The Times - UK (2022-05-26)

the times | Thursday May 26 2022 7

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dough, then slicing it into “ribs” and

covering it in barbecue sauce. “What

you get is a lovely textured dish that’s

meaty just like ribs.”

What can I cook in the embers?

Quite a lot. “Leeks, sweet potatoes

wrapped up in foil, chopped up

onions,” Firth says.

One of the most popular dishes at

the Turkish restaurant Zahter in Soho,

London, is a burnt aubergine cooked

over a charcoal fire. To do this, pierce

the skin of an aubergine and nestle it

in the embers. Leave it until the skin

is black, turning every few minutes.

“The holes stop the aubergine from

exploding and steam it inside. The

flesh stays white and goes creamy,”

says Esra Muslu, Zahter’s founder.

Peel off the skins, slice into thirds and

serve with za’atar, olive oil, parsley,

chilli jam and pomegranate molasses.

I’ve taken my meat off the grill.

What now?

Don’t let the heat go to waste, Clarke

says. At his veg-first restaurant Acme

Fire Cult in east London everything is

cooked over the fire, among the

embers — food is even cooked in the

ash bin. “While you tuck into dinner,

cook something for tomorrow. Whack

some peppers on there and char

the skins. Once these are black, peel

them off and you’ve got lovely roast

veg for lunch.”

deeper countryside where it clashes

least with the pressures of human life.

In gardens, especially the average

domestic garden, it would be antisocial

simply to let things go completely.

What most gardeners want is a

compromise. Not nature in charge,

but a wildlife-friendly garden.

What should I be planting for best

ecological benefit?

Essentially a garden is a space for

nature and for people. And wilding

rather than rewilding is a much better

goal. But here’s the thing: the point of

wilding is not just to plant natives, it

is to give the advantage to nature, to

stand back and let things happen —

to make way for a process. It’s a rare

gardener who is game to relinquish

control quite so readily.

Yet the minute you let go

a little it quickly becomes

apparent that it’s not so much

what precise species you plant

that matters as the job the plant

does in creating habitat. If

as a gardener you can

create habitat with a

mixture of native and

non-native plants just

as well as you can with

natives alone, why not?

It’s the richness and

variety that counts.

But perhaps if you

wanted a hedge it

would be good to look

to native hawthorn

first, which once it has

settled down at its given

height will flower and fruit

and be home inside to endless

kinds of life. Thick hedges

are superb habitat. And if you

wanted a tree it would be good

to plant an oak, because in old

age oak supports many forms of

life — mostly unseen, but so

what? — instead of a eucalyptus,

which supports few. That’s you

being generous to the future.

How do I encourage wildlife?

It’s important to remember that fungi

and minuscule crawling things are just

as valuable as butterflies, bats and

birds, which are in a sense merely

the icing on the cake.

Varied habitat is what matters:

a pond for invertebrates, trees for

roosting, undisturbed decaying wood

for beetles, long grass for small

mammals and birds, etc. So have your

native honeysuckle and knapweed

swarming with butterflies, and have

non-native Buddleja davidii and Sedum

spectabile too, but be just as happy

about the creatures you’ll never see.

Will a wild garden look very green?

Greener than a traditional garden, but

that’s because it’s going to be grassier.

Long grass and native perennials in

the UK are not especially colourful.

So even if you let the garden largely

operate by self-seeding you may want

actively to plant extras of more

contrasting, colourful species, such

as foxgloves. And you can throw in

dramatic, pollen-rich non-natives such

as single-flowered opium poppies and

evening primrose, which will self-seed.

Will it be more or less work?

There’s the rub. To have a successful

wild garden you have to be sensitive

to the plants’ cycles of decay. It’s easy

enough to mow some lawn long, some

short, and you’ll become adept with

a strimmer. If borders are less kempt

and regimented, hedges and clipped

plants will give vital line to the scene

and stop things looking woolly.

Borders, if they exist as such, will still

be cut down in spring, and there’ll

have to be a compost heap for waste.

What there shouldn’t be is quite as

much pruning or watering, nor will

there be a patio stacked with container

plants. Everything will be in the

ground as nature intended, and pests

and diseases will mostly be left to run

their course. Who knows, it may be

nice not to be in charge for once.

to k now

I

n Dorset the organisation

Rewilding Britain is running a

project to reintroduce beavers,

and at the Chelsea Flower Show

this week the RHS, in line with

its own ecological ambitions,

allowed it to recreate a beaver

dam and stream as a competitive

“garden”, designed by Lulu Urquhart

and Adam Hunt. It won best in show.

Trouble brewed. The designer Andy

Sturgeon, whose excellent modern

garden should, for my money, have

won, lamented that Chelsea gardens

are now valued more for the way they

express a message than for being

actual gardens: green adverts for good

causes guaranteed 11 hours’ coverage

from the Beeb. For many show

gardens that’s true, yet this beaver

dam was so romantic, so leafy, so

green, so native, so part of the

zeitgeist that it could hardly fail

to win. Perhaps this was indeed

the last Sturgeon on the

Thames (he says it will be his

final Chelsea garden). So

should you follow the trend

and rush to rewild your

patch? Here are the key

questions to consider.

What does rewilding

a garden mean?

The laziest kind of

rewilding would be to

stop gardening altogether

and allow nature free rein.

The strictest but more

constructive kind would be to

take out all the non-native

plants, which unfortunately may

be most of your garden. You

should do this gradually so as

not to wreck the environment

in the short term, then dispose

of them somehow and replant

with a cross-section of native

trees, shrubs and perennials.

So does rewilding make sense?

It does in the wild, actually — in

Weeds and bugs: how to

rewild a garden (it’s not easy)

Should you try to copy the Chelsea winner, asks Stephen Anderton

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Lulu Urquhart

and Adam Hunt

GETTY IMAGES

GUY BELL/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

The Rewilding Britain garden

at the Chelsea Flower Show