Gardening with nature
There is always an unsaid tension when gardening.
I openly advertise this space as being wildlife friendly and it is as far as any garden can be.
Firstly, it is important to acknowledge that the best place for wildlife and biodiversity is an untouched natural environment. These places simply do not exist on earth anymore, even the remotes parts are being impacted by climate change and air pollution.
It is also worth noting that most of the plants in our gardens have been brought here over the centuries from far flung destinations.
I think that it is important to acknowledge that the environment we inhabit now is one we have inherited from generations of human intervention.
It is not for us to carry the whole burden and guilt for the stresses that the natural world is being placed under but it is for us to take our own place and take responsibility to try and do better.
I was born in the 1970 and the narrative that I grew up with was a sense of acceptance that year on year there was less of everything than ‘once upon a time,” and this was just the way it was.
This story continues and ever increases 50 years later and having lived here a lifetime I have documented this through my own eyes. Clearly noting that the breath-taking dawn chorus we’re still lucky enough to be able to hear each spring is a shadow of what it once was, even one generation ago.
So, what is the best I can do?
I can choose not to be a purest and work with what I have.
I love this garden.
I have worked hard to develop more formal areas that people expect a garden to be.
We fill the borders colour, plants that we cultivate most of ourselves.
This way we limit the exposure of introducing a foreign biome onto the land.
We grow strong organic healthy plants that do not rely upon being forced with chemicals.
I love the drifts of Snowdrops at the end of the winter, beckoning the spring to come and then these areas remain uncut until the summer.
We allow plenty of wild places, wild verges, hedges and shrubs and a mixture of habitats giving plenty of opportunity to nature to thrive.
Despite being versed with a good basic knowledge of flora and fauna I still have many gaps in my knowledge.
I spend lots of time in the garden and surrounding landscape continually looking and listening and learning.
For me taxonomy is less about the ability to categorise and more about separating one thing from another.
The world is a richer place for knowing that there are more things in it, rather than correctly labelling them.
And the more we know the more we care.
And this in itself is a key part of our well being.
The next QR code is just along the path.