Return of the natives: the growth of indigenous plants

Growing numbers of gardeners are embracing the shift from ornamental planting to something wilder, looser and more in tune with nature. Tidy borders are being replaced by banks of perennials, wildflower meadows and areas of woodland. This is no mere trend: gardeners, more than most, are aware of the tumbling numbers of bees, butterflies and birds, and the importance of growing pollinator-friendly plants. But how many have taken the next step and introduced native plants into their outdoor space? 

Long regarded as weeds – and something to be eliminated – many indigenous species (defined by the Royal Horticultural Society as those “that have naturally occurred in Britain since the last Ice Age”) receive a bad press. Fortunately, influential horticulturists are wise to their beauty and importance – and public opinion is shifting. The hugely influential Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf, who has always championed native plants, regards his drifts of perennials and grasses – as seen at Hauser & Wirth Somerset and on the High Line in New York – as more nature reserve than garden.

Native plants are also prominent at Nant-y-bedd in the Black Mountains of Wales, which won RHS Partner Garden of the Year 2022 – and most of them occur in the surrounding landscape. The result is a pleasingly unruly 10 acres where waves of flowering plants, interspersed with vegetables and fruit, brim with bees, butterflies and moths. “Our gardens can provide refuges for many species,” says Nant-y-bedd’s Sue Mabberley, “while being beautiful and productive.”

Another advantage of going native, rather than cultivating more exotic plants, is that it’s less stressful. “If we allow native plants to grow in places where they are happy, they are more likely to thrive,” Mabberley explains. “Here at 1,200 feet, Mediterranean plants are not happy, whereas sweet cicely and wild marjoram flourish. Particular favourites are common knapweed, one of the top five species of nectar production in the UK, and wild angelica, which produces gorgeous white umbellifers and impressive seedheads. Others, such as alexanders and wild basil, I have deliberately introduced with seed collected locally.”

James Alexander-Sinclair, a landscape designer and judge at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, agrees. “Of course we should grow native plants,” he says. “They are the species that have adapted to our climate and thrive without too much intervention in our gardens. They are the plants that exist, untroubled by the whims of man, in fields, woodlands and undeveloped land.”

“Reformed landscape designer” and Chelsea gold medallist Mary Reynolds takes this further. She is evangelical about allowing native plants to thrive. “Native plant communities are the foundation stone of all life on the planet,” she says. Her campaign, We Are the ARK (Acts of Restorative Kindness), is a “patchwork quilt of hope”, comprising safe havens planted with native species in gardens and public spaces. She concedes that it is “a big leap” for people to turn their entire outdoor space over to native plants, but suggests they start small. “Soon, when you see how many creatures live in the native plant community, in contrast to the rest of your garden, you will go the whole hog.”

Alexander-Sinclair, on the other hand, suggests trying a blended approach. “To chuck out all the non-native plants that adorn our gardens just because they weren’t born here is too stringent a policy,” he says. “Gardeners are hospitable people and will make room for anything, provided it does no harm. Why limit ourselves to a diet of plain crackers when we can have cake?”

February is the time to sow seeds and order plug plants. It could also be the time to consider native species and find out what they can bring to your garden. If you are worried that the result might look too unkempt, heed the words of Crispin Holborow, joint head of the Private Office at Savills, whose garden mixes native trees, wildflowers, topiary and shrubs. “If you have sharp and tight elements on the approach to the house, you can have wilder areas alongside the more formal parts,” he says. “It’s all a question of balance.”

Nant-y-bedd
James Alexander-Sinclair
Mary Reynolds
wearetheark.org