I was invited by this popular interior design magazine to write an article in the 'eco-essay' section.

The aim was simply to chart the development of eco gardening through recent decades and to provide an insight on the world of ecological gardening and eco garden designers in Italy.

Read the article below:

ECO ESSAY (DESIGN BRIDGE)

A Modern Take on Ecological Garden Design

Garden design and the way in which we use our garden space has always been subject to public opinion and shifts in attitudes. Take, for example, the excruciatingly green and stripy rolled croquet lawns of the 19th century - where a wealthy homeowner was able to display not only his gardening and sporting talents but also where he could boast about a latest expensive grass seed mixture or lawn mower while knocking back the Pimms with his business chums.
The 1960’s instead, offered a somewhat more artificial approach to gardening. For the first time we saw large chemical firms offering a quick, simple solution to all of those niggling insects and caterpillars that jeopardised a would-be garden pro’s chances of victory at the local village garden show. Soon we had an assortment of cancer provoking sprays to kill almost every bird, rodent or bug that dared to enter our gardens and the chemical firms offered a quick answer to our gardening problems that required very little effort.
At the same time, however, during the swinging sixties an influx of eastern ideas and philosophies began flooding in to the UK and public attitude began to shift towards a somewhat more natural approach to life in general. Clearly, as a result of this, the way we perceived our gardens shifted towards embracing the concept of a more natural garden, regardless of the time it took to care for it. From as early as 1960, garden designers like Beth Chatto had already been guiding us towards the notion of the low-water gravel garden, loosely based upon the principles of the ancient Buddhist Zen garden. These early gravel gardens, although similar to the Zen garden, were now being planted with unusual sedge grasses, colourful perennial hybrids, often following Gertrude Jekyll’s planting techniques. Lawns were suddenly left to grow out of control, roses and fruit trees weren’t pruned anymore and aphids and caterpillars even began to be encouraged into the natural garden setting.
The toxic and aggressive sprays of the early 60’s soon became almost obsolete and the very notion of applying anything unnatural to our gardens began being perceived for the first time as a cardinal sin - in the light of this new ecological garden design philosophy. The last thirty years or so has seen a dramatic increase in the implication of this modern eco garden design ethic, as public opinion once again strives to reach a harmony with nature and natural processes. Indeed, over the past few years, we have witnessed a very particular style emerging from the rich cocktail of ideas that has influenced garden design since the eco garden’s original introduction. The modern eco garden has often been represented by tall, non-native sedge grasses, timber decking and large geometric water features that can often appear slightly messy and lacking evergreen structure. All in all the eco garden began assuming a rather self conscious and gloomy persona and its image began to almost feel sorry for itself!
Although this modern eco garden design style has come to symbolise somewhat man’s need to feel at one with his garden space, it does appear to have been outdated by new contemporary approaches to ecological garden design. A new notion of designing an ecological garden around the concept of using a larger percentage of native plant species and working with what one finds in the immediate vicinity of one’s garden space tends to sit very well with modern thinking, regarding the conservation of native wildlife. Indeed, it would seem that the latest development in the eco garden’s story is that of complete integration with the surrounding landscape, without jeopardising aesthetics.
The modern amateur ecologist appears to have tired of the puritan, unadulterated practical approach to ecological garden design and he/she now sees the need to integrate both sound ecological gardening principals with a healthy dose of sharp aesthetics and a proud and solid, evergreen structure in the modern eco garden space. Modern garden designers appear to be rushing back to basics while, at the same time placing a strong emphasis upon balance and humble sophistication. They seem to agree that the modern ecological garden can offer a wonderful bridge between homeowners and the landscape that surrounds them, while providing them with a chic yet unpretentious natural environment that can be enjoyed by all the family.
The formal garden with its high maintenance roses has now been replaced by the formal vegetable garden that requires no fungicides, pesticides or time consuming pruning/ dead-heading. Simple, yet nonetheless attractive, mulching with homemade hay mulches obtained from wild flower meadows, allows Italian tomatoes, peas and gourds to jostle with each other over pergolas where only wisteria could once be found. Edible beauty, combined with antique roses provides both a new feeling of harmony and practicality without compromising visual effect. Nasturtiums, cucumbers and sugar-snap peas ramble over geometrically placed bamboo canes or taught chicken wire, creating visual barriers where hedges once would have reigned supreme. The petrol driven hedge-cutter has been rendered a garden dinosaur in the midst of antique grape vines or espalier figs growing over wrought-iron dividing structures.
Even the beloved lawn-mower may have to start counting its days in the light of the latest developments with wild flower production in the ecological garden. The standard petrol-driven lawn mower will clearly still be needed for the maintenance of the neatly mown pathways that allow access to every corner of the wild flower meadow. However, the competition from its arch enemy - the traditional scythe is clearly being felt in the modern eco garden. Even the notion of owning a couple of sheep or goats is now not so far-fetched or just reserved for Tom and Barbara from the seventies TV series ‘The Good Life’ and they are once again being deployed to ‘mow’ the long grass down once a year in the traditional wild flower area. Even the local farmer is being asked once again to grease up his old rectangular hay bale machine to transform all of that long grass into something useful. The addition of antique, colonising narcissus, English bluebells, autumn-flowering crocus and winter-flowering iris or hellebores now means that there is never a dull moment in the modern ‘hay field’.
Orchards, filled with antique varieties of fruit trees growing over wild flowers and linked by small, humble mown pathways now offer us a bridge, not only with our past but also with the surrounding landscape – extending the garden’s reach far beyond the standard English lawn. Even the house can now be connected much further than just the patio area with the use of neat, Mediterranean style gravel gardens that not only save masses of water, require very little attention but also incorporate popular Mediterranean herbs. Art topiary plants like bay laurel shaped into cones, a favourite of Renaissance Italy, are no longer revered as being pompous or self righteous, as they were in the 1970’s ecological garden. They are once again free to provide the structure, elegance and form that they were always intended to do, without the fear of social repercussions from environmentalists who now, finally understand the importance of pruning plants!
Leaky water gardens, lined with dodgy black plastic liners have been replaced by the natural swimming pool. This, an Austrian innovation using plants instead of chemical filtration and gravity instead of powerful pumps, allows both frogs, newts and rare salamanders to live side by side with humans once again in a fully functional ecosystem that addresses both our aesthetic, leisure and ecological agendas in a harmonious setting - sans cubism! The cubist pools of the eighties have finally been re-thought and our requirements have once again shifted from an expression of the human ego to a more natural solution to our garden requirements.
In an age where we are constantly reminded that time and money are no longer on our side, it’s clear that the criteria regarding how are gardens are used, perceived and enjoyed has once again shifted towards growing our own food, living closer to nature and basically relaxing! This shift has once again been perceived and addressed by the modern garden designer who has gladly laid down the foundations for the next phase of garden design, one of complete integration with nature. All that remains for us the modern public to concede is that a truly chic, practical and wholly ecological garden can easily be created, without the air of guilty self-criticism of the seventies, without feeling sorry for itself by simply holding its head high above the environmental critics.
The modern ecological garden designer’s primary aim remains that of continuing to cultivate the bond between the modern homeowner and the unadulterated natural wonder that lies right outside our back doors – in the most beautiful and practical way possible!.

By Jonathan Radford www.ecologicagardens.com