The Great Drought of Spring 2025

It was hard to imagine that after the exceptionally wet winter and very early spring that there would be such a severe drought here.

There has been no significant rain here since the end of Feb, the odd few showers have hardly penetrated the top cm or so of soil. Here we have missed all the thunderstorms and heavy rain experienced in many parts of the U.K.

The sunny, warm and particularly the very many windy days have caused the effects of the drought to be much more serious than it would have been otherwise.

Almost all newly planted trees and shrubs unless well irrigated are under severe drought stress ( as well as many long established specimens) Without copious irrigation our losses would be huge. The time spent watering is very great ( despite all my stock being planted in the ground) and the water bills will be huge. As in recent other drought years almost the only recently transplanted trees which have grown well without irrigation are Field Maple and its cultivars. Even most species of long established trees ( up to 20 years since transplanting into their permanent positions) are mostly showing signs of severe drought stress. Many old trees nearing the end of their life will undoubtedly have their lives significantly shortened by the drought here this year.

Most species of conifers are shedding abnormal quantities of needles, which gives them a much browner look than usual. This is particularly the case with Yew which is normally a very drought resistant tree, most of my many 30+ year old yew trees are looking sorry for themselves, but assuming we get some moderate rain in the next few weeks I am confident they will survive To adequately water a modest sized tree about 5 metres high and 10-20 years old one can assume that ideally such a tree will have a root spread of about 5 metres diameter. When the ground is bone dry for at least half a metre in depth, as it is here now, then to adequately water such a tree would require half a cubic metre or about 100 gallons of water weekly. This would supply about 25mm or 1 inch equivalent of rain over the assumed 5 metre diameter rootzone

G.L. 25.6.25 (See the “ Tree growers notes” on my website regarding weather during the last 12 months)