The word 'natural'
must be one of the most abused in the English language. Its use
generally implies 'good', and all-too often 'buy this product'.
Needless to say the two areas of life it gets applied to most are to
do food and gardens. I want to talk here about how meaningless the
concept of the 'natural garden' is, and relate it to wider
discussions about our relationship with nature. I intend this to be
the first of a number of fairly blunt interventions in our ongoing
discussions about our relationship with growing plants.
The sheer moral
emptiness of the 'natural = good' equation was brought home with some
force recently by hearing about how Antarctic penguin colonies are
being starved by ships hoovering up kril, in order to keep the food
supplement industry supplied with a source of omega-3. No doubt the
mountebanks and charletans who populate this most unnecessary of
industries (if you eat properly you wouldn't need 95% of those pills)
feel justified in promoting this as 'natural', which indeed it is,
but sustainable? beneficial? ethical? One day we'll have genetically
manipulated plants to produce the stuff for us. Roll on that day, but
be assured that there will be protests that this is 'unnatural'.
We don't do 'natural'.
We are humans. We stopped eating natural food when we started growing
it. When we moved out of the Garden of Eden that was hunter-gatherer
society and harvested our food from little plots of grain in
clearings in the primordial wilderness is when we stopped eating
naturally. And started farming/gardening. Any cultivated plant is
going to have certain aspects that make it useful for us, and
distinctly dysfunctional in an wild environment with no human
intervention. That seems to me to be a pretty clear break-point
between what is 'natural' and what is not. The ur-break-point for us
grain-eating Eurasians was when our ancestors picked out some grains
whose seed heads did not shatter; very useful for picking and shoving
in a basket, pretty useless at distributing the plant.
Virtually all our
crops will not survive for more than a few generations as
'volunteers' i.e. self-sowing, and if they do it is because they will
be evolving 'backwards' rapidly. Agriculture/farming is a profoundly
unnatural business, and it is the most destructive of nature of all
our activities, simply because of its scale and the impact it has on
soil and climate and most of all on natural vegetation. That includes
organic agriculture, which is no more keen on weeds in the crop than
conventional, and is arguably more destructive as it is so
inefficient in its use of space it leads inevitably to more land
being under cultivation, and so even less room for nature.
Gardening is just a
diddy version of farming, but potentially much less damaging,
depending on what we are doing. Growing cabbages and carrots to eat,
where, in order to have any crop, we have to eliminate or exclude an
awful lot of nature: weeds, insects, birds etc., is clearly more
destructive than most ornamental gardening. In North America, organic
growing is referred to as 'natural', which is a sleight of hand as
there is nothing remotely natural about growing unnatural plants
completely dependent on humans for their reproduction in straight
lines in beds of bare earth. Or even in circles like some hippies
have done.
Gardens are not
natural and it is high time to stop pretending that they are. They
are a regimented version of nature which we make because we like the
outcome, and which make us feel good. Nothing intrinsically wrong
about that. I have never willingly used the word 'natural' to
describe the kind of garden-making I promote, although a good handful
of book and magazine editors have tried to get me to do just that.
'Naturalistic' is a lot more accurate, implying as it does, that you
are aiming at implying something with no pretensions to actually ever
achieving it.
In making a garden we
are applying human culture to natural or semi-natural ingredients -
semi-natural in the case of radish seed or double roses, natural in
the case of an 'unimproved' species genetically identical to wild
forebears. We seek to eliminate what we do not like or that which
does not fit in with our artistic vision. In a naturalistic garden we
grow and manage what occupies a kind of middle ground, a tidied-up
version of nature which may be inspired by a natural or semi-natural
environment and even be made up of 100% locally-native species, but
which is nevertheless our vision. It is not natural.
We like to encourage
wildlife into our gardens, which is good, and indeed of all the
developments that have happened in my lifetime (I'm 60 btw), this is,
I think, far and away the most ethically positive. But of course we
only want the 'nice' wildlife, not the kind we think of as
destructive. The concept of the wildlife garden does not always
translate well either – go anywhere where there are poisonous
snakes and you have to think about the relationship between plant
density and human recreation spaces very differently.
The evidence (BUGSproject) etc. is that ornamental
gardens can support a lot of wildlife, more than arable farmed
countryside, so that's a good thing. Simply leaving many gardens to
go wild might be handing them over to nature, in the sense of letting
natural processes take over, but in many cases the level of
biodiversity they end up supporting may actually be less than an
ornamental garden, the reason being that a competitive 'weedy'
species may take over and dominate for a good many years: brambles,
pasture grasses like cocksfoot grass, or nettles. A garden actively
managed for wildlife interest may be less 'natural' but be more
biodiverse. That's a paradox that should cast doubt on how we use
'natural' in the context of gardening.
What I'm leading up to
is to flag up a remarkable and important essay by the science writer
Emma Marris, whose book Rambunctious Garden I mentioned in a blog
post a few years ago – see Beyond 'nature as virgin – garden aswhore'. In 'Can we love natureand let it go?', Marris proposes the
concept of 'decoupling', essentially arguing that reliance on
supposedly natural processes may be less sustainable and more
destructive of nature than artificial ones; she uses grass-fed beef
as a good example, a trendy, feel-good but grossly unsustainable food
source. Decoupling nature and humanity allows us stop exploiting
nature and effectively give it some space. She looks forward to 'lab
meat' and other hi-tech alternatives to eating animals. She also
flags up, with some powerful statistics, the sheer inefficiency of
organic farming, particularly in terms of the much greater amount of
space it takes up compared to conventional, and indeed her essay
starts off with a wonderfully sharp crit of an upscale residential
development integrated with little patches of organic farmland to
make the new (inevitably well-heeled) residents feel like they are
doing the world a good turn.
My reading of her idea
of 'decoupling' is that if stop pretending we can do so much
'naturally', 'in tune' with nature etc. we could actually use land
and resources a lot more efficiently and sustainably – and so give
more space to nature, or to what James Hitchmough of Sheffield
University calls 'enhanced nature', plantings designed for aesthetic
benefit but also with positive biodiversity benefits. Indeed, looking
historically, in a way we have already done this with our gardens. In
the past we would have been far more self-sufficient, growing veg in
our gardens; now these domestic spaces are taken up with more
wildlife-friendly ornamental trees, shrubs and perennials, so
bringing about the relatively rich biodiversity of contemporary
suburbia. We have decoupled our food supply from our gardens with
positive results. Most domestic veg growing is so inefficient in its
use of space and resources it is very doubtful if it contributes much
to achieving any kind of sustainability brownie-points. Especially if
raised beds (one of my pet hates) are used. It has an educational
value – teaching children where their food comes from, and this is
very valuable, but basically it's recreational. Nothing wrong with
that at all, just don't try to pretend that its saving the world, or
even particularly sustainable.
If we stop using the
word 'natural' to describe what we do in our gardens, we can free our
minds up to think about what sort of outcomes we want and can expect.
Primarily places that give us pleasure, and yes, give us contact with
a domesticated version of nature, but secondly to look objectively at
what benefits undomesticated nature in the form of birds, bees and
butterflies gets from our gardens.
7 comments:
Yes. "Gardens are not natural and it is high time to stop pretending that they are. They are a regimented version of nature which we make because we like the outcome, and which make us feel good."
Unfortunately, the entire planet is now a garden, and we've decided we know more than other species and other ecosystems.
Spot-on Noel! Just a small note - the term ‘enhanced nature’ is actually mine, and used a lot by James now - coming from the title of one of our conferences. - Nature Enhanced. Always good to be clear on the derivations!
Very interesting.I will look her book up. But....what is it about raised beds that you so dislike?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on nokia reviews. Regards
I really like your blog.. very nice colors & theme.
Did you design this website yourself or did you hire someone to do it for
you? Plz answer back as I'm looking to design my own blog and would like
to find out where u got this from. many thanks
Why do you hate raised beds?
What a bizarre tirade against such a positive movement. I feel like I read one of these a month. While it's clearly super hip to rail against horticulture's modern attempts to function ecologically rather than harmfully, there's actual science on both sides of the debate right now, and the above post handily ignores all of it.
I'll happily duel papers if you're inclined Noel, but is that really what you were hoping to get out of this post? To go to bat for industrial agriculture? To malign the attempts of many of us to create gardens that provide habitat?
Certainly, you're welcome to define your work with any terminology you choose, and I'd agree that "naturalistic" is a far better choice for you. But why the unfounded vitriol for the work the rest of us are doing? I'm sincerely curious.
- Rebecca
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