Keep cool. Looking out on a snow-covered garden, I can’t imagine anything easier. But who knows what’ll happen next when you remember the belter of a swelter that followed on the heels of last year’s Beast from the East.
A heatwave like this is rare in Scotland, but with climate change, scorchers may be more fre-quent. So why not take a few steps now to make the garden more pleasant, whatever the weather.
When deciding whether to change part or all of the garden to make it more bearable, remem-ber it must cope with a more normal driech Scottish summer as well. Any planting should look good throughout the year, not just in the few weeks of a heatwave. Even in a balmy summer evening, you’ll still need the sun to keep you warm and midge-free.
Start the cooling process by letting plants work their magic. Through transpiration, they reduce the surrounding area by between 2 and 4C. Evaporation, however ‘wasteful’ during a drought, also cools the air.
So, paved and gravel areas are inevitably hot and unforgiving, as you’ll find when your toe en-counters a fearsomely hot slab. Soothe that scalded toe on an obliging lawn. Grass is often considered a nuisance, but I’d sooner give it an occasional cut than break sweat brushing a pa-tio.
And, if you don’t have a suitably shady area, there’s just time to buy and plant a small tree close to the edge of the grass. It must be deciduous, with an open habit to allow for dappled shade where grass can grow. It should be easy to shape and prune, and have good all-year-round interest, whatever the summer.
But with 2018 in mind, a new tree must tolerate dry conditions. Although a long root system lets most species survive this, some such as Viburnum plicatum, rhododendrons and birches, would struggle, and you certainly couldn’t water an established tree.
Ideally, your choice should be trained to provide a canopy well above sun hat range. Apples are easily pruned to whatever design you fancy and lay on wonderfully scented spring blossom, followed by fruit that we or the birds will enjoy in autumn. As a bonus, the likes of Malus ‘Indi-an Magic’ lays on attractive autumn colour.
Acers give you an elegantly different shape, when pruned with central leader standards, and branches growing in the wrong direction removed. Tall varieties of spectacular Acer palmatum, Japanese Maple, would give you plenty shade, when planted in a sheltered place.
And the light airy foliage of Sorbus species gives you attractive and, very pretty, silhouettes when viewed from below. Sorbus aria, even has leaves that are hairy underneath giving a sil-very sheen.
Cornus species are also good, reliable all-year-rounders. Cornus mas makes a good start to the year with its attractive bunches of little yellow flowers, set against bare twigs - beautiful. Then followed by edible, red berries. Cornus kousa has showy coloured bracts in early spring and summer, before surrendering to a fine autumn show.
You may be wondering why I didn’t start with a highly scented, romantic rose arbour. Frankly it doesn’t tick as many boxes as the shrubs and trees I’ve mentioned. You get a stunning, but relatively brief performance and you need a lot of skilled pruning to prevent the underside be-coming a mass of bare, brown twiggy stems.
You have to thin the stems so they’re symmetrical and neither meagre or dense. However much you try, you’ll never achieve the shape and elegance of a well pruned shrub. And you’ll face the same problems with climbing honeysuckles, like Lonicera periclymenum.
Plant of the week
Winter aconite in the Cilicica group. Slightly larger flowers than usual and appears more leafy. It quickly form a large group.
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