Landscaping And The Weather

Hello and welcome to another blog where we discuss all things landscaping and trades.

This blog will be about Great British weather and the affect it has on landscaping.

 I think this year and the end of 2023 was the wettest 6 months we've ever seen. Major flooding near brooks and rivers coupled with over run top water drains have seriously made us re-evaluate how rain water enters and is expelled on our own properties. Some 1,700mm of rain fell from October 2022 to March 2024. This is the highest level for any 18-month period in England since comparable data began in 1836, according to analysis by the PA news agency of Met Office provisional statistics. When you compare that to the whole of 2023 which received 1,200mm of rain fall we certainly had a saturated 6 months. While odd rainy days and soggy afternoons come with the territory of being a landscaper, the last 6 months have been detrimental to how we have had to handle our projects.

Picture this…..its been raining none stop for 24 hours and has not let up. Morning has broke and you smile with anticipation that you might actually get some work done. You walk on to site, shovel in hand and you step in to a mud bath. The project you have excavated a few days ago is now a quagmire. Every step you take your boot disappears below the surface. You are left with the decision….dig off the muck or let it dry out? Either options leaves you with the feeling of dread. This is what it can be like for some gardens that have experienced heavy rain fall part way through a project. This impact can put a landscaper behind days (on top of the rain days) or even weeks not to mention the financial impact that it will have on the project. We also have to consider ‘ground heave’, this is where there is excessive water absorption in the ground (such as long periods of rain) and can also be caused by freezing and expanding of trapped water.

So let’s flip this upside down and talk about sunny days during our small summer we experience in the UK. We sometimes experience sudden changes in our weather, take our last month's weather for example. We went from rain, rain and more rain to scorching hot sunshine where my wife made sure I wore my sun cream (factor 50 for my almost transparent chest). Now, wet soils have a higher heat capacity. This means that clean, moist, and packed soil surfaces will absorb more radiant energy during the day, and protect from frost by releasing this heat during the night. So to generalize if the soil is warmer with adequate moisture the better plants will grow and increase the length of cropping seasons in your vegetable garden. Along with better weather comes more upbeat attitude to the project we undertake. We can excavate with confidence, mix up our mortar easily and more efficiently, and grout up paving without having to worry about it raining. The sun does bring some issues, such as paving temperature being too hot for most grouts as they would set on the surface, physical exhaustion due to our body temperatures being too high and mortar drying up too quickly and cracking.

But as you may have gathered we landscapers are a hardy bunch, who will go out their day in and day out regardless of the forces of nature in all its beauty and peril.

I hope you all enjoyed this blog and I hope you find these blogs interesting. If you have any recommendations of what you would like to read about in upcoming blogs please email me at k.w.slackandson@live.co.uk or comment below.