{"id":57730,"title":"Must Wildness Be Justified?","description":"Have we become so estranged from nature that we no longer recognise what it is, to such a degree that its wildness needs to be explained and defended?","content":"

\"aHere are photos of my garden. In previous years, I kept the front part of the garden reasonably tidy while mowing the grass at irregular intervals. It is a half-acre patch of land by the side of a forest and has over a hundred trees in it.

I\u2019ve never liked mowed lawns nor manicured parks. Something inside me recognises the beauty of wildness, and when it looks at \u201cnature\u201d and sees it ravished by the hand of man, it feels off somehow.

But I live in a quiet Austrian village where almost all lawns are cut like a golfing green. In fact, my neighbour has a robotic lawn mower that is busily on the go all day. And he claims to love nature. Our obsession with cutting grass short comes from the centuries old idea that a person who owns livestock (or even horses) and therefore, whose grass is kept short by grazing, is wealthy. So, mowing the lawn became a sign of having money.<\/p>

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Mowing the lawn became a sign of having money.<\/strong>
\"Lawnmower
As you can see from my photos, I like to keep my garden wild. It is as important a space to the local wildlife here as the Amazon Rainforest is to the world. Without it, they would need to find somewhere else to live. In the above image, you can see what I call \u201cA green desert\u201d being created; a span of lawn that is mostly devoid of life.

When I first bought this house eleven years ago, I knew as soon as I drove through the gates that it was a special place, a sanctuary. Not just for me and my children, but for the vast variety of bees, the beetles, butterflies, moths, grasshoppers, crickets, and a plethora of other insects. These attract other forms of life such as hedgehogs, frogs, lizards, grass snakes, slow worms, pine martins, all the way up to deer who eat fruit from the elderberry trees, and sometimes sleep under the shady canopy.<\/p>

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Although the garden looks very dry (after weeks of 35 to 45 degrees Celsius), it still provides vital shade for the earth and its creatures.<\/strong><\/p>

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Sometimes I notice people passing to stop and gaze at it. Children can appear bewildered. I see them looking with open mouths, not knowing what to say. They ought to see the back of the garden which is completely wild other than the paths I use to get around it. And it made me wonder, do I need to explain it? Must I justify what to them is lazy scruffiness, so they understand? Should I describe the value of these tall flowering thistles and dandelions to the beetles that sway on their wavering stems?

Have we stepped so far away from nature to not even recognise it any longer?<\/strong>

Wildness\u2026 or rather natural nature (which in itself is a concept created by man) doesn\u2019t need a poster explaining how my \u201cPurple Patch\u201d section is specifically for bees and butterflies. You only need to look to see hundreds of them enjoying the space.

Sure, hundreds of thousands of Austrians love to drink Sonnentor herbal tees, filled with the kind of plants that grow in your garden while your back is turned. We want dandelions and nettles in our tea but not in our lawns, right? And the UK, where I am from, is no different. Most countries are the same. But respect where it is due; Austria does take care of its meadows very well. This is why, where I live, is in the middle of wolf country. As well as wolves, I have seen eagles, countless birds of prey, storks, egrets, herons, foxes, wild boar, central European deer, and even Bohemian elk on their migratory travels south.

Insects are hugely important. But without native fruit trees, wildflowers, tall grasses, and a thick mixture of plants sheltering the soil from the sun, we won\u2019t attract many of them. Then birds and small animals won\u2019t visit either. When I walk along my village lane, I can hear when I get close to my garden because of the wild animals in it.

The flowers in these pictures were not planted by me. They were dormant in the soil from when this land was a forest. It changes every year. And I love to get to know it, to work around it, and love it. While my neighbour offered his son to drive a sit-on mower to level my garden, and I replied with, what will happen to the beetles? To work too quickly on land means we miss the chance to see it and understand its needs.

So, tell me, if you were a wild animal, where would you rather live from the gardens below?

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