It’s time to stop waging war on garden bugs, says Monty Don

MOST gardening books include tips on how to save prized plants from the ravenous jaws of slugs.

However, Monty Don has rewritten his 20-year-old gardening bible The Complete Gardener to reflect that he now welcomes bugs into his flower beds.

While he has always been a campaigner for organic gardening, he admits his approach may have been “too tidy” in the past, and did not fully take nature into account.

Don told Radio 2’s Zoe Ball Breakfast Show: “I was asked to bring out a new edition two years ago and I thought, no, no, I’ve got other things to do. Then I thought I’d just write an introduction and a few other pieces here and there. But I had another look at it and thought, God, things have changed so much here in the garden, in the world. Life has changed, I’ve changed, I’m older.

“So it was time to revamp the whole thing, and it reflects the huge changes in the garden that have happened.

“People have realised their back gardens, however small, however modest, are incredibly rich with wildlife and are the door to the world at large. You don’t have to go to the rainforest or the Himalayas or the melting glaciers in the Arctic to really appreciate nature. That’s good and bad but the troubling side is climate change affects us all. If you get your garden right, if everybody does that, it’s really powerful stuff.

“And it’s not hard to encourage wildlife. Don’t be too tidy – nature isn’t there to be conquered, she is there to be celebrated. Sometimes she wins – sometimes your prized bloom gets eaten. It’s about balance. That feeds into your soul and improves happiness, the best way to have a rich life and work with nature.”