A Laboratory for Wild By Design

Abstract

The lessons of my own landscape helped me develop a set of rules for how to let a wild landscape emerge: Let things happen, but make sure it looks intentional, so as not just to let things go; try not to create mess in other people’s yards; get help. But there is also the design part, which is where the strategies in the chapters to follow come in. You can’t just plant a lot of stuff and let it go. The wild garden, or the eco-park, or the eco-city, needs a lot of tending, coddling, nurturing, and sometimes brutal hacking back, in order for it not to devolve completely into a massive tangle of trees, shrubs, and vines.