WAY to GROW
Climate change can seem like one endless, dispiriting injunction to stop doing things we have always enjoyed doing – but gardening is one exception. Around the world, climate-mitigation efforts are hitting on plants as a potent part of the solution.
The definition of gardening has lately widened to include “rewilding” – letting plants grow as they wish – which may be the easiest, lowest-maintenance greenhouse-gas weapon we have.
But growing plants anywhere faces new technical challenges. New Zealand has just experienced its warmest winter since records began. Our winters are not just warmer but about a month shorter than they were 80 years ago. It’s a similar pattern in the US, where evidence gathered over more than a century shows the first frost of the year is arriving more than a month later than it did 100 years ago.
The plants we choose will have to change, because climates are changing. Even native plants may struggle to adapt.
New Zealand’s primary horticultural ideas bank is our civic botanical gardens. Well-known horticulturist Jack Hobbs, for one, is using his leadership role at the Auckland Botanic Gardens to encourage more people to garden
