Drought in Yorkshire = thriving Sand Garden and crayfish rescue

Since I wrote last, I’ve been all over the place giving talks and spreading the word about York Gate Garden and Perennial, probably most notably at BBC Gardeners’ World Live in Birmingham.

I really enjoy giving talks, but my passion still lies right here in the garden, although it has definitely been a difficult gardening year.

We have had so much drought that Yorkshire Water has declared a hosepipe ban across the region. We are technically exempt as we need to keep the garden to a high standard for the visitors; we have however tried our best not to use any mains water across the site for watering.

Instead we rely on our borehole at the bottom of the car park to water the nursery and plant sales. The borehole was installed four years ago and draws water directly from an aquifer 30 metres below the garden. This means the water hasn’t been through a treatment plant or stored in a reservoir for human use.

If there was ever a year that proved the Sand Garden’s worth, it would be this year.

Many of the standard garden plants in the garden are showing the signs of stress, wilting in the heat of the day, flowering earlier and growing shorter than usual, we even have shrubs starting to show their autumn colours!

By contrast, the Sand Garden, introduced in 2023, has never looked better. All the plants have adapted to the harsher conditions 2025 has thrown at them, surviving only on the meagre rations mother nature has given them, no supplementary watering necessary. This year’s additions of tender cacti have really ramped up the desert vibes.

However, with the lack of rain the local streams and rivers have been running very low, so much so that a stronghold stream for the now critically endangered native white-clawed crayfish had stopped flowing. The puddle these precious crustaceans had found themselves in was heating up and losing oxygen quickly and in danger of drying up completely.

As we already had a tank set up from the last rescue a couple of years ago – to save them from the invasive American signal crayfish – the Environment Agency saw York Gate Garden as the obvious choice as a safe haven until the rains return. The crayfish will then undergo a health check before being released back into their natural environment.

It’s really great that we are able to support the local conservation efforts in these challenging times.

As I mentioned earlier, some of the shrubs are starting to show their autumn colours, so whilst things are flowering earlier, there’s still so much to see here. We look forward to seeing you soon.