Going wild to help biodiversity
Gardens are increasingly joining the nationwide move towards rewilding – letting nature take back landscapes to restore biodiversity and tackle climate change.
Campaign group Rewilding Britain says 10 per cent of the UK’s National Parks must return key areas to the wild if the Government is to meet its pledge to protect 30 per cent of Britain for nature by 2030. “National Parks are a shadow of what they could be,” says spokesman Richard Bunting. “But rewilding can kickstart nature recovery.”
More than 100 high-profile figures including TV presenters Chris Packham and Kate Humble have signed an open letter to the royal family calling for the rewilding of royal estates. The letter says that as the nation’s largest private landowner, the monarchy has a “unique and historic opportunity” to lead the way in allowing trees to regenerate and restoring flower-rich grasslands and fens.
Many public gardens are also joining the return to the wild. At National Trust gardens, from Overbeck’s in Devon to Shugborough in Staffordshire, a more relaxed maintenance regime forced by Covid-related staff shortages is to continue, after head gardeners noticed an explosion in wildlife and wildflowers.
In Cornwall, the owners of Trewithen Gardens near Truro have been inspired by the rewilding movement to stop using chemicals, reduce hedge trimming and allow the edges of the 180m South Lawn to grow long. Not everyone likes the result though – some visitors complain the garden has been “let go” and become “overgrown and weedy”. Head gardener Gary Long is unapologetic, saying most have been amazed by the sheer number of flowers: “If you call campions and foxgloves weeds, then yes we’ve got weeds,” he says. “It’s a mindset – expectations need to be changed.”
Fergus Garrett, head gardener at Great Dixter in East Sussex, says even manicured gardens can become “garden nature reserves”. Techniques he uses at Great Dixter include leaving holes in masonry for bees, using ‘weeds’ such as cow parsley as ornamental plants, and letting grass grow long. The garden now hosts over 40 per cent of the UK’s bee species. “We are not rewilding in the true sense,” he says. “We remain a highly ornamental garden, but biodiversity is sky high.”
National Parks are a shadow of what they could be