2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity, and the Royal Horticultural Society is celebrating gardens as one important source of this crucial interaction between man and nature at the Chelsea Flower Show, which is underway at this time.
The RHS’s chief horticultural advisor, Guy Barter, gave warning that gardens themselves are in danger, and offered some suggestions about how to counteract the urban takeover of wildlife habitat.
Mr. Barter said that the quest for profit by development companies looking to maximize the yield from the land they own is a major cause of the decline in the size and diversity of gardens. Individual plots are smaller, with less space available for a garden or even a hedge. The number of ponds, pools and trees has also been drastically reduced, as any open space is being relentlessly squeezed by residential and commercial construction.
One example of what gardeners can do to encourage wildlife and diversity can be found in the Bradstone Biodiversity Garden designed by Paul Hervey-Brookes. The garden features such simple but effective measures as untrimmed hedge tops and rotting logs, which offer roosting and nesting places for birds and insects such as beetles.
Barter also suggests that gardeners might combine their assets so that one may have a pond, another a tree and so on, thereby creating a viable habitat for many species of wildlife. With communal gardens in developments, the planners could be much more imaginative than just planting “green deserts” of manicured grass and shrubbery.
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