Working with wildlife for people, plate and planet Gardening journalist, editor and trainer, Kim Stoddart, explains the many benefits of improving and nourishing biodiversity in your garden, allotment or community green space.
Kim in her wildlife friendly garden.
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s many people discovered during the initial lockdown last March, time spent in the natural world soothes, mesmerises and makes you feel incredibly good. In a world currently filled with extreme disconnect and anxiety, the more we can find connection and wonder in the beauty of nature, the better we will feel overall. There’s no doubt that a veg patch that is truly alive (rather than meticulously controlled) can also offer many benefits for wellbeing, with the sight and sounds of nature taking your gardening to a whole new level of connection and enjoyment. Tuning in to the sight of a butterfly fluttering on the wind, a bee busy bumbling from flower to flower, or the excitable chatter as garden birds celebrate a burst of sunshine, makes you feel good to be alive. It takes you outside of your head and away from concerns around the state of the world, offering simple yet potent and meaningful pleasure.
30 Clean Slate
Building resilience
Building resilience in our growing efforts is increasingly important with climatechange-induced greater extremes of weather ahead, but the good news is that nature holds so many of the answers. By stepping back from the idea that our gardens should be primped and polished and instead allowing wildlife and biodiversity in, we can create a truly alive, productive, lower maintenance, resilient growing area for the future to the benefit of all. The truth of the matter is that many of our current so-called ‘gold standard’ gardening methods are no longer fit for purpose. They focus around keeping nature under control, and treat outdoor spaces almost like another clinically clean room of the house. This in turn makes them high maintenance and vulnerable to the increasingly volatile elements. Yet many of these methods are based on Victorian country house principles and so are actually relatively recent interventions.
