El Niño could bring storms and floods to the UK heading into autumn, posing challenges to gardens already battered after this summer’s extreme heat and drought.
This year’s climate phenomenon, forecast to be the strongest in living memory, could threaten weakened trees and flood gardens, experts say.
But there are a number of ways that gardeners can mitigate the effects of the stormy conditions.
‘I’ve already seen trees crash down’
While El Niño’s effect on the UK is less clear due to its distance from the Pacific, the Met Office has forecast a higher chance of wetter, stormier conditions in the UK and northwestern Europe in the autumn and early winter. Exact timings are not yet clear.
Ross Cameron, professor of environmental horticulture at the University of Sheffield, said that trees are particularly at risk from the weather event.
“Trees will have been weakened by the summer drought. I’ve already seen a couple crash down”, he said.
Cameron explained that the heat has in some cases caused cavitation in branches – where the water column inside a tree’s water-transporting tissues breaks, creating an air bubble that blocks water flow – “so you get the occasional branch collapsing”.
“When you add in stronger winds, then you might see a bow coming down.”
Kevin Martin, head of tree collections at Kew Gardens, told The Guardian that trees had become less flexible and more brittle due to the extreme heat.
What to do
“From a gardener’s perspective, if you’ve got a big tree, keep an eye on it and if you’re worried, get an inspection done,” Cameron added. “With smaller tree species, just make sure there’s not a lot of dead weight in the crown of the tree, in case we start experiencing hurricane-like sort of winds.”
Depending on when the stormy weather hits, El Niño could also cause flash flooding due to rain running over the surface of hard, dry soil with not enough getting absorbed.
“Most plants do all right in winter flooding because they’ve kind of gone dormant anyway,” Cameron said. “But with even the winter plants, if the roots are in water for 3 or 4 weeks, then you can see further weakening. You can also get pests and diseases coming in in the spring.”
Cameron advised gardeners to move their Mediterranean plants inside and make sure their drains are clear. He also warned people to pack away their patio furniture if the wind starts to really pick up, “before it starts flying around.”
Alistair Griffiths, the Royal Horticultural Society’s director of science, said: “The solution is to select the right plants in the right places, for the right purposes. In the UK we cannot simply replace everything with drought-tolerant Mediterranean species as our gardens will also need to withstand much wetter and colder periods.”
Many trees have shed their leaves after the dry and hot summer (Photo: Rasid Necati Aslim/Getty)Early autumn
Due to the extreme heat and drought conditions this summer, trees have been shedding their leaves early to deal with water loss, making it look like autumn may have come early.
Cameron said that this could actually help with protecting trees.
“If we get the leaves falling off before the storms come, that’s fine, but if they’re still hanging on to a lot of weight, it’s basically like a sailing ship,” he said.
“And if you’ve got a weak root system because of the drought, then you are talking about a fairly top-heavy object in your garden.”
“It really depends on when we experience the storms,” he added.
Why this El Niño will be ‘unprecedented’
El Niño is declared when sea temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific rise to at least 0.5°C above the long-term average.
This year, they are forecast to increase by more than 3°C according to the Met Office, leading to it being dubbed a “super” or “Godzilla” El Niño.
“We should be clear that this is an unprecedented event”, said Professor Adam Scaife, the Met Office’s head of long-range forecasting. “I have never seen an El Niño signal this intense in our forecasts.”
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