Pottering around the garden and nurturing shy plants are many an American’s passion. Understanding nature better through adopting climate change gardening is becoming part of life. However despite our best efforts, some American favorites will buckle under increasing heat and vanish. The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) believes many state plants and flowers will disappear.
Climate Change Gardening When Gardeners Care
Imagine Virginia without the flowering dogwood, or Ohio without the Ohio buckeye, the NWF warns. The great warming is upon us. There is a time for everything the great book says, a time to plant and a time to uproot.
Gardening in a warmer world requires new strategies and solutions to problems, according to Cornell Institute for Climate Smart Solutions. Higher average temperatures and shifting patterns of rain are already causing flowers to bloom sooner. New invader plants and insects are beginning to invade North America. Climate change gardening could become an endless battle against kudzu and garlic mustard.
Birds May Arrive Too Late to Feed on Flowers
The National Wildlife Federation fears hummingbirds may arrive too early or too late to feed on the flowers they rely on for life. They may depend on us now. Gardeners also have a role to play by introducing climate change gardening. There are meaningful steps we can take that become obvious when we know.
We should water less frequently, and implement water-wise gardening to counter the effects of increased evaporation. Our garden lights must become low-energy solar ones. It’s time to start using human-powered tools instead of gas and electric mowers and trimmers. We can still have our gardens but we must act responsibly by planting more trees, and replacing lawns with water-thrifty ground cover.
We must become custodians of life by putting out food for small mammals that are increasingly hungry. The days of shooting or poisoning them are over because we are in this together now.
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Preview Image: A Waterwise Orchard Garden
