Rewilding Is the Biggest Gardening Trend of 2024
Here's how to bring it home.
We're bring wild back. You may love the look of a neat and tidy landscape, but gardening with a more sustainable focus is gaining traction as more of us learn what it means to be part of nature—instead of trying to control nature. In recent years, one of the most popular landscape trends working toward this goal has been "rewilding."
In a nutshell, rewilding aims to return an environment to its natural condition. "The term essentially means restoring wilderness," says Michael Hagen, curator of the Rock Garden and Native Plant Garden at New York Botanical Garden. "It's founded in the concept that we're missing animals from our landscape, and we must restore natural processes and species to return the ecosystem to its original state."
While rewilding is essential to ecological restoration on a grand scale (reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone National Park as a good example), these same concepts apply, on a smaller scale, to your own yard and garden. "You can help allow the natural rejuvenation of nature with a few small steps," says Hagen. "The mindset is that you're gardening with nature, not for nature."
Rewilding doesn't mean you have to stop growing the plants you love or to tear out every bit of lawn. Instead, it means focusing on changes that bring biodiversity back to your landscape, and tuning into what's going on in your own little part of the natural world. "It's about working with what you have and adding levels to make a connection with nature," says Erin Goss, plant initiative coordinator at Shaw Nature Preserve of Missouri Botanical Garden. "Seeing how one small change can make a big difference is how you build a relationship with the land."
Even if you don't have a back yard, you can turn window boxes and planters into mini ecosystems to support biodiversity. If you're ready to have a positive impact and start transforming your landscape into a more ecologically-sensitive place, here's how to rewild your garden.
For more gardening tips:
• The Top Garden Trends for 2024, According to Experts
• How to Espalier Trees and Plants
• 21 Creative Ways to Use Rocks in Your Landscaping
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