Adam Hunt of Urquhart & Hunt discusses how to create a nature-friendly garden where wildlife can thrive
Adam Hunt and Lulu Urquhart of Urquhart & Hunt won Best in Show and Gold at last year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show and were named Homes & Gardens’ Garden Designer of the Year 2022. This month, Adam talks about the importance of designing a garden with nature at the forefront.
WE all know that gardens are good for nature – or at least they can be, when gardened with wildlife in mind – yet many of the birds, insects and mammals arriving in our gardens are only there because of a wider background of suitable habitat surrounding our homes, and are often visitors to our little patch of land rather than inhabitants. This is not to say that nature won’t live in a garden; rather, that much of what we traditionally find aesthetically pleasing to look at is often created by removing habitat.
Examples of this include clearing leaves and dead wood away, mowing lawns short and getting rid of the nettle patch at the back of the garden. For some time now, in our studio, we have felt that allowing for wildlife is as important a design parameter as correct levels, appropriate material selection and beautiful planting. In some ways, designing for nature does require a subtle change in the gardener’s aesthetic appreciation of their patch, but one that I believe is well worth it; just think how dull a border would be in high summer without a myriad of insects flying around the flowers. In this piece I want to consider how we can make a garden have more ecological depth – and specifically for the butterflies and moths we so love to see.
FEATURE ADAM HUNT (URQUHART & HUNT)
There has been a lot of discussion in horticultural circles and the press about the importance of using pollinator plants and wildflower meadows for the wellbeing of pollinator insect species. This has been very successful with No-mow May catching on with many communities and gardeners. Yet despite this, there still seems to be a dearth of butterflies on many of these wildflower plantings. The ‘Big Butterfly Count’, organised by the fantastic charity, Butterfly Conservation, every August, has shown a worrying downward trend in overall butterfly numbers across the UK over the last 13 years, despite better results this year than during last year’s extremely hot summer. The decline is thought to be caused to some degree by climate change and residual insecticide presence in both gardens and agricultural land. These are things that we have little control over, aside from not using pesticides or herbicides in our patch, which hopefully is a given. There is one thing though that I feel is incredibly important but it seems not given much con
