What have we discovered in 2024? From embracing weeds to grow-your-own veg, CIAR BYRNE says it was a 12 months of quiet revolution

This year has not been the easiest in the garden. A long, cold spring was followed by a damp summer.

While not great news for Britons, this was heaven for slugs who multiplied merrily, munching away on our baby greens.

We tried nematodes, beer traps and crushed eggshells, but the only thing that made any real difference was handpicking them off at night.

Next year I am going to grow seedlings under cover until they are large enough to withstand the onslaught of molluscs, as well as plant more slug and snail-resistant cultivars.

This taught us that in Britain, climate change does not necessarily mean we all need to start growing Mediterranean plants.

While these may thrive in hot, dry summers, in wet years they will be unhappy.

Instead, we need to think about growing as diverse a range of plants as possible, in the hope that at least some of them will do well in all the variety of weather conditions that might come our way.

We also need to think about how we manage water in our gardens, whether that is by creating a swale garden with bog-friendly planting that will act as a storm drain, or by putting in rainwater butts to see us through a drought.

New crops: Cultivating food at home for all the family is a trend that is here to stay

BRIGHT REFLECTIONS

On a more positive note, 2024 was the year when we finally embraced peat-free gardening as a mainstream pursuit rather than a niche interest.

This is vital to preserve our peat bogs, which take millennia to form and are an important carbon sink. Garden centres now sell plenty of alternatives including compost made from bark, coir, wood fibre and even sheep’s wool.

Growing your own food continued to be a huge trend that looks set to be here to stay.

Social media influencers showed us how to divide supermarket basil; make celery and spring onions resprout; and grow strawberries, tomatoes and squash from the seeds of shop-bought produce. They also inspired us with daily videos of their well-tended plots. We have learned to love weeds, or rather self-sown native plants, too.

These are often a great food source for pollinators such as comfrey, speed- well, lesser celandine, and white dead-nettle.

SHOWSTOPPERS

At the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in May, in his show garden to mark nearly 100 years of the National Garden Scheme, Tom Stuart-Smith took the humble shed to a new level, making us all desire a mini Aga and a comfortable place to sit alongside handmade tools hanging from sustainable wooden walls.

Meanwhile, Holly Johnston’s Bridgerton Garden reminded us that our outdoors spaces are also for dreamy, romantic escapism, with a planting scheme of ferns and ivies, and a colour palette of lilacs, blues and pinks glimpsed through a ‘moongate’ dry-stone wall.

Prunus ‘Starlight’, a winter and spring-flowering cherry with starry white blooms, was listed the RHS Plant of the Year. Not far behind it was Agave ‘Praying Hands’, a teardrop-shaped succulent, showing that the trend for houseplants has continued to grow apace, and that so-called ‘plant parents’ are always on the lookout for the next new thing to add to their collection.

Urban gardening remained at the forefront with the first ever RHS Urban Show at the Depot Mayfield in Manchester, with show gardens co-designed by students demonstrating how much we can grow even on the tiniest of balconies.

We were shown how to repurpose everyday household items to make planters, as well as choose the best plants for the conditions you have, whether that is deep shade or baking sun.