Warnings that we will have to change the way we garden because of climate change aren’t new, but they are pertinent.

It’s been pretty well documented that we are heading towards a Mediterranean climate and there have already been some successful experiments in hot and dry gardening.

The National Botanic Garden of Wales has a fantastic display of flora suited to a Mediterranean climate and Cambridge Botanics built a garden five years ago that has never been watered. Even in lousy drought years it looks excellent.

Gardening conditions forecast for later this century will inevitably mean changes to flower beds. We won’t get the lush flora that we are used to. Beds are likely to look a lot more scrubby because the competition for water means there are more spaces between plants, especially near trees.

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Horticultural revolutionary Diarmuid Gavin is nothing if not controversial. But for this year’s Chelsea Flower Show, he seems to be hedging his bets

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Mediterranean gardens tend to have spring bulbs, which mean summer space. That’s one of the reasons gravel is used so much – it provides some semblance of order. We will have to accept there will be holes in the flowerbeds unless shrubs are chosen to fill the borders.

Mulching will become even more important.

But there are advantages to hotter and drier summers. If we move towards Mediterranean plants with their more leathery foliage there are a lot of aromatics to choose from. These plants come into their own in hot conditions when they release their perfumes into the air.

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