In this first in a series, Kim Stoddart explains some of the easiest, time-saving techniques that can help you boost resilience in your garden- naturally.
As you can probably imagine, I don’t have that much time to actually garden! Yet I live on a smallholding with a total of 2.3 acres of land, a third of an acre of which is dedicated to the gardens themselves. Over the 14 years I’ve been here, through trial, error and practice I’ve learnt to step back and work more closely with the natural world in lots of hugely beneficial ways.
Initially, I felt I was being somewhat naughty by not being so hands-on with the pruning, feeding and weeding that much of the traditional advice at the time insisted was so important. Yet the more I read and researched (books such as Masanobu Fukuoka’s book One-Straw Revolution about natural farming), the more I realised that plants don’t always need to be meticulously primped and ‘polished’. If they look lovely to you, and aren’t displaying any signs of disease, nutrient deficiency or other problems, then why not let them be?
My time spent gardening is precious and when I garden I want to be able to do so without the pressure of long, exacting to-do lists and any sense of guilt that I’m not doing as much as I should be. My gardens are my playground, where I grow food and relax amid the backdrop of a wide array of shrubs, trees, flowers and the all-important natural world.
Yes, I want to have home-grown food all year and gardens that look nice, but equally important is the wildlife living within my patch, and I want to spend time drinking in the beauty and wonder of it all; for sheer enjoyment, for relaxation and to help me then think excitedly of ideas for Amateur Gardening magazine over the months and years ahead.
Our gardens can offer so much, especially if we step back a bit and create more time just to be, look and learn within them. Here are some of my favourite time-saving, results-boosting, resilient gardening wins.
Protective planting layers
I live very high up (750 ft above sea level) in an exposed location, so use trees and shrubs in a layered way to help afford greater protection to my inner garden spaces. From the bio-swale at the back of my garden planted with soft fruit bushes, trees and willow which helps provide some front-line protection against flooding, to the hedging that further slows the flow of strong winds, a multi-layered approach can work incredibly well. It can also help to create some partial shade, which comes in handy during a heatwave and can afford protection to more sensitive plants from the extreme elements, to better enable them to grow on and flourish.
I was told categorically by neighbours that apple trees couldn’t be grown in such a high, exposed location. Many had previously
