Gardening - like Botany - is not a hard science!

 

Every time I teach a Botany class, whether it's organised adult education, or just me and the Midweek Botany Crew, I always make a point of reminding everyone that Botany is not a hard science.

What does that mean?

It means that it's not black-and-white. Nothing is set in stone. Plants are variable! In fact, when I give them Rachel's Rules, Rule 1 is “usually”. I say to them, “Pretty much everything that I say to you today can, should, and probably will, be prefaced with the word 'usually'. “

And by that, I mean that our reference books - which, these days, also means the internet, and apps, and TV gardening programmes - may well say “height xx cm” but all that means is that the plant in question “usually” grows to that size. It may be bigger. It may be smaller.

This applies just as much to gardening: and I tell all my Students, Trainees, Mentorees (I'm still not sure if that's an actual word) and casual questioners that whatever I tell them is “usually” the right thing to do, “usually” the right time to do it, “usually” the best way to approach it... but is not necessarily the way it's going to happen.

Why are plants so variable, then?

The weather changes things, which I think most people realise, as it's fairly obvious - “it's rained a lot, so the weeds have put on a spurt”, or “it's been hot for three weeks and the grass is not growing at all”.

But there can be less obvious factors: another example is that if we have a long period of cloudy, dull weather, it can be a serious set-back to those plants which need bright sunlight.

Even the days are different lengths, from one end of the country to the other: in the middle of summer, the northern-most parts of the UK can have between 2-4 hours more daylight than the very south of the country. Of course, to counter-balance this, they get correspondingly shorter days in winter, poor things: but....

 

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