Botanic garden’s strategic ‘weediness’ sparks outrage

As major UK gardens seek new ways to meet the challenges of climate change and make better use of resources, one garden’s approach has landed them in hot water. Unkempt planting at Ventnor Botanic Garden (VBG) has triggered protests from a previous senior manager and a Friend’s group. The maintenance system, dubbed the ‘Ventnor Method’, employed by managers running the Isle of Wight venue, was rubbished in a letter to the Isle of Wight County Press by ‘shocked’ ex-curator Simon Goodenough. The cliff-side garden is noted for its tender and subtropical plantings. “The much vaunted “Ventnor Method” is a smoke screen for a total lack of care and maintenance, completely at odds with the naturalistic plantings I had the pleasure to curate” said Simon, noting the “so-called Mediterranean Garden” was “a sea of weed species,” with “collections of plants amassed in the 1980s and 1990s all but gone,” adding the 54-year-old venue didn’t deserve the title ‘Botanic’. A volunteer group also waded in, with Valerie Pitts, chair of Ventnor Botanic Garden Friends’ Society (VBGFS) emailing 300 plus members to say it would no longer fund plants until they could be “assured the plants can be appropriately planted and cared for.” Rapid turnover of staff was also a concern, with recently appointed head gardener Michelle Cain, previously at Sissinghurst, suddenly exiting. Speaking to trade magazine Horticulture Week, VBG director John Curtis defended its approach, saying the garden “isn’t shirking any responsibilities” but “presenting plants as they would be seen in the wild, allowing them to “naturalise without too much intervention”. Climate change and shortages of resources created a “need for a conversation about gardening differently in the 21st century” he thought, saying its