Tall cypress trees swaying in the breeze, low colourful clumps of flowers and the crunch of dry gravel underfoot: a Mediterranean garden is full of romance. But it's also a landscape that gardeners and garden designers in northern Europe are increasingly looking to for inspiration for plants and design: climate change means that more northern countries are facing a future with hotter, drier summers.
What is a Mediterranean climate?
There are in fact five Mediterranean climate zones around the world: around the Mediterranean sea, the western cape of South Africa, coastal California, central Chile and southern and southwestern Australia. A Mediterranean climate zone gets its rain in the winter, between November and March, with often no rain at all between April and October.
What are Mediterranean plants?
Mediterranean plants have evolved to thrive in habitats that have a very long, extremely hot and dry season – and poor soil. Their leaves may be small or thin, grey or glaucous, hairy, succulent or fleshy. Many have very deep or wide root systems that are adapted to seek out water, or underground storage organs such as bulbs. They are often low growing and form mounds, which are less likely to be dried out by wind on a hot day. In their native habitats, Mediterranean plants may go dormant or lose their leaves in summer, as a response to the lack of water. They are often described or sold as drought-tolerant plants.
Are Mediterranean gardens suitable for the UK?
Dry gardening guru Olivier Filippi and his wife Clara, based in France, have been looking to Mediterranean landscapes for a while to offer a different approach to gardening: “There is an obvious necessity in southern Europe to create gardens with no water consumption,” he explains. “In the future, water won’t be available to us.”
People are looking to use Mediterranean plants in the UK as summers get drier, but if you're looking to experiment with Mediterranean planting, there are some important caveats.
Garden designer James Basson, based in the South of France, points out: “The UK may increasingly have extremes of heat and wet through climate change, but its gardens have a depth of topsoil from our past temperate era which makes conditions very different to the arid Mediterranean.” The plants he uses tolerate five to six months’ heat in Provence without rain in summer; droughts in the UK are more likely to last a few weeks, so Mediterranean or drought-tolerant plants may not thrive here.
Well-drained soil is key
“Nurserywoman Derry Watkins created a gravel garden near Bath in order to grow the Mediterranean plants she loves on top of heavy clay. She points out that Mediterranean plants tend to ‘overgrow’ in the UK climate. “We’ve got too much rain, too much food and probably not enough sun, and they grow too big, too fast. We think we’re having a drought, but the plants don’t think so.”
“Drainage, drainage, drainage,” she advises. “Gravel, if possible, is the answer to all your problems. Top the soil with four – or better six or eight – inches. The deeper the gravel, the hardier the plants become.” She points out that a gravel area could simply be a dedicated raised bed and that it will need a definite edge – it can’t just fade into lawn.
Consider the rainfall in your area
Designer Matthew Wilson, who designed the famous Dry Garden at RHS Garden Hyde Hall, told us: "Beth Chatto [who created a celebrated dry gravel garden in Essex] told me she grew drought-tolerant plants because she had to, with the rainfall in her garden lower than Jerusalem, Tunis and Rabat. Had she the rainfall of Cornwall or Wales she would have grown a completely different range of plants.”
He points out: “There’s a well-established climatic divide between the east and west of the British Isles. This is more important than north/south in many ways. I’ve planted the same drought-tolerant plants that I have in my own garden in the east Midlands in gardens as far south as the Solent and as far north as Hexham in Northumberland, including Eryngium, Salvia, Stipa, Pennisetum and Artemisia. But I would probably think twice before trying them in a garden in Wales, Cornwall or the west coast of Scotland."
If you're looking to bring a little bit of the Mediterranean to your garden, or to just bask in some glorious gardens, here's a round up of some inspiring Mediterranean gardens we've featured, designed by pioneering designers and plantspeople.
You may also like
- Is drought tolerant planting realistic in the UK?
- Key plants for a warmer climate
- Drought-tolerant planting combinations from Olivier Filippi
- A Mediterranean-inspired garden for a changing climate
