Gardening in a changing climate
Gardens facing the challenge
NCCPG National Plant Collection holder
New ways with compost
Jack Lamb, of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, looks after 76 species and 133 subspecies of Fuchsia in four 6m (20ft) glasshouses in his garden - some of them are huge plants in 40-litre containers.
‘I’ve been working in ways that have a minimum impact on the environment for 40 years, long before anyone heard of global warming,’ Jack says. ‘Methods used by the older generation of gardeners have always had low impacts because we’ve always done things like making compost and collecting rainwater.’
All Jack’s fuchsias are in containers and he says his unique growing medium recipe is the key to minimising the collection’s environmental impact. Fuchsias species prefer ericaceous conditions and he was finding it difficult to obtain a suitable peat-free medium until he watched a TV programme about rainforest soils.
‘Terra preta is Brazilian black earth, a highly fertile soil derived from traditional agricultural methods, which contains around 30 percent charcoal. The fertility was found to be a result of the charcoal in the soil. I now make compost using charcoal from a local source. It acts as a buffer against variations in the compost and is good for beneficial root-zone microbes. It has given excellent results with the collection.’
Jack says that using charcoal also means he is locking up carbon: ‘Charcoal burning causes less emissions than letting waste wood rot or burning it on an open fire - all waste wood should be turned into charcoal and put into composts.’
He still has to buy-in about 2,000 litres of peat-based media, but dilutes it with about the same volume of his own compost. All the used media goes back on the compost heap for recycling.
‘I’m also pretty close to being self sufficient in water, collecting as much as we can off the glasshouses into six large butts,’ he says proudly.