@debs64 - the RHS website lists all the show gardens, the medals they received and you can click on each one for a more in-depth look at how they were created and the finished result.
Took flippin' ages to load yesterday though....
Heaven is ... sitting in the garden with a G&T and a cat while watching the sun go down
I suspect I am going to regret contributing to this thread but here goes. I'll be transparent in that I am conservation ecologist by profession and wildlife gardener by hobby.
The minutes devoted to biodiversity related topics during the coverage of Chelsea have been fantastic. The content has varied from OK to woefully uninformed. Firstly can we please put the term rewilding to bed. Making something appear wilder than it once was is not rewilding. The presenters were absolutely correct last night when they said you cannot rewild a garden. Rewilding is a very specific and well defined ecological concept and conservation tool. By definition it is impossible to rewild a garden. The term has been misappropriated and diluted to the point where it is rarely used correctly and is simply not relevant to gardening.
Wildlife gardening, nature positive gardening, biodiversity friendly gardening whatever term you like exists on a sliding scale. The horticultural experts, gardeners, contributors here and TV presenters tend to look at garden biodiversity through an incredibly narrow lens, that of nectar. Wildlife gardening is a much more holistic approach than simply providing nectar for pollinators, a very small sub set of invertebrates in their adult life stage. Adam Frosts section last night from an ecological perspective was to be blunt, uninformed garbage. If we focus just on pollinators and the focus on nectar in gardening. this does not create habitat, it created feeding pit stops for adults. It doesn't create egg laying opportunities, feeding opportunities for larvae or overwintering opportunities. Most pollinators, certainly Lepidoptera are very species specific in their requirements for these. If you don't grow the appropriate native plants then you are not helping them to survive throughout their life cycle. If as a gardener you shrug at this then that is a personal decision but if as a gardener you consider yourself to be wildlife friendly because you provide nectar I'd challenge this and suggest that you are slightly less hostile.
This is still focussing entirely on pollinators and I understand why as plant growers we do but again from a holistic perspective if habitat creation is what we want to create in our gardens then we need to consider a much wider range of taxa, small mammals, larger mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, non pollinating invertebrates (including those we may be challenged by). This is the approach I take in my garden. I think at this time of year it is beautiful, particularly compared to the sterile lawn and vile laurel on the other side of my (permeable) fence but I also know that it is not everyone cup of tea.
I reckon I have probably read every mainstream book published on the topic and the only one worth reading is Adrian Thomas, who is the only author who is principally an ecologist rather than a horticulturalist passing them self off as an expert on ecology.
I was very disappointed in the comments about the Rewilding Garden not being a garden. You have to take this with a dose of salt as the presenter in question has been fairly hostile to the concept in the media before. Other than the term rewilding in the name of course it was a garden! In fact it doesn't look to different to mine in its component parts and I have to garden on a daily basis to keep elements in check (I have a sizeable dead hedge rather than a fake beaver damn but in principle it is the same feature, stacked brash).
So in closing if you're not interested in gardening for wildlife then that is a personal decision but if you are then think holistically. It's a crude analogy but sticking some nectar rich flowers in is like throwing a sandwich to a homeless person. It may help a tiny bit in the very short term but there are much more impactful things we can all do while still maintaining a garden to be proud of.
I think I agree with most of what you say, but I don't think it was a garden. What would happen when the land started to flood, as a result of the dam? I don't think many of the gardens at Chelsea are really gardens, but then it is a show, theatre, don't think it is supposed to represent real life.
How can you lie there and think of England When you don't even know who's in the team
Thank you for your comments @AnguisFragilis; I enjoyed reading them.
Unfortunately I think you have lost the battle over preserving the integrity of the word rewilding. Once a word escapes out of narrow academic usage into mainstream vocabulary the definition inevitably becomes more flabby.
Thank you for your comments @AnguisFragilis; I enjoyed reading them.
Unfor tunately I think you have lost the battle over preserving the integrity of the word rewilding. Once a word escapes out of narrow academic usage into mainstream vocabulary the definition inevitably becomes more flabby.
I concur. Decimate used to mean to lose 1 in 10. "Rising to a crescendo". The Crescendo IS the rising part between quiet and getting progressively louder. Rising to a climax is more accurate.
I think I agree with most of what you say, but I don't think it was a garden. What would happen when the land started to flood, as a result of the dam? I don't think many of the gardens at Chelsea are really gardens, but then it is a show, theatre, don't think it is supposed to represent real life.
I may have misunderstood the structure and building process but I thought what had been built was essentially a pond/stream water feature, presumably circulating via a pump with a leaky damn made up of brash. As long as the water flow rate of the pump was constant and there was bog garden built around it as a buffer for high rainfall then it would never flood. The damn itself is a visual feature. I have built ponds with something similar to create habitats within the pond. It looks like a damn but only partially acts as one.
Well said @AnguisFragilis. I think Monty Don gets that too - he too had issues with the term rewilding being used incorrectly. The beaver-dam garden took the idea to extremes; we didn't see much habitat (beyond a few fancy bee-hotels) in the other gardens and that is the message that Chelsea needs to get across, that all of us, no matter what size our garden, ought to be thinking about how we can share our gardens with wildlife. That said, I'm not letting the cabbage whites get on my cabbages this year!
The dam was also lined, so would be expected to cause the water levels to rise, leading to flooding. I don't think it was designed to be a garden, I believe it was really an advert for the role of beavers in ecosystem restoration. I am not qualified to say whether this works, or is good. I have however, followed the change in the landscape, following the reintroduction of beavers in Knapdale, and the changes over the time I have been going there are amazing.
How can you lie there and think of England When you don't even know who's in the team
Posts
Took flippin' ages to load yesterday though....
https://www.rhs.org.uk/shows-events/rhs-chelsea-flower-show/gardens
The minutes devoted to biodiversity related topics during the coverage of Chelsea have been fantastic. The content has varied from OK to woefully uninformed. Firstly can we please put the term rewilding to bed. Making something appear wilder than it once was is not rewilding. The presenters were absolutely correct last night when they said you cannot rewild a garden. Rewilding is a very specific and well defined ecological concept and conservation tool. By definition it is impossible to rewild a garden. The term has been misappropriated and diluted to the point where it is rarely used correctly and is simply not relevant to gardening.
Wildlife gardening, nature positive gardening, biodiversity friendly gardening whatever term you like exists on a sliding scale. The horticultural experts, gardeners, contributors here and TV presenters tend to look at garden biodiversity through an incredibly narrow lens, that of nectar. Wildlife gardening is a much more holistic approach than simply providing nectar for pollinators, a very small sub set of invertebrates in their adult life stage. Adam Frosts section last night from an ecological perspective was to be blunt, uninformed garbage. If we focus just on pollinators and the focus on nectar in gardening. this does not create habitat, it created feeding pit stops for adults. It doesn't create egg laying opportunities, feeding opportunities for larvae or overwintering opportunities. Most pollinators, certainly Lepidoptera are very species specific in their requirements for these. If you don't grow the appropriate native plants then you are not helping them to survive throughout their life cycle. If as a gardener you shrug at this then that is a personal decision but if as a gardener you consider yourself to be wildlife friendly because you provide nectar I'd challenge this and suggest that you are slightly less hostile.
This is still focussing entirely on pollinators and I understand why as plant growers we do but again from a holistic perspective if habitat creation is what we want to create in our gardens then we need to consider a much wider range of taxa, small mammals, larger mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, non pollinating invertebrates (including those we may be challenged by). This is the approach I take in my garden. I think at this time of year it is beautiful, particularly compared to the sterile lawn and vile laurel on the other side of my (permeable) fence but I also know that it is not everyone cup of tea.
I reckon I have probably read every mainstream book published on the topic and the only one worth reading is Adrian Thomas, who is the only author who is principally an ecologist rather than a horticulturalist passing them self off as an expert on ecology.
I was very disappointed in the comments about the Rewilding Garden not being a garden. You have to take this with a dose of salt as the presenter in question has been fairly hostile to the concept in the media before. Other than the term rewilding in the name of course it was a garden! In fact it doesn't look to different to mine in its component parts and I have to garden on a daily basis to keep elements in check (I have a sizeable dead hedge rather than a fake beaver damn but in principle it is the same feature, stacked brash).
So in closing if you're not interested in gardening for wildlife then that is a personal decision but if you are then think holistically. It's a crude analogy but sticking some nectar rich flowers in is like throwing a sandwich to a homeless person. It may help a tiny bit in the very short term but there are much more impactful things we can all do while still maintaining a garden to be proud of.
What would happen when the land started to flood, as a result of the dam?
I don't think many of the gardens at Chelsea are really gardens, but then it is a show, theatre, don't think it is supposed to represent real life.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
Unfortunately I think you have lost the battle over preserving the integrity of the word rewilding. Once a word escapes out of narrow academic usage into mainstream vocabulary the definition inevitably becomes more flabby.
Decimate used to mean to lose 1 in 10.
"Rising to a crescendo". The Crescendo IS the rising part between quiet and getting progressively louder. Rising to a climax is more accurate.
I don't think it was designed to be a garden, I believe it was really an advert for the role of beavers in ecosystem restoration. I am not qualified to say whether this works, or is good.
I have however, followed the change in the landscape, following the reintroduction of beavers in Knapdale, and the changes over the time I have been going there are amazing.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border