Leaving small/ large areas to do their own thing.

I ve never enjoyed manicured gardens as much as those that pop up but I did used to weed but this year I decided not too and have some wonderful surprises, I love it, the paths are being taken over with various types of poppies, buttercups, cowslips forget me nots and that’s fine I can tiptoe between them I love it and so do the bees

We have French poplars growing along two sides of our garden, they provide a fab wind break, don't spoil the view but suck all the goodness/moisture out of the soil. Fortunately we have a garden that is much too big so we leave this area as a wilderness garden. We do chuck in the odd shrub or perennial and if it survives that's great. I also scatter lots of poppy seeds, hollyhocks etc and wait to see what comes up. It's a haven for wild life. some of the poplars have come down in the storms and we leave them.

When we moved to our current house I set an area of grass, about 30 yards square to 'rewild'. Fodn ideas of those lovely hay meadow lawns ran through my head.

And that is where they have stayed for the last 25 years. Initially it looked if the whole area would be over run by nettles, so bang went my idea of untouched rewilding, I pulled most of them up and sprayed on an idividual basis too, To stop the dandelions taking over I took to taking the flower heads off and I pulled up some, though not all of the buttercup too.

25 years on I now have a rewilded garden consisting of coarse grasses, dandelions, buttercup, ragwort, daisies (large tall ones) and meadow sweet, which is lovely to look at but spreads everywhere else in the garden and has thick roots that go down to Australia.

I do not have the wildflower lawns of Monty Don and Prince Charles. Those kind of lawns, need preparation and nurturing and occupy even more time than grass cutting.

yes and I have done so for as long as I have owned a garden, some 45 years. I do make them keep to their own places and cut off wind carried seeds out of politeness to my neighbours. I don't use chemical pest control but I do still use weedkiller once a year, otherwise I would have a garden full of docks and brambles and nothing else and my paved areas would deteriorate rapidly. I also do no mow may and have done for almost as long.

When I had a lawn I would mow the edges to leave a 'flower meadow' in the centre. I've put that in inverted commas as not many flowers actually grew, but at least there was a nice variety of grasses.