In mid-July, we experienced two days of record high temperatures. Although cooler weather soon followed it was too late to save many plants that had been scorched by the sun. The science shows that an increase in the frequency of severe weather is occurring, over and above the occasional freezing winter or dry summer when abnormal growing patterns resulted, as Mr Slater found out in 1831:
“On Tuesday morning Mr. Slater got a plate of ripe strawberries from his garden on the Hungerhills near this town; the fruit was very fine and had grown spontaneously without shade or protection.”
(Nottingham Review and General Advertiser Friday 2 December 1831)
Some sixty plus years later Mr Guy was blessed with an out-of-season crop of plums:
“Mr. Edmund Guy writes from 8 Babbington-street, with reference to a paragraph in our yesterday’s issue, that it is very common this year for a second crop of plums on the Nottingham Hungerhills, and he has this week pulled a very fine lot of Victoria plums himself.”
(Nottingham Evening Post – Friday 19 October 1894)
An inspection of the Hungerhill Gardens by the Nottingham Corporation Estates committee in 1880, followed an earlier deluge of rain:
“…the devastation which the fall of water had wreaked upon the gardens in the neighbourhood was made fully visible. One garden in particular was well-nigh wholly submerged, its fences washed down, and its greenhouse dilapidated, the very duckweed which had intruded itself being driven into corners by the wash of water. The unfortunate tenant did not, however, meet with many expressions of compassion from the members of the Corporation.”
(Nottinghamshire Guardian – 5 November 1880)
Other parts of the article suggest that the flooding occurred on gardens in the vicinity of Coppice Park and the Community Orchard. As gardeners, we know that each year some crops will fail through drought, pest, frost, etc. However, occasionally a successful growing season is experienced on St Ann’s Allotments but, contrary to the words of Elvis Costello, it might not be a good year for the roses:
“With respect to the fruit crop, there is every promise of a rich harvest, particularly as regards plums and pears. The frost has not been detrimental, and the stems are so far free from grub. It is the cleanest and finest bloom since perhaps 1868. The heat of last summer has ripened the wood, and as there has only been a moderate fall of snow a good crop of fruit is ensured. The same cannot be said of the rose crop, for the recent frosts have interfered with the trees.”
(Nottingham Journal 17 May 1900)
