How to raise the next generation of nature’s defenders
Flo Headlam explores the importance of access to outdoor space and nature for young people
With the memory of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show still very much in our minds, I was struck by some of the overarching themes this year. The commitment to sustainability and creating naturalistic gardens continues, as does our concern for mental health, wellbeing, and social issues. On this note, the smallest garden in the history of Chelsea, The Green Gap, got me thinking about the issue of scarcity. Show gardens are by their nature large beasts, exhibiting the best in design, synthesised with a story. Grow2Know (the organisation behind this garden) challenges us, with their diminutive garden, only 4.2 square metres, to think about disparities in access to green spaces.
Depending on where you grow up, you may have an abundance of greenery around you: front and back garden, tree-lined roads, large parks, squares, fields… or just the local park, which in itself might simply be a green expanse, very little planting, and a playground. How then do you foster an appreciation for nature if it is so lacking in your everyday environment? There’s no quick, easy answer but it is important to start young and not be daunted by a lack of space.
Jason Williams, The Cloud Gardener, showed us that you can create a ‘garden in the sky’, on a balcony high above the city, with an incredible range of plants. His small space balcony design won the Silver Gilt medal at last year's RHS Chelsea, proving that good things really can come in small packages.
Youth and space can combine to forge a formidable connection. Gardening recently with my great-nephew I was amazed, and yet not, at how readily he embraced everything in the garden - snails and all. I fancy myself as a bit of a three-year old whisperer, as two of my clients’ young ones have willingly spent time in the garden with me pulling out weeds, digging, watering and planting lavender last month. Their curiosity for and fearlessness towards nature, and delight in growing peas, sunflowers, and tomatoes from seeds reminds me of how important it is to catch ‘em early.
I’m glad to say that an increasing number of state primary schools are creating gardens, peace gardens or even container growing around their playgrounds. Some schools have a green-fingered champion and integrate horticulture into the curriculum. I know of schools who use time out in the garden as a mental health re-set for children struggling with classroom pressures. Personally, I can regale for hours the incredible grounding power of weeding or watering plants. It’s incredibly centring and calming. Schools can be very entrepreneurial and proud of their efforts, growing, selling, and making products from their produce, entering competitions. It feels like a very integrated part of the primary school experience.
And then they go off to secondary school and it’s all lost. I’ve noticed that the planning of new build secondary schools or academies has given some consideration to evergreen planting schemes, but the planting is relegated to a boundary, a backdrop. Young people’s interaction with it is minimal (unless they’re hiding something or from someone, perhaps). By the teenage years the status and connection in schools with growing plants and produce has diminished, replaced with tests and assignments.
How do we grow the horticulturalists of tomorrow if the connection in school with their learning drops off at age 12? By actively engaging with young people in schools: careers fairs, fundraisers, mentoring and role model opportunities. I’ve done them all and they’re good fun. Young people are ignorant of the wealth of jobs available in the sector – the science, arts, and humanities groups are all surprised when we list the jobs they could do with those skills. And when you talk about the tech, the sexy stuff, then they start to get interested.
It always starts with a small idea. That’s the way to grow interest, consciousness, a movement, and the next generation of nature’s defenders.
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