All things wild and wonderful

When it comes to our gardens, we all have very different needs, styles and desires but if you are tending an outside space you are essentially gardening; you are a gardener. How you chose to garden that space is entirely up to you, there are no rules and regulations, no-one is going to turn up on your doorstep and say “That’s not a garden.”

But, in a world where our wildlife is in tragic decline, we all have a responsibility to consider how we can help in any small way we can and there is so much we can do by starting in our own backyards.

Taking a sensitive approach

RHS Senior Wildlife Specialist Helen Bostock says that even if we can’t recreate exact natural habitats in our gardens, we can adopt a more nature-sensitive, sympathetic approach to gardening, which accounts for it being a shared space, one in which many organisms interact in complex and beautiful ways – what we rightly refer to as the garden ecosystem. 

The Wildlife Trusts: Wilder Spaces. Designed by Jamie Langlands. RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2023. 

What can we do to help nature

• Let it grow - leave some areas of lawn unmown for all, or part, of the year

• Design your space with wildlife in mind - create different habitats in your garden

• To weed or not to weed - is it necessary or can you leave as a habitat?

Let it grow

One simple thing you can try is to not garden a small area. This could mean leaving grass to grow tall against a wall or fence, around trees or shrubs, or around a pond.  This provides opportunities for invertebrates to complete their life cycles on the grasses and flowers as well as providing safe cover for them to move between areas. Extending leaving long grass areas to late June or beyond is better for pollinators than cutting at the end of May, and also saves you precious time.

• 97% wildflower meadows lost in UK in last century

• Long grass better at flood mitigation, cooling, pollution capture, resisting drought than short grass

• Long grass reduces some of the 80,000 tCO2/yr emitted by petrol lawnmowers​

But having a ‘wild’ lawn can also mean short grass that is managed without weedkillers, mosskillers or synthetic fertilisers to allow a rich mix of low-growing plants to flower (e.g. lawn daisies, dandelions, selfheal, speedwell) and provide for pollinators and nesting opportunities for ground-nesting bees.

The RHS Wild About Gardens lawn theme in 2023 highlighted how short grass, if well managed, can benefit biodiversity just as much as long grass.

Grow plants around a pond to give creatures places to hide

Leave longer grass at the edges of your garden

Mown paths at Denman’s Garden in West Sussex, an RHS Partner Garden

Design your space with wildlife in mind

As plants start their growth in spring, decide where you need to be able to walk, sit and play. This will help ‘design’ your space by showing where you need paths, where you need room for kids and animals to play freely, and where you like to sit at various times of the day. You are essentially designing your garden.

Think about the wildlife you share your garden with and the habitats they need. Can you add a small pond? By encouraging a variety of creatures into our gardens we provide food for others in the food cycle, maintaining a healthy balance.  Slugs hoover up garden detritus, frogs munch the slugs. Each has their own vital role to play in the natural world.

Provide habitats for frogs and toads 

Having water in your garden is essential for attracting wildlife

Encourage children to grow and learn about their food

Create wildlife habitats in your garden

To weed or not to weed

Next, think about the plants you already have, be that planted or inherited. There is so much confusion around weeds and how we should tackle them but we need to change our mind-set if we are to maintain a balance.

The key to using this thought in your garden is to decide if a plant is in the right place, regardless of whether you planted it there or not. If you love the pretty herb robert in the walls with its dainty pink flowers leave it be; the Mexican daisy Erigeron karvinskianus is the most prolific seeder, happily throwing itself into every nook and cranny but if you love its happy white and pink petals, enjoy it, removing the

A seedling is a young plant grown from seed.

Geranium robertianum (Herb Robert)

Erigeron karvinskianus (Mexican fleabane)

Garden Designer Jo Thompson gives her expert advice on how to have a little bit of ‘wild’ in your garden

“A wild garden doesn’t need to be an untidy garden, nor does it mean that you should abandon a placeand leave it; weeds will definitely come if you allow them to do so and whilst many of them are gentle beauties, there are some which will most definitely colonise your garden. I really don’t want my garden taken over by brambles and bindweed.

I look instead at the flower forms: the long, then naked stems of Sanguisorba ‘Tanna’, for example, are only a hop and a skip away from the native form. The essential shape of the plant is still there, the wildlife will still thank you but the garden feels relaxed, not too manicured and, importantly, not begging you to maintain it every day. Laid-back is both the approach and the atmosphere.”

The key to achieving a beautiful but slightly wild space is deciding when to garden and when to leave nature to its own devices. We lead busy lives and sometimes people are put off gardening because of the time they feel it needs but by letting go of the reins a little you can allow the creatures to enjoy the woolly edges while you maintain the areas you use on a daily basis. 

Remember, you don’t need to compromise, your garden can be both wild and wonderful.

• Read the 2023 State of Nature report

• List of organic nurseries in the UK