WHY NATURE IS TRENDY
The rise of the wildlife garden
Asea-change has happened at Chelsea Flower Show in the past few years: wildlife-friendly gardening has gone mainstream. ➤ Whether it’s using materials and plants in a way that doesn’t damage the planet, or incorporating wildlife habitats into the design, it seems that every 2020 show garden design put nature first. It’s a niche no more!
The theme for 2020 was the environment and sustainability. The RHS said it wanted this year to be “a platform to encourage a future where we live in harmony with nature...” Now that the Show has been cancelled due to coronavirus, it’s a good time to take stock. ➤
The shift toward gardening in harmony with nature is a sign of our times – and a welcome one at that. Every gardener should be aware of both the climate and biodiversity crises, two intertwined issues that are coming to define the 21st century. We know our bees are struggling; hedgehogs have declined desperately; and we’ve lost 40 million birds from the UK landscape in the past 50 years – all caused by human impact on the planet.
But gardens are an important part of the solution. Take, for example, the Guangzhou Garden (above) planned for this year’s show, by first-time show garden designers Peter Chmiel and Chin-Jung Chen of Grant
Associates. It’s a tranquil woodland glade with a pool at its centre, a mass of calming greens dotted with soft pastel perennials in white, blue and yellow. This effect is easy to achieve in your own garden, yet is adaptable enough to put your own stamp on it.
There’s also an underlying story to this garden. Guangzhou is China’s third largest city and is growing at an astonishing rate. Its city planners are creating an ‘ecological civilisation’ that gives equal consideration to the needs of people and wildlife. By creating a social green space for people and protected green space and wetland habitats for wildlife, it’s attempting to reconnect people with nature. It’s a sign that our
gardens are becoming flagships for our beleaguered planet.
Chelsea Flower Show has the profile and influence to help us arrest nature’s decline and in doing so, offer much-needed hope. ✿
ALLIUMS
On trend in the ‘noughties’, alliums are still a popular choice with show garden designers. A border dotted with these giant purple globes-onsticks has a dramatic sense of rhythm and is irresistible to long-tonged bees. H75cm (30in) S30cm (12in)
The garden is attempting to reconnect people with nature