The Royal Horticultural Society strengthens 2024 guidelines for climate-adaptive garden management… Water, soil, and planting management emerge as key challenges.

A recent trend attracting attention in the global garden management field is the transition of maintenance systems to respond to climate change. The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) in the UK continues to present garden management methods for responding to drought, torrential rains, and high temperatures through its official guides and information pages in 2024. This demonstrates that garden management standards are shifting from merely maintaining aesthetics to managing water usage efficiency, plant survival rates, and the long-term health of the soil together. The key is water management. The RHS believes that in a situation where the uncertainty of rainfall patterns is increasing, garden managers should not respond solely by increasing the volume of watering. Instead, it recommends a combined approach that includes utilizing rainwater, reducing evaporation through mulching, deep watering to promote root establishment, and selecting drought-tolerant planting materials. This approach serves as a direct reference standard not only for the UK but also for the operation of public gardens in major European cities where summer high temperatures and localized torrential rains are recurring. Soil management is also becoming increasingly important. Both the RHS and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in the UK have explained that healthy soil simultaneously determines water retention, drainage, and plant stress resistance. Accordingly, management practices such as organic matter replenishment, minimizing unnecessary soil disturbance, and improving the structure of planting sites are being re-evaluated as fundamental tasks for garden maintenance. Particularly in urban green spaces, where paved areas are repeatedly expanded and soil consolidation occurs, there is a growing trend to view the soil itself as infrastructure. In terms of planting management, the focus is shifting from the traditional emphasis on spectacular seasonal displays to resilience. The RHS emphasizes the selection of tree and flowering species that better withstand changes in climate conditions, the adjustment of planting density, and layout strategies that consider the microclimate. This is also linked to pest and disease management, as the less environmental stress plants experience, the higher the likelihood of mitigating pest and disease damage. As a result, garden management is evolving from a method of treating individual problems separately to a system that integrates the operation of water, soil, and planting. This change holds significant meaning for the management of public gardens and botanical gardens. Garden and urban green space managers in metropolitan areas, including London, are seeking to reduce long-term costs and lower the burden of water consumption and plant replacement through climate-adaptive maintenance systems. From the citizens' perspective, green spaces with high management efficiency contribute to reducing perceived temperatures during heatwaves and conserving biodiversity. This is why gardens are being treated as urban climate response infrastructure, going beyond mere decorative spaces. The implications for the Korean market are also clear. The domestic landscape and garden management industry must simultaneously respond to complex risks such as summer heatwaves, torrential rains, and the spread of pests and diseases. Therefore, it is necessary to move away from a focus on short-term maintenance services and expand integrated maintenance models that include soil diagnosis, water cycle design, climate-adaptive planting, and biodiversity management. Recent examples from UK institutions demonstrate that garden management is no longer a reactive maintenance task, but a strategic operational area for reducing climate risks.