Rewild Your Garden: The Knepp Castle Estate with Charlie Harpur
How can we transfer the principles of rewilding to the unique, domestic context of the garden? Rewilding a garden does not just simply mean ‘letting go’. Instead, it requires thinking creatively, identifying ways in which disturbance can mimic and encourage natural processes to create a mosaic of different habitats. Given that a garden is rarely big enough for keystone species such as large herbivores, this is where we, as gardeners, can act as their proxy. Using images and video clips of the rewilded Walled Garden at Knepp Castle – a design collaboration between Tom Stuart-Smith and James Hitchmough – Charlie will explain our adventurous transformation of a croquet lawn into a dynamic and diverse landscape providing niches for over 900 different plant species.
Charlie Harpur is a Kew-trained plantsman and landscape designer. Having worked for the landscape architect Tom Stuart-Smith for a number of years, he is now Head Gardener at the Knepp Castle Estate where he oversees the rewilding of the Victorian walled garden, as well as the development of a new regenerative market garden.
Time: 19:00 GMT
