GROWING WILD: FOOD, FORESTS & FREEDOM

A Kid of the 90s

I never thought food growing had anything to do with the kind of gardens I wanted to make.

To me, it was rules. Rows. Precision.

Everything the wild wasn’t.

When I started gardening, food growing felt like the last thing I wanted to do.

It felt like there were too many rules, what to do when, plenty to get wrong. I didn’t have much connection to it growing up either. The odd trip to a strawberry farm, or picking blackberries here and there. I once carved a shallow hole out of the middle of my dad’s lawn with a blue plastic spade to plant an apple seed I’d saved. I was soon halted by a fierce rapping on the window and a stern face, my apple tree dreams were squashed.

I’d say kids have even less connection to food growing now, especially in cities.

I do remember my grandad’s garden. A big part of it was sectioned off in rows like an allotment, but it was the stench of the water butt that stayed with me more than anything.

Previous generations had a closer relationship with food growing. Wartime Britain had a very real relationship to growing food you’d actually eat, echoes of that drifting into the post-war era. Nowadays we’re surrounded by food: fast food, food anytime we want, fruit and veg from all over the world throughout the year regardless of the season.

With this convenience it’s easy to ignore the lessons we’ve lost — the patience to nurture and grow, wait, fail, learn, eat and share.

Much earlier we would all have had a deeper, intrinsic relationship with the land. Food growing and sharing was a given, a literal way of life. Over time we were driven away from the land and into cities. Industrialisation brought new opportunities, but it was also the beginning of our disconnection.

And so I emerged, a kid in the 90s. That sweet spot of spending days on end outside contrasted by hours mesmerised by the glow of a television screen. Food growing and other traditional pastimes didn’t really stand a chance when the Mega Drive was calling.

Breaking the Rules of Gardening

I’d always loved nature, and the wild was something that drew me in, whether an ancient woodland or an abandoned building. So, when I became a gardener in my late twenties, I was naturally drawn to a wilder way.

I wanted to break the rules.

Why am I weeding these borders? Nobody’s weeding a forest. Why can’t I make a woodland in a garden? Or a meadow? Something that looks after itself.

Food growing seemed like the antithesis to this outlook. Organised rows of perfectly regimented vegetables. Seed sowing seemed more like a science than an act of rebellion, when to sow, what to sow, watering, weeding, an endless cycle.

No, no, no. Not for me.

At this time, now working as a designer, I was fascinated by the contrast between nature and the built environment. My design style became about order contrasted with chaos, practically framing the wild.

Looking at nature for inspiration, I began introducing meadows into city gardens. Tiered woodlands. Emulating the layers of trees, shrubs and woodland floor.

I was good at this. I had a good eye for observation, for the subtlety and the feelings these environments hold. It’s always fun bringing these ideas into gardens, especially small urban gardens, and seeing how far we can push it.

The Hampton Court Moment

In 2017 I had the chance to volunteer on a brownfield-inspired garden at the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show. It was here I met my now design partner at Wild City Studio, Jon Davies, and it marked the beginning of what are now fundamentals to my planting ethos.

During the chaos of the show I saw Jon and his team building their creation through the tree line, fully soft-landscaped contours full of trees and soft green textures. It was a far cry from my angular hard lines and urban grit, but it was meticulously crafted. It felt like it had been there for years, and it drew me in.

Towards the end of the show I found myself standing alongside Jon. His garden had won a gold medal and Best Garden for a Changing World  quite the accolade for this kind of wild scene.

We stood looking into the immersive greens and layered canopies, and Jon told me all about it.

Everything in the garden was either edible or medicinal.

Inspired by permaculture principles and food forestry, the garden was about reconnecting with the land.

I was fascinated.

This space looked completely wild, but it was all edible? It was intentional.

The idea hit deeper when Jon explained that this was an urban garden. There were no obvious visual cues, but the garden was showcasing what was possible in the city.

A lightbulb moment.

Food Forests in the City

Food forests, edible forest gardens, even agroforestry, there are several terms used for this approach. But they all tie into the same methodology: looking at how plants grow together in the wild and applying this to designed systems.

My Wild Gardens ethos pairs naturalistic planting design with food forestry techniques to create immersive, nature-connected spaces with a strong edible component that deepens our relationship with the landscape.

This isn’t about supplementing your diet or intensive vegetable production. Instead, it showcases a wilder way of growing: encouraging foraging and seasonal harvests with a very light touch, allowing plants to find their own way.

By mimicking how plants grow in the wild, we aim to create layered planting that develops into a self-sustaining matrix of wild and edible species.

The result is a fully immersive space for escapism while also giving a significant boost to local wildlife.

A Different Way to Grow

When designing a garden, many people ask me for a veg-growing area. It’s understandable, it’s what they saw in their grandparents’ gardens. But unless you’re serious about the time and upkeep annual vegetables require, these veg plots soon become a source of anxiety.

‘Weed’-filled troughs you eventually can’t bear to look at, wasting a third of your garden.

I love taking people on the same journey I’ve been on, introducing them to this wilder way.

I get the same kick out of revealing these methods as I do showing people they might not even need a lawn. The eyes light up, sometimes almost childlike, when they see the possibilities.

There is nothing wrong with dedicated food growing practices, even traditional methods. But for many people this knowledge has bypassed a generation, if not more.

I see food forestry as a gateway drug, a way to access complex growing principles through a more expressive and radical approach.

Who knows where that might lead.

People love nature.

But they rarely see their garden as the doorway back to it.

Food growing adds that deeper layer.

Reconnecting With the Land

There is a shift in the zeitgeist.

Never before have we been so close together but so far apart. A generation of adults have seen the perils of disconnection, too much time isolated, too much time staring at screens.

There is an awakening among many.

New parents look at their children and ask what kind of experiences and interactions they want for them. As idealistic as it might sound, they wonder what might give them some respite from the pace of new technologies pushing us into unknown territory.

A chance to slow down.

To get your feet on the ground and your hands in the earth — even for a moment — can be the beginning of a more connected path.

“The healing of the land and the healing of the human spirit are the same process.”
- Masanobu Fukuoka

I’m still exploring what that really means in the landscapes I design.