Wild Matters: The coexistence of gardens and nature

Resisting our cultural tendency to ‘tidy’ everything up in our gardens gives untold opportunities for wild creatures

The return of bright, warm days has us all back out in the garden, tidying up, mowing, weeding, and perhaps admiring the planted flowers. But culturally, we are waking up to the idea of allowing more wild nature in our gardens by, as just one example, perhaps leaving the lawnmower in the shed for the month of May.  Picture: iStock

The return of bright, warm days has us all back out in the garden, tidying up, mowing, weeding, and perhaps admiring the planted flowers. Our gardens are places of solace, where we can be ‘outdoors’ yet sheltered, where we can enjoy the colours and textures of plants and trees, often selected especially for their aesthetic appeal. We can sit in comfort in the company of the occasional robin, butterfly or bumblebee.

But how much wild nature do we really allow in our gardens? Richard Mabey opens his book ‘The Accidental Garden’ quoting the Poet R.S. Thompson’s statement that the garden is ‘a gesture against the wild / The ungovernable sea of grass’ which, according to Mabey, “sounds like a summary of the whole human project. We struggle to find a gesture in our relations with the natural world which is more like a handshake than a clenched fist”.