Introduction
O
ver the many years I’ve worked in gardens, I’ve worn many hats – both literal and figurative! I’ve broken ground in the coldest depths of a UK winter, and studied the karri tree in the blistering heat of the Western Australian bush. I’ve led vast redesigning projects in the public realm and spent many hours propagating seedlings in dilapidated greenhouses of quiet country estates. Labels and titles mean little to me, but I’ve been given many: landscaper, plant buyer, gardener, horticulturist, student of botany, designer, head gardener, nursery manager, veg grower and garden writer. I spend my days in the muck and the flowers, with all the trials and tribulations and joys and satisfaction that go with a weathered life. Gardening is in my bones; not only has it provided for me and my family, but it has also taught me more than I ever thought I’d gain from a simple and honest occupation. When you work with your hands in the soil and the sun on your back, you take in the natural world at close quarters, in an
The Ecological Gardener immersive way. You go where others do not, and see what they do not see. You can glimpse wildlife – which is often illusive – more readily and in more detail, understand soil health with a greater depth of wisdom, and more closely observe the way water moves and collects through the ground. There is an almost overwhelming amount of knowledge to glean from nature. The study of plants alone can occupy many years of a gardener’s lifetime. For me, however, this tactile, tangible closeness with nature has also revealed gardens as bellwethers of a changing landscape. I have seen first-hand the damaging effects non-organic lawn fertilisation can have on the watercourses of a garden, and noticed the lifelessness of a relentlessly cultivated flower. I’ve witnessed the folly of rigidly aesthetical design unfold and been privy to the exhaustive lengths of control we seek to bring over nature’s wild habit, all while the seasons and prevailing climate have changed and become more dynamic and extreme, with climate records tumbling by the year, not by the decade. As a civilisation we have imprinted on the order of the natural world so dramatically as to have changed its composition beyond what is sustainable, and we now find ourselves at a crossroads where, if we do not choose a new path forward, we face a future of even greater extremes and disharmony. And yet we hold within our grasp the possibility of readdress and regeneration, the chance to reset the clock for ourselves and for many generations to come. Reimagining how we garden may seem like a small way to help mitigate our ecological crisis, but it’s an important one, and it has the ability to make a substantial difference. Gardens are natural spaces after all, the great green lungs of every nation; individual and idiosyncratic but together fundamental to their local and wider ecosystems. How we guide them will be the difference between a future in which they play a key role in restoring nature’s health, or one in which we continue our parsimonious approach to nature’s needs. While there needs to be a collective changing of the guard, from the community scale to the planetary, small acorns make mighty oaks, and it’s also what we do as individual gardeners, today and tomorrow, that matters.
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Introduction
To garden is to foster a bond between ourselves and the natural world.
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The Ecological Gardener Indeed, much has changed for the better since I first began gardening. I now design and maintain more wildflower meadows than ever before, and I’ve found more clients can be encouraged to make their own compost and leave areas of their gardens a little rough and wild. My clients also think twice about easy-fix pesticide remedies, and make tangible efforts to harvest rainwater rather than using mains water. However, the pace of change has been slow, and the uptake of ideas selective and restrained, despite growing collective consciousness about alternatives to conventional gardening. I understand this more than most, as the perils of the garden owner are presented to me on a daily basis. For my clients, I’m a reference through a horticultural world full of mysteries, helping to ease what can be a daunting and confusing journey towards more regenerative practices. I intend The Ecological Gardener to fulfil a similar role for all those who leaf through its pages, whether seasoned and green-fingered or a wide-eyed novice. I hope to guide and inspire in equal measure, working towards a new ethos, a changed method and a fresh approach to the gardening craft. This book places ecological considerations above all else, but without reducing the importance of gardens as platforms for individual expression, aesthetical value and style. Many traditional approaches to gardening need to be reconsidered, and many more new and fresh ideas need to be embraced. The Ecological Gardener deals with the more aesthetical and ecological aspects of gardens and gardening rather than vegetable production. While growing food and increasing biodiversity are not mutually exclusive, almost all vegetables grown in the UK are not native and this changes the way wildlife and ecosystems exist (or don’t exist) in our gardens. To me, this fact marks a dividing line between those gardens whose primary aim is to encourage a wide and diverse ecology of wildlife and those that prioritise production and human sustenance above all. In an ecology-first garden, a blackberry plant covered in aphids is a sign of abundance, not lack of production or yield. However, the ecological gardening mentality does not defend plants at all costs. In fact, it
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Introduction even avoids many organic practices such as biological control and organic sprays. Growing food organically is hugely rewarding and possibly our greatest route to sustainable sustenance, but for balance we also need gardens that promote wildlife and beauty. Throughout this book these ideas are given room for their promise to be realised, with their methods laid out step-by-step so they can be applied in the garden. But it’s also a book of aspiration and inspiration, journeying through the many cycles of elemental ecology in a garden and how we can challenge our minds as much as our hands to think anew about the green spaces we tend. Without inspiration, there is no motivation. If gardening is only hard work, then the mind has ceased to believe in the cause. Bring the full force of the bitter winter winds and a gardener who knows that their endeavour is for the greater good will work long past the hour others give in. The choices we make in our gardens today will be felt by many generations to come. Our gardens can become refuges for wildlife, and the lifeblood of a restitution of soil health and life. They can foster a rebalancing of our water systems towards a clean and more prosperous future, and they can aid in the regeneration of indigenous plant diversity and abundance. All will mean a great leap into the unknown where we live side by side with the natural world, and its provisions are not plundered nor its functions weakened. Gardens can become ecosystems like their cousins in the wild, moving and living dynamically and in harmony within the natural spaces they exist. Gardens are the portals to the regeneration of our bonds to the wild, and if we take the right path, their remedy will replenish us all.
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