Our approach seeks to expand and alter the concept of horticulture and advance new ideas of environmental awareness by promoting the concept of garden stewardship. The horticultural community needs better green practices in cultivation, marketing, landscape design to enhance biodiversity, sustainability, resource management, climate protection and habitat preservation. We believe this holistic approach needs to gain greater prominence and practice.
The concept of Garden Stewardship has as its main principle, that gardeners should have a greater understanding of the interaction and balance between the different elements of the garden environment, or ecosystems. That all human activity will impact on these and that we must be aware of this in whatever we do. Its essential message is that as gardeners, we must become ecologists and as ecologists think globally and act locally (to borrow a phrase). Eco-gardening, organic gardening and sustainable gardening all share the same basic tenet. All are essentially about the conservation of land and resources. All are essentially about soil, water, fertility, plants and wildlife, the things gardening has been about since gardening began.
What has changed is that with the current environmental crisis, the way we garden must adapt. Climate change, habitat loss, pollution, the dwindling of resources, dramatic declines in certain plant and animal populations have forced a rethink about the way we garden. Garden stewardship acknowledges this. That how we care for the soil, our use of water, the very plants and provenance of the plants we grow has an impact on the wider environment, a carbon footprint, an ecological cost. That a sterile garden or one with negligible wildlife value will have a greater environmental impact than a flourishing wildlife garden and in terms of footprint, less is definitely more. By treading lightly and respecting our natural resources, this will have a mutual benefit; our gardens will be more interesting, more verdant and vibrant because we are allowing nature to restore herself and reassert her role.
Of course there may be initial problems, some crops may be damaged as pests will not be completely eradicated, the obsessively tidy may find it difficult to acclimatise to long grasses, leaf piles and flower heads left to over-Winter. Time and patience employed for the full result to develop. Yet, this return is also a return to our true natures. Not just an interesting theory then but an ancient and fascinating philosophy that couldn’t be more timely.
"Wildlife does not exist for man's delectation. Man may find it beautiful, edifying, amusing and useful and all the rest of it, but that is not why it is there, nor is that a good enough reason for our allowing it to remain. Let us give beast and bird and flower the place to live in its own right."
Frank Fraser Darling (1947)
The Garden
May 2004
Gardening with a conscience
Just how damaging to the environment is gardening and what can we do to
reduce its impact? Simon Thornton-Wood digs through the fashionable buzz words and unearths some simple truths
Glossary
Biodiversity is a general term that refers to biological diversity: the variability among living organisms – plants, animals and micro-organisms – and includes diversity both within and between species. ‘Wildlife’ is a helpful common term, but of less precise and all-encompassing meaning. The richness of biodiversity affects the ability of living organisms to respond to change in their environment.
Ecosystem refers to plant, animal and micro-organism communities, together with their non-living environment, interacting as a functional unit. Humans are an integral part of ecosystems, and it makes sense to take an integrated approach to managing the resources upon which we depend.
Environmental sustainability means the use of living and non-living resources in a way and at a rate that does not lead to their decline, thereby maintaining their potential to meet the needs and aspirations of present and future generations.
Organic is an adjective with (at least) two meanings: it refers, in a general sense, to living things and any material of living origin: wood, peat and compost are all organic. Materials such as metal and glass are inorganic. The term has since been applied with special meaning to a philosophy for growing plants and animals, the organic movement, with particular emphasis upon the avoidance of artificial chemicals.
