do so over the next 50 – 100 years and more, allowing us to experiment with plants of known lesser hardiness – great fun but sometimes very expensive.

Plant stress, caused by drought, water-logging, root disturbance, pruning at the wrong time, and pest and disease attack will push plants to the edge of survival within their hardiness limits, let alone below them, causing them to die in one garden but not necessarily in another close by.

If you do not known what the upper and lower temperatures are in your garden, then little of what I have said above will be of any use and so, all gardeners should have some method of measuring the normal air temperature around the garden, whether through one of the modern electronic weather stations that are so popular these days, or through a good old-fashioned maximum – minimum thermometer, strategically positioned.

A soil thermometer is also useful to help you monitor soil temperature, particularly for the growing of vegetables.

In next months article on weather, I will be looking at the orientation (North, South, East and West) of our gardens and how they can influence what we grow and where we put it.

If you have a garden affected by one or more of these issues, why not write to me at: Graham’s Weather Words, Features Office, Huddersfield Daily Examiner, Queen Street South, Huddersfield, HD1 3DU, and I will highlight you and your garden.

To find out more about our weather, why not visit www.metoffice.gov.uk or just search for weather on the world wide web.