With heatwaves and hosepipe bans, scorched lawns and plants flowering in a flash, it’s safe to say it’s been a tough growing season for gardeners this year.
When we asked almost 1,000 of our readers how they’ve fared, 75% said their garden felt autumnal at the start of August. One said they felt the seasons shifted straight from spring to autumn, with summer passing in a drought.
2025: A record-busting season
This year saw the UK’s warmest and sunniest spring since records began, and the Met Office have confirmed that the summer of 2025 was the hottest on record, so it’s hardly surprising gardeners have struggled to keep their green spaces green.
According to research from Cambridge University, climate change is now causing plants to flower a full month earlier on average than they did before 1987, which not only means they’re more vulnerable to late frosts, but also out of sync with the wildlife evolved to rely on them.
The challenging conditions have also had a huge impact on businesses, who have had to cancel events and change their plans. Harkness roses was forced to pull out of July’s RHS Wentworth Woodhouse flower show due to extreme heat, instead launching its new rose online. Shropshire Petal Fields had to bring its one-week opening forward due to the heatwaves, and prolonged drought in Herefordshire caused The Farm Patch to call off its annual pick-your-own flowers event completely.
It’s not just UK gardeners noticing a difference; readers in the southern hemisphere say spring arrived early, while autumn plants flowered in July in the US South. In Spain, a reader noticed agapanthus flowering two months earlier than usual.
Good news for insects?
The hot weather was good news for some insects, speeding up lifecycles and leading to more generations. Gardens Illustrated readers reported seeing more bees, crickets and spiders, as well as less welcome visitors like box tree caterpillars, aphids, sawflies and spider mites.
But it’s important not to get complacent. The results of Butterfly Conservation’s Big Butterfly Count are in, and while the sunny spring and summer meant that numbers are an improvement on 2024’s record lows, the charity has warned that it was not in fact a bumper year for butterflies, but a pretty average year.
Dr Richard Fox, Head of Science at Butterfly Conservation, warns: “We may feel like we’ve seen lots of butterflies this summer, but that’s only because last year was so awful." He added: "42 species were spotted at least a week earlier than usual, and some are expanding into areas where they have not been seen before – likely as a result of extreme weather conditions."
He continues: “The 15-year Big Butterfly Count trends show that more than twice as many widespread species have declined significantly than have increased. And, while most species had a better than average summer, one-third of species fared poorly even in the generally beneficial weather. Although adult butterflies and moths benefit from warm weather, drought conditions are a serious threat to their caterpillars, which depend on healthy, growing plants to survive.
“When we look over a longer period of time, 80% of butterfly species in the UK have decreased in either abundance, distribution, or both since the 1970s”.
Flourishing fruit
This year’s warm weather has also produced a glut of fruit, with trees like apples, apricots, damsons and plums flourishing after peak spring conditions for blossom. In fact, one of the UK's largest plum growers, WB Chambers, doubled its production compared to last year.
Readers also noted bumper crops of blackberries as early as July – although others bemoaned stunted veg and tomato plants almost over by early August.
A challenging year for growers
Despite a couple of seasonal wins in the form of insects and fruit trees, it’s clear the scorching temperatures and lack of rain have been extremely challenging for gardeners and growers this year.
Annie Reilly grows flowers in her South East London cutting garden for her wedding floristry business, Floralkind, and plans her sowing schedule meticulously to make sure she has the right varieties in bloom for each wedding.
“This year nothing has arrived when it should,” she says. “Many varieties came into flower up to a month earlier than usual, whilst others have sulked and bloomed late, or not at all.
“Expensive crops like tulips came and went in a flash in the heat, while many of my annuals have flowered on shorter stems due to the lack of water.”
All these changes have meant much more work for Annie, who has had to spend more time than ever watering, and deadheading to keep plants from going to seed. She’s also had to turn to other growers to supplement her own flowers, which impacts profits.
Annie is just one of many flower growers who are changing their approach as a result of climate change: “It’s important to me to grow in rhythm with nature, not against it, so next year I’ll be dedicating more space to perennials and drought-tolerant varieties”.
Further north, flower farmer Roisin Taylor of Verde Flower Co. in Northumberland has also struggled to manage the area’s drought, which has been followed by bouts of heavy rain and storms this year, bringing down some key crops like cosmos. So, alongside “much, much more rainwater harvesting”, she’s also prioritising perennials going forward.
“The perennials fared incredibly well in the heat, whereas my annuals got heat stress, or have generally been quite short. Perennials also fill that dreaded gap between late May and mid-July for annuals.”
Where do we go from here?
The Met Office says we can expect temperatures to remain at or near record levels over the next five years, so growing plants adapted to these conditions is key – for professional growers and home gardeners alike.
At the Beth Chatto Gardens in Essex, the gravel garden – created by Beth herself in the 1990s – features a palette of plants adapted to hot, dry weather and is never watered by the gardening team.
Climate-resilient plants may "show signs of stress during heatwaves and long spells of drought," says head gardener Åsa Gregers-Warg, "but they will recover and bounce back as soon as the weather cools down and rain returns."
Beth Chatto's gravel garden was impacted by this year's dry spring in particular, with "fewer annuals such as poppies, eschscholzia and nigella, with more stunted growth. There simply wasn’t enough moisture in the ground at the right time for the seeds to germinate and grow," Åsa explains.
And while plants in the free-draining, low-nutrient gravel garden are often shorter than they would be elsewhere – "visitors often assume we grow a shorter form of the plants" – Åsa says "many perennials such as agapanthus, alstroemeria and Silene coronaria (rose campion) have grown even more compact than usual this year."
But now temperatures are cooling down, the gravel garden is back to looking refreshed, with plenty of colour – proving how drought-tolerant plants can cope with harsh conditions.
Åsa says we need to manage our expectations of what gardens should look like in high summer, and embrace "a more subtle kind of beauty with a more bleached colour palette, where textures, shapes and forms become the focal point".
Choosing drought-tolerant plants
In response to the changing climate, the RHS updated its ‘plants for pollinators’ list this year, removing 14 plants and replacing them with drought-tolerant alternatives including sea holly, euphorbia, helianthus and marjoram. Other climate-resilient favourites among gardeners are salvia, lavender, geranium, allium and verbena.
In Beth Chatto's gravel garden, oregano, santolina, Oenothera lindheimeri (gaura), Glaucium flavum (yellow horned poppy) and Catananche caerulea (Cupid's dart) have also thrived, alongside grasses Stipa gigantea and S. tenuissima.
As well as growing more drought-tolerant perennials, taking the time to collect rainwater for watering, move pots into the shade and top soil with mulch or pebbles, will all help plants survive the heatwaves increasingly affecting our gardens.
