Like many gardeners, Alice Vincent used to want to feel in control of her garden space, but now she is learning to let go a little and welcome in the wildness
Letting a bit of wild into our gardens can only be a good thing
It happens about once a week – I emerge from bed to inspect the garden, and find that something has been rummaging in the night. A broken stem of last summer’s growth here, half a chewed-up glove there, a plastic compost bag trawled across the lawn. I imagine it’s a particularly wily fox, but if so, they always close the shed door behind them. Playful, yes, but considerate.
I loved these spiders, and hated to breach their webs. They showed me that among the petals and the leaves and the growth that I had ushered in, I had created something greater
This kind of thing might have bothered me once. I’ve found all sorts in the garden: cat poo, cat-caught pigeons, rat burrows, sweet wrappers and burnt-out tealights from revelries past. There was the weekend I went to Glastonbury and received a particularly grisly message from the husband about a deceased rat the “size of a loaf of bread” splayed elegantly on a patio slab. I live a stone’s throw from one of south London’s main arteries, so it was never going to be bucolic, but I still harboured that gardening arrogance that this was my space: how dare something come and use it as a toilet/playpark/graveyard?
Drop the peat, abandon the hose, watch where the weeds grow and see if you can fold them into your scheme (white deadnettle has become a major player in mine)
I’m not sure when I started to soften, but nevertheless, I have. Perhaps it was resignation, or realising that getting cross about it was a waste of effort. More broadly, I think it’s an understanding. When we moved here, the garden felt lifeless. The lawn was in better shape, sure, and the patio was probably cleaner, but there were no birds or spider webs. I installed a compost bin and a water butt, dug broad flower beds and pushed bare-rooted perennials into them. We were giddy with delight to receive a bird feeder for Christmas, filled it up with seeds and fat balls and waited, eagerly, for the restaurant to open.
I realised that I had made something that didn’t warrant my constant attention.
By a year after we moved in, the garden was fat with first-year enthusiasm. I’d wet my bare feet on dewy lawn in the early hours of a summer morning and simply crouch down to listen to the bees and hoverflies that had turned up in their droves to the flowers I’d grown. Summer waned, bringing with it the burning fire of autumn, and the spiders arrived. Huge webs spun by fierce mothers that cared little for my daily inspections. I loved these spiders, and hated to breach their webs. They showed me that among the petals and the leaves and the growth that I had ushered in, I had created something greater – a home for other living beings. When I planted bulbs on the cusp of winter, I lifted the earth to find it wriggling with pink worms. The soil was unrecognisable from the hard, dry pellets I’d run my fingers over the year before. Snow fell in January, and it was still and beautiful, interrupted by the ginger pottering of the fox across the lawn.
How to make these changes? Part instinct, part laziness, part letting go. For insightful and practical advice, Jack Wallington’s A Greener Life offers a route to a more ecologically sensitive garden in nine steps. Reading Dave Goulson’s A Garden Jungle will make you see all insects differently. Andrew Timothy O’Brien’s To Stand and Stare will give you the permission to occupy your garden in a gentler way. Drop the peat, abandon the hose, watch where the weeds grow and see if you can fold them into your scheme (white deadnettle has become a major player in mine). But beyond all this, acknowledge and accept that our gardens are not just for us – and greater satisfaction comes from sharing.
I found it difficult to get into the garden last winter. I was heavily pregnant, I was releasing a book, we were on the cusp of ripping the whole thing up. Some days, it was an achievement just to stand by the back door. One February morning, however, I did, for a few minutes, and was rewarded by the sight of a blue tit hopping from one tall fennel skeleton to another, fastidiously picking off something delicious. I realised that I had made something that didn’t warrant my constant attention. The garden had made its own wild beauty.