The Rutland Group of the Hardy Plant Society held another excellent lecture in December to conclude the 2024 programme followed by festive refreshments afterwards This was the final talk organised by Gill Hadland who has run an excellent programme with excellent speakers for many years. 

 The speaker was Doug Stewart, an experienced gardener, college lecturer and now an adviser to the RHS, advising them on future courses.

 His title was ‘A New Way to Garden’, which was linked to his new book ‘Sustainable Gardening.’ He certainly stirred some reaction in the audience and gave us much cause for thought and tried to make us view gardening through different glasses. One needed to create a garden with which you were happy with the way it helped the environment, plants were organically grown and locally produced.

We need to rethink what we really want and whether natural planting could be the answer and high-density planting could reduce the workload and encourage pollinators. Hardy planters have no difficulty buying more plants to fill any space! Doug also emphasised using what materials were already available in the garden. This could be using prunings for plant support, mulch and insect hibernation. We should then look back and review our impact.

 The right plant would be one that never needs fertilising, watering and has a purpose. He then covered no feed, no dig and care with buying products like chicken pellets and how the chickens were reared!! The lawn and how to make the benefits to the environment and how a garden ‘not put to bed before winter’ can give to the wild life were discussed. Yes, a thought-provoking lecture.