GCAT Assesses Plants Against Projected Local Climates — SkimNews
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- Garden Climate Assessment Tool (GCAT) is being developed by the Future National Gardens Group as a free risk-assessment service that tests users’ plant lists against projected local average temperature, natural distribution, winter cold and climate dryness.
- Future National Gardens Group comprises the Royal Horticultural Society, National Trust, English Heritage and Royal Botanic Gardens; professional gardeners were invited to trial the tool on Monday, but its release date is uncertain and public access remains a long-term goal.
- Botanic Gardens Conservation International launched the source model in Australia in 2022 for trees; the UK coalition extended it to plants, with up to 80,650 plant types and data from 289 UK gardens now in the system and continual updates planned.
- Sam Brockington said the tool will identify UK plants that are struggling so gardeners can gradually remove them from collections, matching the project’s aim of anticipating climate effects rather than reacting to them.
- Clive Boase welcomed the tool for east England, the UK’s driest region, as support for replacing water-hungry lawns, hydrangeas and delphiniums; he also said gardeners need help changing the traditional English garden aesthetic.
- Alistair Griffiths, the RHS’s director of science, acknowledged that soil type is not yet among the tool’s variables; Epsom Garden Society secretary Kim Shrosbree estimated that roughly 70% of plants recommended for Epsom would not grow on its chalk soil.
Why it matters: With 289 UK gardens already supplying data, the project gives horticultural institutions a shared basis for identifying climate-vulnerable plants and planning collections. The practical limit is equally material: soil type is excluded, and Epsom Garden Society secretary Kim Shrosbree estimated that about 70% of plants recommended for the area would fail on its chalk soil.
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