I was embarrassed recently when some gardeners popped over to see our garden. If they were hoping for a wow moment, I don’t think they expected it to be: “Wow, that’s a lot of couch grass.” Despite writing books about embracing wildness, I still imagine the tut of society. But I’m on a mission for minimal maintenance. I don’t want to mulch, stake, prune, fertilise or weed ornamental planting. Instead, I want the plants to just get on with it.
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Before moving to a bigger garden in 2021, I knew I wanted it to look after itself. Like most people, I have a full-time job and a social life, and we spend a lot of time growing organic food, which doesn’t leave much time for ornamental stuff.
Yet I still want excitement, and I’ve been testing interesting combinations requiring barely any intervention from me that will naturally compete with everything else. Across our farm, dandelions, nettles, couch grass, dock and other wildflowers are prolific, and welcome. In the smaller ornamental garden near the house, however, I’m increasing the diversity of plants for wildlife and us.
I’m using ecological knowledge of wild ecosystems to plan combinations that largely manage themselves, as in the wild.
Essentially, I’m relying on suppressing plants that smother, as well as matching plant vigour, to form plant communities to tip the balance. I’m using ecological knowledge of wild ecosystems to plan combinations that largely manage themselves, as in the wild. When it works, it can reduce maintenance and increase stability for wildlife. If I entice insect populations into a garden with plants, I want to make sure everything’s stable, not dying out after a year or two.
I’m also concerned about aggressive intervention in garden design using diggers, soil-altering aggregate mulches and weed killers that eliminate what was there before. Over the years I’ve tried to be sensitive; being organic, incorporating existing plants, championing wild plants in design. In our new garden I’m going further by focusing on plant vigour to transition gardens in a gentler, albeit slower, way.
I started by observing local wild plants in and around our garden, including Valeriana officinalis, Rumex acetosella and Digitalis purpurea, matching their vigour with the likes of Veronicastrum and Eupatorium. These all grow through and over a thick carpet of dandelions and Prunella vulgaris without problem, and are combined with with suppressing plants capable of starving any interlopers of light beneath their dense clumps, such as Brunnera, Geranium and Polystichum.
My new challenge is out-competing ground elder, and eventually I might tackle bramble
I’ve been planting all of these as plugs or from seed into the likes of creeping buttercup and even nettles, and they’re slowly pushing them aside, with only occasional help at the start. If the odd nettle and dandelion live between or below these other plants, so much the better for diversity. My new challenge is out-competing ground elder and eventually I might tackle bramble. For scale, I follow a similar process with shrubs and trees. The approach gives above-ground wildlife time to adjust, while keeping below- ground ecosystems intact, but it does have problems.
Obviously it requires a vast knowledge of plants and local ecology to select the right vigour for a garden’s unique conditions. Our soggy Yorkshire hillside favours different plants to the dry gardens I’ve designed down south. Fine if people want to spend time researching, or money employing an expert,
but for everyone to benefit, we need new categories of plant data to sit alongside hardiness ratings.
I could wheel in a lorry load of established plants for instant wow, but where’s the fun?
Suppression and vigour ratings, adjustable by known conditions, such as soil type, precipitation, water table and location, are needed. This is where AI will help and I expect a time in the near future when we’ll tell AI about our gardens and preferences to produce more than a book’s worth of plant communities tailored specifically to us.
I worry many see show gardens or Instagram perfection
Vigour ratings may also address ecologist concerns around the potential invasiveness of some garden plants, because invasiveness is just another word for vigour, and we know vigour changes depending on the conditions and climate. The other problem is patience. I could wheel in a lorry load of established plants for instant wow, but where’s the fun? I worry many see show gardens or Instagram perfection and merely want to buy it, missing out on the joy of the process. This is partly why a few years ago I stopped sharing much of my design work on social media – I didn’t want to put pressure on people.
A new low-maintenance ethic feels important; by cracking it, it will help people get a designer look in an easier, more ecological way.
