Saturday, May 10, 2014

Climate Disruption for Gardeners: Another Voice

Extreme Gardening? That sounds like what's going on here, and I'm not the only one noticing that "gardening as usual" isn't working anymore:
Cloud Study, MR, 2013
What do you think of this interview?

http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=14-P13-00019&segmentID=4

What do you think of the idea of growing species for many different climates in your garden, in the hopes that some of them thrive?

I'm thinking he's onto something....

2 comments:

  1. Hi Marla. I did listen to the interview, and while interesting, I think it was one person's reaction to an unusually colder than average winter. Perhaps I'm just getting older but I've seen several of these colder than average winters, as well as several warmer than average winters. I think climate change is something that will take longer than a single human life span. When you deal with climate there are always peaks and valleys in terms of temperature and rainfall and you just can't be sure of what's happening over a relatively short time span (75 years or so). I remember a very cold winter here in Maryland in 1976-77. The US National Arboretum lost 90 percent of its camellias, and the grass used in about 50 percent of the yards in my neighborhood were bermudagrass and they were all killed out, and never replaced. The talk back then was whether we were headed for the next ice age! I certainly support cutting carbon emissions and trying to stabilize carbon dioxide levels, but it's not going to change my planting practices, at least in the next few years. Heck, I've been trying to grow a winter hardy eucalyptus for the past 20 years; haven't found one yet. :) But sometimes the fun is really in the trying. :)

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  2. I sure hope you're right, Bob! And frankly, I'm glad you're not growing eucalyptus up there yet, though there are some wonderful vineyards in England again....
    What worries me is that large shifts in the paleoclimate have happened very quickly, not so much as in a couple of years, but decades, definitely. It's quite a wild planet!

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