Groundcare: grow wild and free

The 19th century American philosopher Henry David Thoreau once wrote, Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.

It’s been years since I’ve had to study philosophy, but those lines have always appealed to me. As a chef – and now a farm resident – they make more sense than ever before. Each season brings the necessary growth and death and regrowth to make our work possible and (dare I say) enjoyable.

With each season comes new jobs, foods and experiences. Over the years, I’ve wondered at the necessity of lawn care and landscaping. Why do we cut our lawns? What makes something a weed and not a flower?

As it turns out, while there are some plants that are dangerous to livestock and should be managed, there are many other so-called weeds that, because they are native to the area where we live in, grow exceptionally well. Because they perhaps aren’t as pretty as other plants and grow so quickly, society feels as though they’re something to be controlled. But there is a growing cohort of people – farmers, rural dwellers and urbanites alike – who are rejecting this idea and simply letting their gardens and yards grow naturally.

Mags Riordan lives in Drimoleague, west Cork, and owns Bumblebee Flower Farm. While her business provides beautifully grown, native-species bouquets, flower arrangements and edible flowers to her locality, her real passion is for biodiversity, which is why she lets her organic garden grow wild each year.

“I have people come to the farm for different occasions and their initial reaction is, ‘Oh it’s an awful mess’,” she laughs. “And it is, if you think weeds are bad – I don’t. I love them. To me, they are bug hotels; they are caviar to my insects because of the quality of nectar and pollen – they grow in the ground that suits them.”

Mags maintains that well-managed land with healthy soil and plenty of native species will both maintain and increase biodiversity within our gardens – this is because they will be pollinator-friendly.

“[Pollinators] have better support (with native species) – like us, we’re better off eating food that’s grown in our own locality. It’s no different to our pollinators; it’s the same principles,” she explains. “That’s why we need to get back to having more indigenous ‘weeds’ - for lack of a better term – like our native primrose.”

If you’re thinking of taking a more natural approach to landscaping this year, Mags has a few tips to get started:

1 Make your own compost if you can, that way, you know it hasn’t been treated with something that could harm bees and other insects.

2 Look for early- and late-flowering plants and shrubs to provide bees with food through all of their cycles (like Winter Heather).

3 Leave wild areas alone, especially during nesting season. Don’t tidy too much; even over the winter, because bumblebees and other solitary bees are under threat. They do the most pollinating and need our help. They nest in dead or hollow stalks and if you’re tidying them up, you’re taking away their nesting place.

4 Build a bug hotel – this is a great project to do with children.

5 Most importantly, if you can’t give up using sprays or fertilisers, do not grow for pollinators – these things are harmful to them.

Imen McDonnell of Dunmoylan, Co Limerick, spent years trying to figure out how best to landscape the two-acre field on which she and her husband built their home.

A common issue among farm-dwellers is the sheer size of their front or back garden and the growth to which it has been accustomed prior to having human residents.

Imen, who moved from America years ago, says she originally wanted a well-manicured lawn, but that the land was not well suited to that concept.

“What we’ve been trying to do [over the years] is plant, and plant trees, and it’s just really hard to deal with something that’s not really a lawn,” she explains.

“For the longest time I wanted a proper lawn and that just wasn’t realistic. So last year I said, ‘Let’s just let it grow out and see what it looks like, and then let the cows have it’. And it turned out to be so beautiful.”

Like Mags at Bumblebee Flower Farm, Imen says that some may have perceived this process to be “messy” at times, but it was less maintenance and, when the grass got high, they made bales of hay for their animals to eat.

“It does have a dodgy time [during its growth] where it looks bad for a while,” she admits.

“[If we do it this year] we want to add in more flowers and make it more of a meadow – we keep bees so that makes sense. But I don’t know if I would call this an actual re-wilding; I wouldn’t want to go overboard and seem like an expert on it.”

Imen is simply in a place where many rural dwellers find themselves with lawn care.

However, she loved the result of letting her yard grow wild. It’s better for the environment and the wild look of the paddock at full growth makes the Irish summer look even more idyllic.

“We’ve had a cow in the garden for the last two or three months,” she says.

“I was researching how to do this properly, and you’re really supposed to rotovate the ground to prep the land.

“I’m hoping this cow will have done that job. I’m just going to spread the wildflower seeds and I’m pretty sure they’ll stick.”

Here are some of Imen’s tips for landscaping with nature when you live on a farm:

1 Start slowly. Let a field or front/back garden grow wild for one year and see how it grows.

2 Don’t worry about what anyone thinks. It will look downright unruly and sloppy for a good while but be patient and the beauty will come through. And remember, it’s good for the environment.

3 If you’re introducing a wildflower meadow, don’t underplant. Don’t be tempted to think that the small, generic boxes from the supermarket, spread around, will be fruitful. You need more than you think – roughly 1lb per 100sq m, so buy seed in bulk to save money.

4 Cut the grass for animal feed at the end of the summer and you’ve got a dual-purpose garden.