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: At Hampton Court Palace, head gardener Graham Dillamore strode across the burned beige grass in the spectacular formal gardens southwest of London, laid out in the 17th century. "If we have a summer like this next year, by God, it's going to be a struggle," said Dillamore, who has spent more than 20 years tending the gardens of the Baroque and Tudor red-brick palace where King Henry VIII once caroused.
Created by master designers such as Lancelot "Capability" Brown and William Kent, the gardens of stately homes such as Hampton Court, Blenheim Palace and Chatsworth House are among England's top visitor attractions. But their historic planting styles and ancient trees are being hammered by climate change—including record heat waves and drought this summer. Gardeners told they were not embarrassed by straw-like lawns—feeling visitors, also facing water restrictions, are understanding—but the concern is for the long-term consequences and keeping the spirit of their gardens alive.
Mature trees that take decades to establish are drooping, and some have leaves turning brown in August as a stress reaction to excessive heat. "Some of these trees have actually given up. They're not going to come back, they're finished," said Dillamore, who also oversees gardens at Kensington Palace, the official London residence of Prince William and his wife, Catherine.
"We're losing mature tree stock and that's tragic in a historic garden." "We've already lost trees," said Rosie Fyles, head of gardens at Chiswick House in west London, whose Kent-designed shady lawns dotted with statues and cedars of Lebanon date back to the 18th century. Suffering most are trees "we really associate with an English garden or an English landscape," she said: oaks, sycamores, birches and lindens. "I think there's only so much stress they can withstand," said the gardener, who tends 1,800 trees.
It is not practical to water mature trees, gardeners explained. At Chiswick, staff members were watering drooping camellias and lilacs, shrubs that normally thrive in sun. The garden has boosted its capacity to harvest rainwater, but its stocks ran out several months ago.
"There's only so much we can intervene and control," said Fyles, admitting this was hard to accept as a professional gardener. It means that we're having to think about what we plant going forward, what trees will be sustainable in the future climate." "I get the feeling we're in uncharted territory," said Dillamore. "I've never felt so uncertain about the future in historic gardens and landscapes as I do now." Staff members at historic gardens surveyed by the National Lottery Heritage Fund earlier this year all said climate change was having an impact—not just drought, but also heavy storms and excessive rain in winter that spawn fungus and bugs.
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