By now, nearly everyone has heard of climate change and its consequences. Global warming is often equated with climate change, but climate change goes beyond increased average temperatures and includes the increased frequency of abnormal precipitation and wind patterns. The term “weather” is often used interchangeably with climate, but weather refers to the short-term state of the atmosphere and climate is a region’s long-term average weather conditions.
Climate change is already affecting everyone in subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways and gardeners are no exception. Plants rely on the environment for signals relating to the timing of growth, flowering, reproduction and dormancy. Higher average temperatures can confuse plants—spring-blooming shrubs bloom earlier and wilt sooner in the season, spring bulbs could finish blooming and die back sooner than expected and summer-blooming plants might start blooming too early.
Of course, climate change results in abnormal weather, not
