Nature Gardens
A Garden is a mini nature reserve.
Perhaps refering to it as 'my garden' is innacurate. As an organic gardener I have entered into a symbiotic relationship with the whole organism. I am not so much the owner as the custodian.
Traditionally we gardened in a parasitic manner, aiming to take the most from our gardens with the minimum of effort. To do this we used chemical fertilisers, poisons and other toxic nonsense in abundance. Our thinking was compartmentalised. We looked at leaf mould or thrips or whatever other pest or problem we saw and treated it alone, rather that seeing its relationship to the rest of the mini ecosystem. However when we look at the garden as the sum totality of the flora and fauna who visit and live there (and not just the plants we grow) we see that the result of our old ways of thinking were devastating. To take just three examples; bees, butterflies and birds are all in steep decline. As a result the garden has less pollenation, less beauty and more slugs and other unwanted pests.
In the old days we would have done nothing about the bees and started hand pollenating with a brush (what a lot of needless effort that was); would have just lamented the loss of the butterflies and would have spent more money on slug pellets. However we could simply garden in a more nature friendly way and get a much better result.
By planting to encourage birds we provide a habitat where a bird will want to hunt slugs. This means we dont need to lay poisonson the ground in order to protect the vegetables we want to grow.
By planting our organic gardens to attract bees we ensure pollenation of our fruit crops
By planting to attract butterflies we simply make the organic garden a prettier place to be.
So, lets stop thinking about the garden as our property. Lets think of it as a nature reserve. We are wardens, looking after it for the benefit of all the creatures who need it (ourselves included).
