Last year was the UK's warmest year on record, and predictions from the Meteorological Office and University of East Anglia say that 2007 will be hotter again. What will poor gardeners do then? Hide in a barn? Possibly they will, but there is no need; it's simply a matter of changing the way we plant our gardens.

Think about those trends. Hotter summers and wetter winters suggest wonderful summer holidays for the price of a bit of stiff-upper-lipping in winter. But then remember that most of our rainfall is expected to come outside the summer months; there won't be timely downpours to sweeten the land at the end of every roasting fortnight. The urge to get out the hose or the can will be greater than ever, as delphiniums droop and phlox flag, but even assuming public reservoirs and pipework manage to save enough water, gardening will always come way down the list of social priorities, after domestic and industrial uses. We should be choosing, responsibly, not to water gardens, so that daily life is not disrupted.

As ever, the eastern side of the country is expected to suffer the worst shortage of rainfall, and the south, not surprisingly, is expected to be the hottest. The place those two trends overlap is therefore in the poor old South East, where there are most people, most gardens and where stored water is least plentiful.

The changing climate will bring more extremes to all aspects of the weather — floods, heat waves, gales — and not just winter ones. A summer gale fairly sucks the sap out of a plant, and if that garden is already drought-stricken... It all sounds like medieval torture for those lush, leafy plants which traditionally have spelt English garden. Nobody, surely, wants to look at a garden full of stressed plants crying out for help. Time to change.

Now it's tempting to think that change means imitating the tropical look, with cannas, bananas and taro, and it's true these things like the heat. But they also like lashings of moisture — serious rains — and we shall not have that. In a drought, jungle plants are a nonsense, and to promote their use as a solution to drought is misguided. In pots they may provide flamboyant highlights, but there they are even thirstier than in the ground and more wasteful of water (this goes for most plants in containers, even bedding plants, depending upon the species).

Far better than falling into the tropical trap is to look hard at traditional gardens and to translate the look by using different plants; to recreate the fullness and rhythms and contrasts of a traditional border using drought-tolerant species. Fine lawns always look miserable and stressed if they are not watered in drought (what can be more profligate than a golf course where water is scarce?) and they need to be let go for rougher grass, possibly yellow in summer, or a hard surface. Gravel over a weed-proof membrane will let through the water and ensure it is absorbed by the soil rather than run into a drain, but gravel is a look which speaks drought louder than ever. If in an urban garden you want a softer, less scrubby look, then a better solution could be a mixture of paving and gravel, set among deeper but drought-tolerant borders and upon which a water-retaining mulch has been generously loaded in spring.

The kind of soil upon which you garden will become ever more important, because the hardiest, most heat and drought-resistant plant in the world will die if it becomes waterlogged. The freer-draining the soil, the drier the garden will be in summer, since it cannot retain the moisture as well as heavier soils. To achieve a good garden, there will be as much personal trial-and-error as ever there was, and that's part of the fun of gardening.

What will be new is the palette of plants you work with and discovering which flower when and with what. That's fun too.

Out with the wilters...

Spires and taller plants

Out: Delphinium, Persicaria bistorta, Lupin, Eupatorium, Waterside irises, Senecio smithii, Dahlias, Cannas, Bananas, Many bamboos, Horse chestnut.

In: Allium, Agapanthus, Eryngium, Oenothera biennis, Verbena bonariensis, Stipa grasses, Eremurus, Macleaya, Acanthus, Perovskia, Yucca.

Medium-height plants

Out: Asters, Phlox, Dahlias, Hostas, Mophead and lacecap hydrangeas, Rhododendrons and azaleas, Potentilla fruticosa.

In: Artemisia, Ballota, Phlomis, Atriplex halimus, Rosemary, Ceanothus, Cistus, Genista, Santolina, Euphorbia characias.

Bulbs and ground cover

Out: Astrantia, Astilbe, Daffodils, Bluebells, Hostas, Ferns, Pulmonaria, Primula, Ranunculus, Tradescantia.

In: Acaena, Cyclamen, Convalleria, Bergenia, Nerine, Nepeta, Origanum, Paperwhite narcissi, Tulips, Hellebores.

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