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To me, a naturalistic garden is one that takes inspiration from naturally occurring landscapes and instills some of that beauty into the garden. But it is more than that. It is a form of creative expression that’s personal to the individual.
When I began my naturalistic gardening journey, it was very much the aesthetic that had me hooked, and these gardens are undeniably beautiful. But what I learnt through experimentation, growing and observation were the holistic benefits of naturalism for the whole environment and everything in it.
Wildlife in the garden: grow plants and it will come
At the design stage, you might give little thought to the wildlife your naturalistic garden will provide for. It tends to come afterwards, as an added bonus, yet it’s very important for the success and longevity of this style of gardening.
Naturalistic gardens take inspiration from nature, with plantings generally left to express themselves fully through all seasons, into deep winter.
Seed heads provide food for birds, spiders create webs between stems, reptiles and birds take shelter under the canopy and use fallen foliage as bedding for their nests. When you use a diversity of plants, whether native or introduced, you attract a great diversity of wildlife. This style of planting also protects the soil and the biology that lives beneath it.
Giving your garden a sense of place
Every site is unique and has something that makes it special. Giving your garden a sense of place can be as simple as connecting it to your unique history by including plants, scents, sounds and atmosphere that spark joy and remind you of places or memories that are special to you.
It might mean planting a rose that reminds you of your grandmother, or something passed down or collected along your travels that takes you back to a particular time or place.
Naturalistic plantings perform this task well. They can take you back and remind you of natural landscapes you have visited before, evoking an emotional response of a time you felt joy with people you love.
Beauty in all seasons
The naturalistic garden is beautiful year-round, yet always changing and adapting and evolving with the seasons.
In the naturalistic garden, planting with seasonality in mind is crucial. Nature doesn’t cut down plants just because they have finished flowering and neither should we. Most plants have a lot more to offer than floral displays, and leaving them to stand can mean the difference between three months of bare ground and three months of beauty in decay.
Naturalistic gardeners choose plants for their characteristics in all seasons, from their emergence and exuberance in spring, right through to their bare-bones winter structure.
This capacity for year-round beauty and seasonal interest is one of the features that sets naturalistic gardens apart.
Resilience in a changing climate
We gardeners are optimists, and as Audrey Hepburn famously once said, ‘To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.’ I truly believe it.
But we are in the middle of a climate crisis. Three consecutive years of La Nina meant some of the wettest seasons on record, which were good for establishing new gardens with free-draining soils and devastating for others. Then, after all that, 2023 was one of the driest springs I can remember.
This all goes to say that we can’t count on averages anymore. We must prepare our soils and choose and use plants in a way that enables them to endure these extremes.
The features that collectively define a naturalistic style of gardening also happen to be those that help gardens to thrive in the face of prolonged high temperatures, storms and flooding rains.
Ease of maintenance and management
People often see naturalistic gardens as high maintenance. Their intricate composition, complex plant combinations and thoughtful tapestry effects give a false impression of the amount of work needed to achieve them.
Traditional horticultural techniques such as deadheading, pruning and training can lead to over-gardening — these practices are time-consuming and often unnecessary.
One of the practical benefits of naturalistic gardening is that it gives you permission to let go of some control and learn to appreciate plants and the garden as they are, in every season.
This is an edited extract from ‘Wild by Design’ by Tim Pilgrim. Images and text from ‘Wild by Design’ by Tim Pilgrim, photography by Martina Gemmola. Murdoch Books RRP $59.99.
