Wealden Times | WT200 | October 2018 | Kitchen & Bathroom supplement inside

Garden
A succulents garden in Majorca
A prickly subject
With more hot summers predicted Sue Whigham suggests we – carefully – embrace cactus
As we all know, temperatures in the UK
almost broke records this summer with
endless days of scorching heat reaching
over 35C and it looks likely to happen again.
An article I read in one of the reputable dailies quoted
research carried out by scientists from the University
of Brest which was published in the highly respected
journal Nature Communications before the heat wave,
predicting that from 2018-2022 we should expect ‘an
increased likelihood of intense to extreme temperatures’.
Well, they got that right, so we should probably believe
them about the next few years.
Gardeners amongst us had a good spring
after a hard winter but it was sad to see our
efforts crisp up as the drought lengthened
and lengthened. So perhaps what we need to
do now is to take current phenomena into
account and plant accordingly. One place to
start is to see what is looking good and what
has suffered the most from lack of water.
Thank goodness we didn’t have a
hosepipe ban otherwise things would have been pretty dire.
It certainly reminds us that a good, deep mulch on our
borders helps retain moisture as well as feeding the plants.
However, we could perhaps consider growing more
cactus and succulents which are adapted to drought
conditions and retain water in their fleshy leaves and in
some cases, their root systems. Look how good sedums
are still looking in early autumn, whilst all around them
other plants look as if they have turned up their toes.
Cactus (all cactus are succulents but not all succulents are
“They are the perfect
plants for the young,
as they require little
care and are almost
impossible to kill”
cactus) had their heyday in the 1970’s, then went completely
out of fashion but are now having a huge resurgence. I see
that Selfridges and Top Shop’s flagship store in Oxford
Street have in-store cactus shops and promotions on line.
They are the perfect plants for the young who tend
to be out a lot or perhaps live in flats without access
to gardens, as they require little care and are almost
impossible to kill. Having said that, if you do give
them attention you will soon notice the results.
They are also very enthusiastically collected, sometimes
for nostalgic reasons, by people who as children used to
nip down to Woolworths and spend
their pocket money on a cactus or
two on a Saturday morning.
Gynelle Leon is one of the people
leading this hike of interest in cactus.
She opened her shop, Prick, in uber
trendy Dalston, East London, a couple of
years ago and business is booming. She
says that whilst the younger generation
are ‘behind the boom’, she has many
people, older men particularly, whose parents used to collect
cactus and are now setting up their own collections.
Meanwhile, the cactus shop is booming at the Camden
Garden Centre, selling around 400 different varieties
of the spiny plants. They have even had cactus festivals
there with their cafe providing cactus-themed food.
And reading reviews of The Cactus Shop down in
Devon, I was taken with the lady who had left the
premises with thirty-seven new plants, a grumbling
husband and a big smile on her face!
159 wealdentimes.co.uk