FEATURE
A guide to
DOMESTIC ‘REWILDING’
KNEPP ESTATE © Charlie Harpur
Rewilding might only refer to large estates, but could we apply its principles to domestic gardens? And, more importantly, should we? WORDS: ASHLEIGH BROWN
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ewilding Britain caused a bit of a stir last year when its garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show won Best in Show. One of its most public critiques was by prolific gardening presenter Alan Titchmarsh. He accused the garden of showing “no signs of gardening” and questioned whether it should have won the show’s top award. On rewilding in general, Titchmarsh said that it made “the assumption that nature is best left to herself and any muscling in on our part is to be deplored. Gardening is, by its very nature, intervention.” His views were shared by some but deplored by others. But what does rewilding even mean, and is it essential? As the large-scale restoration of nature, rewilding includes the reintroduction of habitats, natural processes, and missing species, in an attempt to reduce the climate emergency and extinction crisis. Knepp Estate in West Sussex, which boasts one of the UK’s leading rewilding projects, aims to break the stigma and guide the industry towards an open-minded approach.
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Head gardener Charlie Harpur joined the revolution just over a year and a half ago. “It was that perfect tie together of design and ecology which hooked me.” Sandwiched in-between the North and South Downs, the 320m of heavy Low Weald clay over a bedrock of limestone created a push for the whole rewilding experiment when owner Charlie Burrell decided the land was un-farmable and non-profitable, making things too hard to supply to a competitive market. From this deserted farmland has come quite the jump in the structural diversity and complexity of this landscape, and the mosaic of different habitats is starting to emerge – and with diverse habitats comes diverse wildlife too, creating what we know now as the Knepp Estate Rewilding Project. At 3,500 acres, Knepp is large enough to be able to carry out rewilding, but Harpur says all 23 million gardens in the UK can help to provide wildlife habitats; “that's nearly 4,500 sq km that can play a role in reversing biodiversity loss.” Explaining how mindset is going to be a big part of this push for change and size doesn't matter, Harpur says:
Pro Landscaper | November 2023
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