Creating gardens with wildlife in mind has been accepted garden practice for the past 50 years. But a new school of thought coming out of environmental activism suggests that our traditional approach to making spaces that are wildlife-friendly has been clouded by human bias that still puts human needs first, and leaves nature as a tokenistic afterthought.
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Notions about ‘nature-first’ gardening and ecocentric or interspecies design have begun to come to the fore, describing an attitude towards gardens that seeks to put Nature in the driving seat. If we put the needs of the more-than-human species that live in our gardens on a par with our own needs, what will our gardens look like? Can we even garden anymore? Style and taste have dominated garden design for much of the past century. The biggest shift that ecocentric and biocentric design asks the gardener to make is to put a philosophy at the centre of their ideas and practice in the garden. This doesn’t mean to say that nature-first gardens don’t have beauty, but they don’t have a commonality of look.
This doesn’t mean to say that nature-first gardens don’t have beauty, but they don’t have a commonality of look.
Emphasising the protection and importance of living things and naturally occurring things and de-emphasising human needs may seem a lot like wildlife gardening, until it dawns that there are an estimated one billion forms of life, and 10,000 different species of organism living in a teaspoon of your topsoil, and there isn’t a handy gardening book explaining ‘how to’ and which monthly jobs you should be doing to look after their needs.
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Rather than be overwhelmed by the amount of ecological knowledge we don’t yet possess, or the crippling responsibility of being accountable for so much ‘life’, proponents of this approach to garden-making flip the vast unknown on its head, and convert it into a huge possibility to experiment, learn and grow differently. In much the same manner as a ‘rewilding’ approach to conservation, an ecologically positive garden aims to be process-led rather than goals-orientated. Instead of expecting to know what needs those who use your garden have, a garden is an opportunity to discover and collaborate with who and what lives around you.
Reframing our relationship with plants is key for American designer Ben Vogt, who creates gardens where lawns are replaced with prairie plantings, and where plants are much more than seasonal colour. They are communities that co-exist in a dynamic landscape that provides food and habitat for local invertebrates and others that depend on them. Many of these indigenous prairie plants are better adapted to the conditions of the regional environment, so require fewer resources to grow. The density and diversity of this type of planting means that ‘weeds’ have less room to grow and establish and that ‘pests’ are welcomed as part of a cycle of life that will find its own balance. The biomass of the planting is so dense that some losses in the plants are not noticed among the leafy abundance. Pests and diseases have evolved for a monoculture system, so plant variety and health means that they are unable to dominate.
Pests and diseases have evolved for a monoculture system, so plant variety and health means that they are unable to dominate
From a European perspective, the ability of plants to colonise, naturalise and co-exist within a site drives the design concept for those such as French landscape architect Gilles Clément, who is inspired by the plant communities of wastelands. These communities, he believes, can teach us a lot about the resilience and regenerative properties of plants as we garden in a changing climate.
Considering soil as a living system that supports all life above ground, and recognising plants as autonomous, means that gardening these spaces radically shifts from a maintenance chore to an elevated complex stewardship that mixes soil science with ecology and botany. Much of the management of these new spaces combines traditional ecological knowledge from indigenous peoples with the latest thinking about soil ecologies and pollinators to create a heady mix. In many ways, it is the steep learning curve that those who garden these nature-centric gardens need to go on that is the biggest obstacle to their progress. Gardening is still seen as a low-paid, low-skill job, and if we are to move forward, we need to recognise gardeners as the crucial keystone species on which these gardens now depend.
Jo McKerr is a landscape consultant and garden writer who runs workshops on creating ecological gardens. jomckerr.com