Latest Moan From You and Me 2025

Haven't posted on here for a little while, but I often take a look. Your comment re the disgusting mess chimed with me @Thevictorian . It's been appalling since the pandemic. The damage to our wilder areas - trees chopped down for fires, and rubbish left everywhere, for example, is beyond belief. We had a very disturbing problem years ago in Glen Etive due to a James Bond film being partly filmed there. The behaviour of people was totally irresponsible. 'Irresponsible' is the polite term to describe it.
The attitude of people has become worse too, although perhaps it was just less obvious in the areas I go to, because there were fewer people there in the past. A lot of very self entitled, thoughtless people around. Again, 'people' is the polite term.

 

Every time we get fire warnings I find small fires started in the woods.

Sometimes these warnings just give certain people ideas imo

 

That's a good point @pete , but there are definitely folk who think fires are fine no matter where they have them. It's also the fact that they don't put them out properly. They don't understand that the ground below is still hot, and can easily re ignite.
I don't know what the answer is, but the ever increasing dryness of land in all sorts of areas means the problem isn't going away any time soon.
It does come back to parenting too. Some youngsters will do things regardless of what they've been taught, but some are just feral because there is no parenting to speak of.

 

Our problem in the local woods is people camping. I think they may have recently left prison and have no where else to go but it's been quite prevalent over the last few years. There are ever increasing fire pits that normally still smoldering in the mornings and trash everywhere. I don't think it will be long before the whole place goes up in flames, as the people tend to be two sheets to the wind or high as a kite most of the time.

Last time I was in Ambleside, there was a large group having a party in a gazebo on common land next to Windermere and when they left they just left all the rubbish and several small fires. I just don't get the mentality of people to spoil nature.
Here one of the objections to a new mcdonalds was that it backed onto local woodland and the place would be strewn with litter from it. This is the site where the council refused planning as it's already a dangerous junction, near the school and the woodland, but they couldn't afford to fight in court anymore and it was given the go ahead. We just learnt they aim for 24/7 opening hours as well.

 

Even people camping in the park where I go, I find it slightly intimidating as often in small groups.
Homeless and illegals mostly, they leave rubbish if they move on, mostly bottles, gas containers, human excrement and the used paper.

 

I listen to BBC local radio Humberside and they often mention climate change but for the last few weeks they have been constantly going on about a Coldplay concert but they haven't mentioned the 78 lorries bringing the equipment needed seems to me very one sided

 

This summer weather has spawned a new round of, This what we have to expect from now on, until autumn comes and the whole weather pattern reverses .

 

It's the large swings in the weather/climate that cause the biggest problems IMO @pete .
We're seeing that up here, because we now get more frequent, longer dry spells here in summer, and when it's sunny, the temps are definitely much higher than 20 years ago. The TV weather chap was saying the other day that the average at this time of year is about 18 degrees [which I'd agree with] and we're about 9 or 10 above that with the current temps.
Winters are now regularly milder, which means they're wetter [in the west particularly] because it means rain rather than snow. We still get lots of frosts, but we get more ice because of those swings.
That winter a couple of years ago meant plants died - I lost Phormiums [which I've grown in several gardens for decades] because they didn't get a chance to gradually cool down from autumn into winter. It stayed mild all through autumn, then winter suddenly arrived so the temp. swing was around 20 degrees at times.
August is normally quite autumnal here - you feel a change in the air from the first week, but that hasn't happened recently either. It's horribly humid.

 

All I will add is last summer was pretty normal around here.
Nothing hot and mostly very changeable.

 

Last summer was a more normal one here @pete , but there's no doubt things are changing - more severely in some places. It's about adapting and experimenting with our gardens though, isn't it?
That can be challenging, but then again- when is gardening not challenging!

 

I certainly can't remember a previous period of such warm and dry weather. We don't seem to have had appreciable rainfall for several months now.

 

The summer a few years ago where we had 40c weather was worse for us here. It was much drier then and half the gardens either burned away or looked as if they would succumb. This year it's not been great but I haven't seen the consistent wilting foliage of most plants.

The problem with climate change is its a general change over time that is important, not the year to year fluctuations. The media just doesn't help the situation, they ram it all down people's throats constantly to the point it puts people off.

 

Mahonia or Berberis why cannot the botanists and taxonomists decide whether Mahonia are all actually Berberis as some believe, or Berberis are nearly all Berberis, Mahonia are mostly Mahonia and memberships just need tweaking see here for discussion Mahonia - Trees and Shrubs Online
Then the plant sellers can label things with certainty.

 

We don't get a huge range of conditions here, and a normal summer can mean 3 months of no rain, so this yr isn't unusual. Winters are maybe a bit milder than 20 yrs ago, and the week of frosts we used to get in Feb doesn't always happen. The biggest change is probably more windy weather. Gales that used to be confined to autumn pretty much, with the odd outlier, now hit any time. I've never had summer foliage seriously damaged by storms till the last couple of yrs.