Recently I asked myself these questions: what is the difference between a garden and a wildlife garden? How is wildlife gardening different from the management of natural habitats?’
“Ornamental grounds laid out for public enjoyment and recreation” is the Oxford English dictionary’s definition of a garden, although I like Wikipedia’s version more as it incorporates a wildlife element: “A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature.”
I asked these questions while trying to decide how I felt about the Natural History Museum’s plans to develop its garden. I had been asked to come on board with the project as horticultural advisor to oversee the prehistoric planting of the Eastern grounds, the translocation of some of the garden’s trees and the creation of new, living, botanical displays at the front of the building. I wondered how the concept of gardening - the taming of nature - fitted with the museum’s strategy to challenge the way visitors think about humanity’s relationship with the natural world and to engage people with it. How can a gardened environment engage people with the natural world? How would the new, larger wildlife garden section, with its increased access for visitors, affect the biodiversity that has been found on the site over the past 20 years? Would the temporary disturbance have a longer term impact?
My own garden was never set out as a place for nature. It was converted five years ago from a monoculture of grass lawn into a place to house my collection of “fossil” plants: members of plant families that were around at the time of the dinosaurs or before. Yet a large part of the enjoyment I get from my garden is from the nature it attracts. I was so excited the day I saw the first damselfly in the garden, and the fact that my pond is full of frogs and newts gives me endless satisfaction. I have enjoyed watching the slow process of moss and lichen colonising the old logs and rocks at the side of the path, and in recent months I have delighted in the blue tits scouring every leaf on every plant in their hunt for caterpillars to feed their young. My own 115m² garden is a little nature reserve full of species that I never invited or introduced; they arrived whether I liked it or not.
Britain’s gardens cover more land area than Britain’s nature reserves. They should go quite some way towards protecting the biodiversity that our little island holds. That wealth of biodiversity, however, is to a large extent here precisely because we manage, or garden, it. Very little of the “natural” habitat we have in the UK is untouched by human hand, and many, many of the species we count so dearly as native were introduced to augment this land for the pleasure or use of mankind.
I was reminded of this while walking in the Caledonian pine forest of the Beinn Eighe national nature reserve in the highlands of Scotland – a nature reserve that seems like one of the “wildest” places you could possibly be. Most of the reserve is little visited by people, but the land is far from left to its own devices. The majority of the Scots pine trees have been planted (the local parents of these plants are genetically closer to those found in Spain than the others in Scotland) and browsing deer are excluded in order to let the pines grow. Even the white tailed sea eagles that are seen within the reserve are there because they were reintroduced by humans - the whole reserve managed so that people can take pride in their natural heritage.
While walking the trails of this semi natural habitat, I was confronted by a large party of American tourists - a group so similar to the tourists I had earlier seen marching around the gardens of Brodick castle making exclamations about the trees, the views and the way the garden is maintained. They were there enjoying the huge variety of plant species found around the reserve and they were making the same exclamations about the trees, views and management. It sounds like a garden, doesn’t it?
For a number of years I worked at Conwy RSPB nature reserve, a place entirely developed from the mud dredged from the bottom of the Conwy estuary in order to build a tunnel. From its very conception, the reserve has been managed and moulded specifically for the benefit of nature and people. Never standing still for a moment on its journey to become a haven to introduce people to wildlife. A tweak here, a new path there, a new pond or the coppicing of a section of scrub woodland; it’s all grist to the mill of the vast number of species that use the reserve as a home or a stopping off point between homes; definitely a planned space for the enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature.
If my chosen definition of a garden is used, then the lines between natural landscapes and gardens are surely blurred.
Wildlife gardening in recent times has become a section of horticulture deemed distinct from the rest; a theme for a specific style of gardening. Yet with the right planning, infrastructure and management, all gardens can and should be homes for nature.
However, gardens and nature don’t (and shouldn’t) stand still. They have to evolve. And in this little island of ours, they evolve hand in hand with one another, and their management and moulding by people is integral to the biodiversity they hold.
London’s cathedral to the natural world now has a great opportunity for its wildlife garden - an area already highly managed - to evolve. I know that, given the right moulding, nature will move in, just as it has everywhere on our tiny island. From the dizzy heights of Scotland’s mountains to the backs of terraced houses in North Wales, the gardens of Britain are a haven for nature, relishing the superintendence of man for the purpose of his enjoyment.
