The landscape DESIGNERS

This year, the RHS Chelsea Flower Show will unveil its first beaver-inspired garden. The Rewilding Britain Landscape garden (left), designed by Adam Hunt and Lulu Urquhart, will feature a dam and lodge built using “beaver-gnawed sticks” from rewilded spaces and a “riparian meadow”, a wetland area created when beavers partially flood a riverbank. “It’s not really a garden, but a snapshot of the landscape,” says Adam, adding that sphagnum mosses and thistles will take precedence over blowsy blooms.

For the designers, rewilding isn’t about letting nature take over so much as letting nature back in. “It doesn’t make garden designers redundant, it just changes the brief,” Lulu says. “We need to change our aesthetic and stop tidying up nature. We can still bring beauty to gardens and planting, while letting keystone species flourish.”

See the Rewilding Britain Landscape Garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show (24-28 May) and learn more about their work at urquharthunt.com.