The Climate Change Garden (Updated Edition)

Down to Earth Advice for Growing a Resilient Garden

By: Sally Morgan, Kim Stoddart

Narrated by: Amanda Dolan

In this global gardener’s guide to creating a resilient, climate-wise garden, learn how to adapt your garden to cope with volatile weather extremes and other effects of a rapidly changing climate.

It’s no longer gardening as usual. Heat waves, droughts, flooding, violent storms…the long-predicted extremes of weather caused by climate change are now on our doorstep, and gardeners around the world are feeling the effects. Certain pests are staying active until much later in the season, many plants are blooming earlier, soils are eroding and degrading at a rapid pace, unpredictable rainfall is water-logging our gardens, and fiercer storms are uprooting trees and snapping branches. Not to mention the effects of prolonged drought in many parts of the world and the water rationing that comes with it. What’s a gardener to do?

We need to learn how to protect the garden against climate extremes, exotic pests, invasive weeds, and more. The Climate Change Garden is the first book to reveal which types of gardens are better suited to deal with such extremes and which techniques, practices, and equipment can be put to good use in our gardens to help temper the issues. There’s no getting away from it; no matter where on the planet you live, the climate and weather patterns are changing fast, and our gardening practices need to catch up.

With the aim of building a more durable, robust, and productive garden beneath the shadow of climate change, you’ll learn how to:

• Adapt your plant selections, planting practices, and garden maintenance techniques for the new future
• Select vegetable and fruit varieties that are more adaptable to weather extremes and more capable of resisting pests and diseases
• Find ways to manage excess storm water runoff and minimize the heat island effect
• Foster wildlife and discover the importance of creating a safe haven for these creatures in a changing world
• Use season extenders like cold frames, high tunnels, and row covers to protect edible plants from weather events
• Take measures to reduce your garden’s carbon footprint, including going no-till, building a green roof, and composting
• Limit the risks from wind, frost, and snow by taking advantage of microclimates, planting wind breaks, and physically protecting plants
• Plant more of the right trees for your future climate to help cool your home, slow the movement of water, and hold soil in place

The Climate Change Garden is about working with the natural world to create a productive, low-maintenance, climate-savvy garden that’s capable of standing strong against the effects of a changing climate.

©2022 Sally Morgan and Kim Stoddart (P)2022 Cool Springs Press

Critic reviews

“With the climate emergency, ‘gardening as usual’ no longer applies and we need to learn how to adapt to prolonged droughts, intense storms, and wildly fluctuating temperatures. The Climate Change Garden is the in-depth guide you need to learn how to manage climate extremes and build resilient gardens.” (Niki Jabbour, author of The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener and Growing Under Cover)

“This timely and essential guide will help gardeners implement key changes to increase the resiliency of their landscapes. The authors offer both pragmatic and creative approaches to address the challenges we are already experiencing and provide a wealth of actionable items to help us adjust our gardening traditions.” (Susan Mulvihill, author of The Vegetable Garden Problem Solver Handbook and The Vegetable Garden Pest Handbook)

“I love this book. It’s the savvy guide to future proofing your garden against the increasing extremes of weather through climate change.” (Frances Tophill, Gardeners’ World presenter and author of Rewild Your Garden)