Often the answer to a question about what to do in the garden is best answered by referring back to what happens in nature. If you want to know the best position or soil for a particular plant, it helps to think about where the native species would naturally grow. Mediterranean herbs like thyme or marjoram often grow on dry stony ground in warm climates. Choosing, or replicating, similar conditions in a garden will give these kinds of plants the best chance of thriving.
A similar connection can be made with various garden tasks. Pruning a tree to limit its size is what wild horses do when they roam and graze. Loosening and clearing ground to make space for new plants is what a rootling pig does when it’s looking for things to eat.
I recently worked with an inner-city school to develop a small neglected ‘wild garden’. Our initial survey revealed that a few vigorous plants had taken over and that birds and minibeasts had largely vacated the area because there was no longer the food or shelter they needed.
A trip to the Rewilding project at the Knepp Estate in West Sussex taught us how the introduction of large herbivores had been key to restoring biodiversity to previously impoverished farmland. We were told that our own lack of cows, deer, horses or pigs didn’t need to hold us back. Instead we invested in some garden tools and over the year brought our own green space back to healthy life by taking it in turns to garden like herbivores – ‘grazing’ with secateurs, ‘rootling’ with handforks, or ‘dropping’ seeds like little birds.
If you know a school that would like to learn how to garden like herbivores, please get in touch to find out more about the new Regrounding teacher training programme.
