An oxymoron is a literary device that uses two opposing or contradictory words to convey a new idea. Examples of oxymorons include: Old news. Painfully beautiful or Chaos gardening…
Bare with me on this one…
Surely a garden is a managed space? Which is the opposite of chaos?
The act of ‘gardening’ involves human intervention. Even if your garden is stylized to be wild, there is still a certain amount of carefully curating the planting, cultivating, pruning, tidying up, and general tinkering to have the garden you want.
The trend for rewilding
Rewilding focuses on restoring natural ecosystems by allowing nature to regenerate with minimal human intervention. It’s increasingly popular as it’s a easy win to restore biodiversity and to make a positive impact on the environment.
In urban, gardens are the closest thing to a natural environment and contribute significantly to biodiversity. Our gardens and parks are the green lungs of our cities.
Yet the very act of gardening is about a managed natural space – bringing some order to chaos such as; neat rows of veg, herbaceous borders, artfully clipped topiary or impeccably striped lawns.
Even a rewilded space requires a certain amount of management to ensure that invasive species are kept in check and to maintain a variety of habitats for different species.
A fine example of rewilding on a grand scale is the Knepp Estate in southern England. It’s 20 year project to rewild 3,500-acres of British countryside not only benefits biodiversity, but it is also a business success story.
So the notion of a chaos garden is, in my view, a balance between a rewilded space and a fastidiously kept garden.
I love the idea of a chaos garden as it speaks to the way my brain works – carefully curated chaos!
Whether I like it or not, Hen’s Tooth wants to revert to some semblance of the mixed grassland habitat that it was before the city of Bristol extended its limits into the Somerset countryside, absorbing whole towns into it’s sphere that have now become districts of the city – like my home district of Bedminster and the neighbouring Bedminster Down district where Hen’s Tooth is.
Chaos Gardening Mixed Planting
I have native wildflowers springing up such as speedwell, teasels, red and white deadnettle, clover, common vetch, agrimony, comfrey, rosebay willowherb… all lovely things that benefit biodiversity and I wouldn’t want to eliminate. On the other hand, left unchecked, they can take over.
Instead of concerning myself with immaculate rows of veg, I want to go for a mixed habitat, more of a cottage garden feel with herbs and flowers interspersed with fruit and veg.
I’m inspired by this article by Homes and Gardens that recommends the best plants to choose for chaos gardening:
To keep track of my successes and failures, I’ll be using my Allotment Journal
It’s available on Amazon in two different cover designs.
Perfect for recording thoughts, ideas, and observations to be mindfully in tune with your allotment.
