Understanding your site: biodiversity, balance and working with nature

Understanding Your Site: Biodiversity, Balance and Working with Nature

Environmental Factors

Wind, sunshine and climate are all going to have a huge impact on your garden and what grows there. As we have seen so far, the best way to understand environmental factors is to look at their effects on your garden, as well as observing what grows well there.

Engaging with Environmental Factors

Achieving balance and harmony to create a microclimate where each element protects, supports and feeds the others. This often leads to strong biodiversity within a garden. The best gardens seek to invite biodiversity in, encouraging a wide range of insects and animals, which help to maintain balance. Balance and biodiversity lead to the garden looking after itself and becoming self-sustaining and healthier.

Encouraging Biodiversity at Hillside

We have worked to relax the land here to make it a nurturing, rather than dominating, part of the landscape.

Action | Result

--- | ---

Let hedgerows grow out, repaired them where they were broken and removed blockages. | Provided new habitats and allowed insects and animals an uninterrupted pathway through the land.

Relaxed edges of the hedgerows, let them grow back into the meadows and over seeded the pastures. | Converted the pastures back into meadow and welcomed back meadow dwelling wildlife.

Planted hedgerow trees and the blossom wood. | Gave stopping places for birds as they moved up and down the valley

Chose plants that are easy for the pollinators throughout different seasons. | Pollination occurs more effortlessly and bountifully

Man-Made vs Natural Elements

As well as achieving a balance between and within the natural elements themselves, I firmly believe that man-made intervention should also be finely balanced.

• The emphasis should always be on the natural, and a garden should not be dominated by hard landscaping.
• Vegetation can be softer, with a preference for lawns and meadows over hard surfaces.
• If you do have to have hard surfaces, allow them to be permeable and to drain naturally.
• Keep in mind that you are only the custodian of this land, and should be doing what is best for it in the long term.

Natural Layering

You can learn a lot about how plants relate to each other just from looking at natural vegetation. In the ditch at Hillside, you can see natural layering happening from the moment things wake up in spring.

This emphasises their natural inclination towards interdependence - something you should aim to emulate in your garden. When things grow happily together, you will need to intervene less.

Plant Directory

Marsh Marigolds | Buttercups | Hawthorn

Flag Iris | Angelicas | Cornus Mas

Your Assignment

If you can, decide upon an area of your garden that you will completely let go for a stretch of time. It can be a very small space, or, if you're able, a larger one. Observe how the biodiversity of this area changes and consider what you might be able to learn from it and how this could impact your plans for your garden.