Whatever you want to call it - Wildlife Garden, Sustainable Garden, Eco-friendly Garden - The Natural Garden is one designed to welcome life, by providing habitat for plants and animals. It can also be a place that contributes to the Bigger picture, for example by absorbing pollution & CO2, cooling urban environments and slowing the flow of rainwater through the drainage system.
It should be a place that looks beautiful to us, and fulfils the practical needs we ask of it. What it isn't is an all or nothing situation - how far we take it is up to us and any amounting of 'greening' is valuable.
A wilder garden also doesn't mean abandonment, as it is sometimes portrayed. It is more guidance than imposition, more observation than endless action (chores). It is about seeing and doing things differently.
In time, if we give it time, and if we challenge ourselves a bit, we will get to a place from which there is likely no turning back. As we develop a new understanding and a new relationship with the space we call our garden, we will begin to see and feel the essential alivelness that lies at the heart of the natural garden.
There are some ingredients that are the foundation of a natural garden, which I have summarised below. I offer advice and run workshops for anyone who wants some help getting started - links below.
5 Elements of a Biodiverse Garden
Plants
At the heart of a biodiverse natural garden are plants. They are probably the single most important element - providing essential food and shelter for insects, birds and small mammals.
We should aim to fill as much of our garden with plants as possible, building varied and resilient communities. To do so, we can use as templates the range of natural habitats we see in the wider landscape - from shady woodland, to open meadows, to damp wetlands.
Plant selection can be both general, for instance providing nectar to insects, seeds for birds etc., and also specific, for instance including foliage plants for the larvae of individual species of moths and caterpillar.
Structures
These are the places that provide shelter, nooks and crannies to hide and to hibernate, and a hunting ground for foragers and predators. Think of the old shipwreck teeming with life, which also attracts divers like a magnet.
Structures can be a wide range of things, designed specifically as habitat sculptures such as bug hotels, towers and walls.
Gardens also often include many structures that lend themsleves to being chosen or tweaked to make them more wildlife friendly. For instance, posts (e.g. of pergolas) can factor in nesting opportunities for solitary bees, while walls and seating can be made from gabion baskets filled with mixed materials.
Deadwood
This is really a subsection of 'structures' but deserves a special mention. Apart from the physical structures possible, deadwood is also an essential requirement for many invertabrates and fungi in particular, with around 15% (according to one study) of all species in the UK needing it for some part of their lifecycle.
Depending on how it is used - standing, lying, buried or submerged in water - it will create distinct microhabitats, providing niche conditions for specialists species.
There are many attractive and sculptural ways of using deadwood - including log walls, dead hedges & stumperies - all adding to the structural variety and interest of the garden
Topography
Sometimes known as relief - this refers to the ups and downs, peaks and troughs, highs and lows - in the landscape these are generally the hills, valleys and rivers.
From the perspective of habitat and biodiversity, the more variety in topography the better, as this will create the widest possible range of conditions and therefore a mix of habitat niches - broadly speaking, from dry peaks to wet valleys and from sunny south slopes to shady north slopes.
The same applies in the garden, where we also want to create a range of conditions, although not on quite such a grand scale. In big gardens it is possible, through groundworks to actually create an undulating ground surface, but in most gardens, topography can be mimicked in other ways, including by raised beds, terracing and even large planters, all of which will serve to change the balance of moisture and light in different parts of the garden.
Water
In some ways water is a subsection of topography, as it can reflect the shape of the land, often occurring in dips or indentations.
Like deadwood though, it deserves a special mention because it is such an important element in a varied biodiverse environment. Britain is a wet country, but the landscpe used to be much wetter (before vast areas were drained for agriculture). Consequently an incredible 40% of our native species have evolved to require water in at least part of their lifecycle. Not to mention that life needs water simply to drink to survive.
Any water therefore that we can provide will be very valuable to many plants and animals, and like deadwood again there are potentially many different types of water, each creating a distinct niche habitat - from still to flowing, from shallow to deep, from temporary to stagnant.
In the garden, we can mimic these natural waters in many ways, including ponds, bog gardens and troughs.
