Wild Gardening

I've been on a journey for a while now to explore a more naturalistic approach to gardening and not being quite so tidy and in control. I had such joy to spend the day with the truly inspirational owner and gardener Sue Mabberley at her private garden Nant-y-Bedd (https://nantybedd.com/) in the Brecon Beacons immersing myself in her wisdom and teachings about "Wild Gardening". What did I learn? That we should as first principles focus on soil health and biodiversity. Sue is completely organic and "no-dig". She's right that there is in fact little true wildness in the countryside and that puts considerable pressure on wildlife. I was challenged to consider that we should be prepared to accept far greater spontaneity in how we garden - considering the value and contribution of plants which simply arrive and haven't been deliberately selected or designed into our gardens. We can go further still to "cultivate chaos" - work with self-seeders and copy nature by leaving seeds to germinate where they fall and by growing our vegetables in small clearings amongst Hesperis, Angelica and Red Campion. Sue specifically allows plants we might call garden invaders to shine and contribute alongside carefully chosen cultivated plants - Great Willowherb (Epilobium hirsutum) a favourite food of the Elephant Hawkmoth caterpillar, Allium triquetrum as part of an "edible forest" and even Ground Elder (Aegopodium podagraria) which was in full flower en-masse with glorious umbels of tiny white flowers - totally stunning! We also considered how the concept of Wabi Sabi can help us see beauty in imperfection - for example being tolerant of standing dead wood, damage and the natural ageing process of plants. Most importantly I saw more clearly than ever that a garden should fit into its landscape, be sympathetic to it, borrow from it - all a natural extension of right plant, right place. Finally, have you ever thought... how does your garden want to express itself?