The Sustainable Garden - No. 3 - Through dark green eyes – seeing your garden differently

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and a fresh perspective can take time and effort. Small changes in the way we look at the garden, challenging preconceptions and developing new understanding can go a long way to making a greener place

Nothing remains the same forever, and the garden is no different. There has been a more or less garden-like space outside our home for thousands of years but what we have done with that space, how it looks and is used, has varied constantly.

The reason for those changes has ranged from political to social to economic, but sooner or later, for one reason or another, change has come. Gardens have been designed to exhibit power (formal French gardens), for social justice (Victorian philanthrophy), as acts of patriotism (the English Landscape Movement) and in response to industrialisation (Arts & Crafts gardens). Always they have reflected and responded to new ideas, new circumstances and new priorities.

It is therefore not surprising that major issues of our own time, like climate change, should influence how we design our gardens. Seeing change therefore as inevitable and the sustainable garden as just another step in the long evolution of the garden helps put this transition into perspective.

Changing rooms

It does not come easily. Inertia is powerful and ‘going with the flow’ comfortable. Resistance is embedded in our culture, not least in the language we use with the likening of our gardens to the interiors of our homes and the oft-cited ‘room outside’ analogy.

The ‘garden rooms’ developed at Sissinghurst by Vita Sackville-West in the 1930s morphed with time into an idea better suited to gardens the rest of us could relate to, gardens more room sized in fact, and became associated with another related idea, that of an inside-out living space close to the house.

In 1985 The Room Outside (1), written by the much-celebrated John Brookes, was published and the concept has been a pillar of garden design ever since.

A room is eminently relate-able and the ‘room outside’ has been a useful idea. It tells us about scale and how the garden can become an integrated part of our living space, more manageable and less daunting if we think of it in terms we are familiar with (i.e. our home). For encouraging us to see more potential in how to use our gardens it has surely been a good thing.

But the language, if not the original concept, also suggests other things. Essentially that we can make the outside more like the inside, that we can furnish the garden with flooring, furniture and fireplaces, that plants are optional and that we can keep the garden clean and tidy, as we do our homes, with chemicals and rubber gloves.

Taken to its extreme, the ‘room outside’ becomes about exerting control over the garden for our sole comfort and convenience. It shifts the perception of a garden closer to that of a built environment, and away from a planted one. It becomes exclusive, like a gated community, free from interference from troublesome Nature.

Make room for habitat

The idea of the outdoor room will continue to inform us, but perhaps now is time to develop new words to describe what we are seeking to achieve with our gardens because language is powerful and influences both our perceptions and our actions.

Some degree of control, or management, is inevitable in a garden, no matter what we are trying to achieve, but a more sustainable one aims to shift the dial from hard to soft (from concrete to plants) and from exclusive to inclusive (from us to us and them).

So, what words can we use to describe a new, sustainable approach, if not to replace then at least combine with the ‘Room Outside’? ‘The ‘Sustainable Garden’ encompasses the big idea but doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue. A catchy phrase may have to wait, but one word that goes a long way is simply ‘habitat’.

The garden as habitat both for us and other creatures. While it is important to think about how the space will work for us as much as for birds, insects and small mammals, viewed through the prism of habitat a garden takes on a very different dimension. It becomes about life in the broad sense and can for that become a beautiful, animated and magical place. It reminds that we are part of, not separate from, the nature.

If ‘habitat’ is at least considered in every decision we take a better environmental balance can be reached. How much paving do we really need? Is such a large lawn necessary? Do we need to clear the leaves away from under the hedge? Does it matter that there are some nettles behind the shed? Does the boisterous honeysuckle really need to be pruned back? All these little decisions can add up to a more, or less, biodiverse garden and a more, or less, carbon intense one.

The endless list of chores need never be the same again. The seed-heads left to stand long will catch the winter light, be where ladybirds hibernate and goldfinch forage. Leaves left in a border will morph into lattice and then disappear, food for worms and soil.

Patches of lawn left fluffy will spot with daisy, speedwell and celandine, be overflown by bumblebees and provide a pleasing visual texture and contrast to the neat lawn nearby. Pruned twigs concealed in piles under shrubs, rather than burnt, will nurture strange fungi, unseen amphibians and a whole nation of invertebrates, that in turn will attract birds and hedgehogs.

Seeing the beauty

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but that doesn’t tell the whole story. A better definition I have seen is that ‘appreciation of what is beautiful is subjective – changing with familiarity, understanding and time’ (2). It is active and evolving.

Allowing ourselves time to really see and appreciate the garden takes conscious effort. It is more than a series of maintenance interventions, our quick glances through the window to assess what ‘needs to be done’. This is not to say that working in the garden cannot be a pleasure, and is not important, just that engagement beyond that will foster greater understanding.

Taking time to notice the mini life and death dramas that play out across even the smallest garden, the exquisite design of a flower close-up, the fine engineering of a fern frond as it unfurls, or the way light plays across the garden through the day, can animate our senses, stir our imagination and more fully connect us to a place, and appreciate the nature in it.

A bit of cultural appropriation might also help. Tempering the western preference for perfection with a Japanese appreciation of the imperfect, and their idea of Wab-sabi (3), will not only let us see the beauty in mossy pots, less than pristine paving and slightly wonky woodwork but may also lighten the burden of our own cultural aspirations – think shabby chic!

A gentle plea for chaos

Not real chaos of course, just a looser grip on the reins. In A Gentle Plea for Chaos (4) Mirabel Osler encourages us, as one review summarized, ‘…...towards a controlled disorder, letting nature design some of the garden and some of the garden to live its own life’. And sometimes just to sit, and enjoy. She is right, but we are mostly programmed to be busy, to ‘do’, and it can be hard to challenge that.

There is a long tradition in Britain of extolling the tidy garden, evident in bowling green lawns, neat bedding schemes and proudly displayed signs for the ‘Best Kept Village’. A garden that does not conform to these deeply ingrained notions of what is desirable and acceptable is sometimes seen as laziness.

But these perceptions need to be challenged, as ultimately it is nature, and by extension us, that suffers. A garden that is dominated by paving, a large lawn surrounded by narrow empty borders, naked fences and just a few shrubs clipped round, should be recognized for what is it. A necessity of busy lives perhaps, a convenient space to expend youthful energy, simply a lack of confidence with plants or, dare I say it, a lack of imagination.

But such a ‘neat and tidy’ garden should not be seen as the culturally acceptable face of gardening, demonstrative of a virtuous work ethic and upstanding character. And equally ‘an overgrown garden’ should not, as Alys Fowler observes, ‘always be seen as a neglected one’ (5).

This cultural bias is recognized by organisations involved in ‘re-wilding’ gardens, such as the Blue Campaign (6) which suggests placing a small blue heart in your garden to signal to neighbours and passersby, that its relaxed state is a conscious choice to garden in a nature-friendly way and not evidence of a slothful resident.

There is room in most gardens for both order and chaos, neat and scruffy, control and neglect. And it is also important to recognize that a garden that is entirely abandoned is not necessarily much more wildlife-friendly than the relatively sterile environment of a minimalist garden, whether modern or traditional. It may also have the added downside of antagonizing neighbours, ultimately in no one’s interest.

The ecological strength of gardens often comes in their variety, where borders, trees and hedges, gravel paths, shady corners and damp patches, loosely, and unwittingly, mirror natural habitats from woodland to savannah, semi-arid desert to damp wetland.

It was this diversity that Dr Jennifer Owens (7) studied for 30 years in her own garden, an ordinary town garden in Leicester that was neither particularly neat nor particularly wild, and where she catalogued over 2,500 species of plant, insect and mammal.

Mucking about

It is perhaps, finally, also worth mentioning the idea of garden hygiene. This sometimes misunderstood concept, perhaps influenced by ideas that link ‘cleanliness’ and ‘godliness’, is not intended to advocate an indiscriminate cleansing across the garden - the eradication of every bit of luminous moss, characterful patina or leafy detritus.

The garden is not ‘dirty’. It has dirt in it for sure but research is increasingly telling us that humans evolved alongside a host of microbes contained in a healthy soil that may in fact have many health benefits (alongside the few nasties)(8). ‘Hygiene’ in the garden needs to less indiscriminate and more targeted – focused, for example, on burning diseased leaves and sterilizing tool blades (9).

We need therefore to relax a bit in our gardening style and attitude, resist the urge for total control and quell the impulse to deep clean. We need to be less afraid to try new things (‘there are no garden mistakes, just experiments’(10)) and, as long as our intentions are decent, be less concerned what the neighbours think.

Above all we need to think of our gardens as habitat, a shared and semi natural space, rather than just another room in need of a makeover. The trick is finding the balance between the order, control and structure that many of us feel a need for, and the more varied habitat, loose in parts, that best suits a wider range of life. Thankfully these two ideas are not mutually exclusive and utilizing good design will help find that balance.

1) The Room Outside: A new Approach to Garden Design by John Brookes 2) What next for sustainability? By Sebastien Miller 3) Japan’s unusual way to view the world by Lily Crossley-Baxter 4) A Gentle Plea for Chaos by Mirabel Osler 5) Why an overgrown garden isn’t always a neglected one by Alys Fowler 6) The Blue Campaign 7) Dr Jennifer Owens: an likely champion of British Wildlife by Jonathan Brown 8) The Influence of Soil on Immune Health by Jef Akst 9) Disposing of Diseased Material by the RHS 10) ‘there are no garden mistakes, just experiments’ - quote by Janet Kilburn Philips

Next week – Design tips to achieve the garden you want