Make your garden a wild haven

Fearful of the decline of wildlife in the wider countryside, Colin Stafford-Johnson did everything he could to make his plot a home for nature. At the start of the gardening year, he reveals simple steps to make a difference – and how these will bring you lasting joy

- Colin Stafford-Johnson

Mowing, raking, spraying and clipping were the order of the day in the traditional gardening background that I come from. In the past, there was little problem in having a garden full of exotic plants in a highly managed and tamed area around our homes. In those days, the countryside was full of wildflower meadows and unkempt hedges and wetlands and the world was alive with insects.

But the wild world is nowadays in full retreat and falling silent. With changing farming practices, pollution and development, much of our countryside is ecologically a shadow of what it once was. Once-common wild plants and the insects that depend on them are rare. Surely the time has come to reconsider how we manage our gardens and consider surrounding ourselves with a little wildness. Killing our native plants in order to establish exotic ones makes no sense to me.

WILD ABANDON

The philosophy for my garden was thus a simple one. Above all else, I wanted to attract as many creatures as possible to come and live there with me. The first decision was to go native. When one cultures native flora alone, there is no need for herbicides, pesticides or artificial fertilisers, for they are adapted to our soil types and climatic conditions. I knew that the more species of native plants I could establish on my patch, the greater diversity of insect life I would have there too – and that these could become the building blocks for a future web of life.