This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: UK gardens took a battering this summer as a heat dome settled over western Europe, and much of the green and pleasant land turned a dusty beige. Some areas went without rain for almost two months.
The "joy of gardening" turned into waiting until the cooler evening, then laboriously trailing out from the kitchen with buckets of water to keep the patio plants alive. But as the rains begin to return, what can gardeners do to restore their garden's luster? And what have we learned as we look around our parched borders and fractured lawns?
Let's start with the good news. Nature is resilient, and many plants may still be alive despite appearing bedraggled, wilted or defoliated. They have simply employed strategies that help them survive a drought.
Leaf wilting and abscission are plants' natural responses to conserving water and protecting their vital phloem (which transports sugars from the leaves to the rest of the plant) and root tissues from desiccation. So, gardeners don't need to take the hacksaw to the shrub border yet with the notion of making a fresh start. They can check whether individual woody plants are still alive by scraping off the epidermal cells (young bark) of the shoots with a thumbnail.
If the phloem tissues below are green, life prevails. Some of the garden's woody plants may leaf out again this autumn—or, if they are herbaceous, throw up new shoots from the soil. But many will wait until next spring before investing in a new set of leaves or stems.
Gardeners should avoid the temptation to feed plants up (add fertilizer) now, as such chemicals placed on hard soils will simply wash away with the first rains rather than be incorporated effectively into the soil. More than anything else, gardeners need patience at this time. Some plants will have dead stems; these can be pruned out immediately.
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