Nature-friendly gardens

For years I've taught garden design to mature students. We have a module on edible gardens - how and where to grow fruit and vegetables, and a module on how to work with nature. We take a field trip to a local garden centre and then to a supermarket, to see what is considered 'essential supplies' for the home gardener. It is illuminating.

The biggest product range is generally related to pest control. The second is devoted to improving the soil. Both of these 'problems' can be avoided with some simple changes in attitude and practice. As attitudes are generally hardest to shift we will look at them first. How we use local materials to create beautiful gardens is a creative challenge that as a design consultancy we respond to on a daily basis.

Many home gardeners want perfection. They want prize blooms, record sized produce and not a blemish on their carefully managed landscape. When we walk slowly into a natural environment, or even a local park, we will see that nature is not perfect. It aims for balance. Some bugs get to eat some plants. Some predators get to eat some bugs. We get to see the big picture, which is about nature working towards a balanced state of equilibrium.

When students say to me that they aspire to a perfect lawn, with no 'nasty worm casts' I assure them that without the worms their grass will require more and more inputs to achieve the same level of greenness, the same level of growth and resistance to drought. When you poison a worm you poison the soil. With companion planting you can boost the vigour of your chosen plants, fertilise your soil, and keep pesky bugs at bay.

We need to design our gardens and then develop and manage them in a nature-friendly way. Eco-friendly gardens are not a fad. With climate change and a global financial situation requiring us to be aware of inputs and outputs in a way we haven't considered for hundreds of years, we must change our attitudes towards nature.

In practice it means we have to let go a little, and allow ourselves to work with nature. Instead of laying poison, if we encourage natural predators into our gardens they will provide the balance for us. Nature friendly gardens are an art and a science. Greenstone Design's research team are constantly looking at new ways of developing healing gardens that are nature friendly, revitalising house and garden design to make the most of the local natural environment.

Eco garden design is design that makes a difference to the triple bottom line, to human health and well-being and hence to society, to the local economy and to the environment. We do that in an ethical way. It's what makes us a bit different.

Living lightly on the earth - sustainable garden design

sustainable garden design does not require a wild, unkempt garden but does require a new way of looking at things

"They say that genius lets grass and weeds and moss and rust grow on the fabric of ordinary existence while it concentrates, in blind and sublime exclusion, on the single burnished jewel it is the process of creating". H. E Bates in Love for Lydia.


Way back in 1956 when Love for Lydia was published it was unfashionable to think about anything but prolific conspicuous consumption. Living lightly on the earth requires a different take, a more holistic view of life. Now we have the Occupy movement quietly demanding that we review our lifestyles and make changes. 


At home we have an opportunity to make changes, easily and meaningfully. We can choose to replace impermeable pavings with permeable, can choose to plant a garden to attract wildlife and boost local bio diversity, can choose to use locally sourced materials. The Occupy movement has raised awareness, on a global scale, of how we need to concentrate on the important things, the single, burnished jewel, and abandon systems, practices and products that are not working for us, or our planet.