Since I began making the garden here at Longmeadow in the spring of ‘92, we have seen wet years, dry years, snow, storms, endless rain and the occasional period of really hot, dry weather. But this year, 2025, is by far the driest I have known. We have had no significant rain since March and our heavy Herefordshire clay loam is powder 3ft down. This is undeniably a trend. It is on record that 10 of the warmest recorded years in the UK have occurred since 2000, with half of them in the last decade. The hottest years on record are, in descending order: 2022, 2023, 2014 and 2024. At the time of writing, 2025 is looking likely to be up there with them, and this last spring was the…
