Give your garden back to nature

MANY ‘WESTERN’ GARDENS don’t reflect their ecological condition. The plants need to be treated with fertiliser because the soil’s not right. They want water that the weather doesn’t provide. Wildlife disappears because it no longer has food to eat. All this creates more labour for homeowners, the humans in this ecosystem, because they’re working against nature instead of with it.

‘A garden that’s planted purely by aesthetic decisions is like a car with no engine,’ says Larry Weaner, founder and principal of Larry Weaner Landscape Associates in Glenside, Pennsylvania. ‘It may look beautiful, the radio works well, but you’re going to have to push it up the hill.’

A garden should have an engine. You just have to grow plants adapted to your landscape and work with wildlife instead of trying to control it, which will foster diversity and stability in your local ecosystem. More than ornaments, plants have functions in a regenerative system. When you engage the natural landscape, you reconnect to your region and your ecosystem, and create a piece of land