The other week I enjoyed attending the first Head of Gardens meeting in Edinburgh. An excellent initiative with the purpose to connect Scotland’s head gardeners, garden owners, plant-collection managers, botanists, and landscape professionals, to exchange ideas and experiences.

            I don’t need to convince you the benefits of what our outdoor space brings, enjoyed by millions of us throughout the country in its simplest form as a relaxing pastime. However, as you can see from the list above, there are those who also treat gardening and horticulture in our country as serious business.

            The changing climate and its effects on garden plant collections in the coming years was the main focus of all the presentations on the day. Although we won’t ever be immune, we learned that Scotland may very soon become the place on this island to see plants such as Hydrangea, Acer and many others that appreciate steady moisture around their roots to perform at their best, which will struggle to grow and potentially be lost to gardens further south if they continue to see the dry weather they had this summer.

            To give you an idea of where we are heading, indications are that the gardening conditions generally experienced over the last few decades in the London area are what I should expect for where I garden in Perth come the years 2050 to 2080, thus giving me an idea of what my garden could begin to look like in future.

            For me, herbaceous perennial plants the likes of Geraniums, Rudbeckia. Phlox and Iris are all quick and easy to add to the garden if we find in time they become challenging to grow where we all each garden today. However, shrubs can sometimes take a good five years to make a small impact with trees even longer so require patience and time for them to grow.

            I need to start planning now.

            With all that in mind, I’m now going to be looking closer to the trees and shrubs currently growing at the likes of RHS Wisley, Kew and the woodland gardens of High Beeches as a strong guide to future choices.

            There is one generations old method of gardening that I also intend to make more use of to navigate the stress my plants will face, composting. What I’m thinking is, if I can produce more of my own, made up simply from the garden and kitchen waste I produce at home, I’ll be able to use this as a mulch around my plants. Mulching is probably the one key gardening job I’d always advise as can feed the soil, and the plants themselves will benefit when we apply a layer of compost around 7cm to 10cm thick under their canopy.

            Carried out in autumn a mulch can act as an insulation layer to any delicate plants you currently have or wish to try pushing the boundaries of going forward. Or if applied in spring to soil that’s wet helps to trap that moisture meaning it will take the soil a little longer to dry out and so longer intervals will be required between watering. Especially of new plantings.

            Bagged potting compost from the shops doesn’t really work as well as a composted or decorative bark that has a bit more substance about it. This comes at a price too which is why I like opting for making my own compost.

            My composting area consists of 5 old pallets that I was able to acquire from local businesses, knocked together in an M-shape so giving me two bins, placed on the shaded north side of my wee 6ft by 8ft glasshouse. This is my homemade contraption that works for me, but you can get some stylish purpose made ones too.

            With us getting to the time of year where my summer containers will be giving way for autumn displays, leaves from surrounding trees are falling on the lawns and foliage from herbaceous perennials now past their best, all this and more can be going into one of my bins which I’ll keep filling until completely full.

            Over winter as this begins to decompose, I’ll help speed up the process by once a month giving the compost in here a turn which basically means getting the fork in and mixing all up. This helps air get into the mix and speed up the decomposition process.

            Leaves, prunings, wood chippings, paper and cardboard, are known as brown or dry materials when composting, soaking up the excess moisture of the wetter, green materials such as grass clippings, weeds and vegetable peelings from the kitchen. To make a good compost we need to get the right mix of brown and green materials with the ideal ratio being one brown to two green but I’m happy with a half and half mix When I know I’ve put a lot of leaves on I’ll make sure there are more veg peelings put in or even a few grass clippings from its final cut to balance this off.

            Some things are changing in our gardens, but we’ll still be able to rely on some good old basic gardening methods to help us adapt.