The Resilience of Nature

Rain battered container

The weather this February has been a challenge. Not only has it restricted access into the garden but the plants have also been challenged by everything the storms have brought to the Pennines; severe winds, exceptional rainfall and last night  snow. It also happens to be snowing as I write this entry, there is no doubt some Spring improvement in conditions will be most welcome. Of course there are many other regions of the UK completely submerged by flood waters. For the sake of those whose homes, land and businesses have been inundated let us hope for a let up in the weather sooner rather than later.

Baptism of fire for the new tree

Plants in the Pennine garden have to be selected to survive in hostile conditions. Wind, rain, snow and subzero temperatures will occur every year. But the unrelenting sequence of  bad weather has been daunting. The fact that nature is resilient is both a blessing and a wonder.

Hardy little Tete a Tete 

Resilience is also a more engineering-oriented, quantitative measure that is often used to assess the rate at which a system returns to equilibrium following disturbance. This view typically assumes that a system has equilibrium conditions and a single state to which that equilibrium applies. However, many ecological and social-ecological systems may spend more time out of equilibrium and in a number of possible (‘alternative stable’) states. With the changing climate patterns affecting the Pennine garden, we must realize and anticipate that these abnormal challenges are now the new normal. So we will adapt and embrace......

..... so why are Hecate and Mili hiding indoors?


What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness?
- John Steinbeck, American writer (1902 - 1968)