Gardens
Going native
Ursula Buchan
Like most other people, I marched in London on 1 March to lend my support to field sports. Why? Because they play an important role in the conservation and well-being of wildlife and the countryside (not to mention country people). I could do no less, since gardening, likewise, has played its part.
The steep decline in numbers of many birds, small mammals, amphibians, butter- flies, moths and insects (reported in scien- tific papers but reinforced by the evidence of our own eyes) fills us all with real dis- may. In the case of most birds, butterflies and insects this is directly related to the scarcity of the wild flora which sustains them; for they have, in the jargon, 'co- evolved', and many have specific tastes. (The brimstone butterfly, for example, lays its eggs only on buckthorn, Rhamnus catharticus, a shrub of hedgerow, fen and woodland.) So I consider myself fortunate that, with no wages to pay nor markets to satisfy, I have nothing to lose by providing shelter, safe breeding sites, and suitable food plants for wildlife in my garden, and everything to gain in enriching experience, not to men- tion a delicious smugness. As if that were not enough, I can do it without compromis- ing unduly the conventional notion of what an attractive garden should be.
In fact, anyone can, without giving up their attachment to precious exotic plants. Those with large gardens should be able to find space for a large patch of nettles where red admirals can breed, long grass for insects and small mammals, a spot of poor soil for wildflowers, a pond, a mixed hedge of native species and even perhaps a few deciduous trees (a mature oak sup- ports 240 species). Even in a tiny garden, something may be achieved by growing sin- gle, rather than double, nectar-rich flowers, planting wildflowers and a berrying shrub, and allowing both cultivated plants (and wild ones in selected places) to set seed. And, unlike field sports, all this can be pur- sued in towns and cities, too.
The premise that native plants are the key to attracting and keeping a diverse fauna informs the work of a recently formed conservation charity called Flora- for-Fauna. Based at the Linnaean Society in Burlington House, Piccadilly, it aims to encourage people to grow a range of local- ly indigenous plants, which are part of the complex web of dependency, connecting insects, butterflies and moths, small mam- mals and birds.
Flora-for-Fauna is the brainchild of Jill, Duchess of Hamilton, an Australian writer, long settled in Britain, whom I first met when she was putting together an innova- tive show-garden of Australian plants at the Chelsea Flower Show in 1994. (Her name is a legacy from a past marriage to Scotland's premier duke.) She is smart in every sense, combining energy and brains with a glamour which is far from common- place in the botanical world. These virtues have earned her some influential friends: among them John Simmons, past curator of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; Pro- fessor John Parker, director of Cambridge Botanic Gardens; and Miriam Rothschild, who has pioneered the creation of wild- flower 'meadows', in gardens, on road verges and in parkland, using home-grown seed.
Jill Hamilton has succeeded in persuad- ing a number of businesses (Rio-Tinto, Kleinwort Benson, Osborne and Little, Royal Mail) to part with money. There are several educational projects presently under way, including research in Cam- bridge on nectar plants, but the one which has attracted most attention is the Post- code Plants Database (whose website may be found at http://fff.nhm.ac.uk/fff/); it was ingeniously, and laboriously, assembled from local flora and fauna distribution maps, with funding by Royal Mail. Anyone on-line may tap in their postcode and a list of the local wildflowers, butterflies and birds will appear on the screen. I was suit- ably humbled by the number of excellent garden plants which I don't grow.
One virtue of cultivating locally indige- nous plants, according to Flora-for-Fauna, is that they have evolved to take advantage of regional soils and climate, so they should require little maintenance. But then nei- ther does buddleia, a Chinese plant much loved by butterflies. However, as Jill Hamilton points out, buddleia, though important for its nectar, is not a food plant for caterpillars. Moreover, she is not sug- gesting we grow just native plants, only that they should form an important element, perhaps a third, of the plants in every gar- den.
Perhaps to counter the charge that wild- flower gardens can be scruffy, a 'formal garden' is planned for Chelsea Flower Show this year. Its centrepiece is an elegant Actually, I do go to church on a regular basis — I have been married five times.' 24-foot-high, octagonal, three-tiered tower, made mostly of wooden trellis, with special niches for bats and different birds. 'Tlie Birds' Buffet' tower will be surrounded by indigenous plants and hedging, and a pond. It had been created by the ultra-fashion- able garden designer, George Carter, and will be sponsored by Christie's. Going native looks like being the smart thing to do this year.
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