Where do you get inspiration for the garden?

In some ways, it’s from the surroundings of the garden because we don’t want to make a garden that doesn’t fit with nature. We’re lucky with this garden that it’s in the middle of a relatively natural area, so you can get inspiration from that – or inspiration in the sense that you don’t want to make something that looks completely inappropriate next to that. 

We steward 15 acres altogether, and in a way the whole 15 acres is a garden and it interlinks with itself, so one part is part of another part. Partly you look at what other people are doing to get ideas and you read about things. The space inspires you as things pop up. Things happen and you think ‘can we help that along a bit’. 

Which flowers do you like best in the garden?

That’s a difficult one. One of the things I like, is anything I suddenly notice that is really attracting bees and hoverflies. I immediately like flowers that attract the insect life. 

You can’t help loving the great spreads of spring flowers, it’s hard to beat that. You get that feeling that things are starting to happen. The flowers in the wild garden rather than the cultivated are as attractive – if not more – like the wood anemones. You get a shock of wood anemones, there’s a great display of them. 

I like things that are easy to look after. I don’t do bedding plants, but things that look after themselves to some extent and come again every year. I like catmint, but I like it even better because I see the insects like it so much, too. There’s something different to like at every season. We don’t have a specialist plants garden; we tend to grow the things that are happy here.

What tips do you have for other gardeners?

One tip would be to let it happen on its own. Don’t weed everything out, it’s all part of the story and don’t rush to remove anything you didn’t put there because, actually, lots of things appear that are very happy and quite attractive. You just have to be aware of things that will spread too much. 

The selfheal grows naturally on meadows, but on the vegetable plot you can get masses of it. We don’t bring anything into the garden really, but we don’t take anything out, either. We don’t use any pesticides. 

We don’t burn things, we tend to pile it up into stick piles which creates space for all creatures great and small. So, we don’t have a green bin. We let the stick piles rot down and just keep adding to them. We try not to use the word ‘waste’ around here because we tend to turn waste into resource.

The only thing we remove from here is about two or three seriously invasive plants, as I wouldn’t put them on the compost. Most stuff goes on and rots away.

Have plenty of shelter and variety, you don’t want just to have trees or a wildflower lawn. Even in a small area, you can have lots of mini habitats. Ivy is an important plant, that we have lots of. Pollen, nectar, berries, it’s a useful plant all year round.

Have compost heaps; we have an active compost heap, there’s one we’ve finished and started another, then there’s another which we dig out when we need to start a new one. Leaf mould is a great alternative to peat, so we rake large amounts of leaves in the autumn to make it. 

Which is your favourite part of the garden?

My favourite place on the holding is a little wood we have, about two miles from here because that is like a retreat and sanctuary. I love managing it and coppicing it.

I would say dependent on seasons, it’s different parts of the garden. I would call it a mosaic of formal and informal bits, parts that are nearly wild. 

What wildlife do you get currently?

The most obvious thing is the birds, really. We have a pair of dippers and we get goosanders. We get a variety of garden birds and woodland edge birds. We have lots of frogs and toads, especially in the vegetable garden. There are badgers about. We do get loads of bees and hoverflies.

Hogweed is perfect for hoverflies, which eat aphids. So, we have some round the vegetable garden, as you don’t want them on your cabbages. Hogweed attracts all kinds of insects, and I’ll cut the heads off afterwards so that it doesn’t seed everywhere. We see newts from time to time, the garden butterflies and bats. 

How do you attract/look after the wildlife?

It’s mostly by creating a mosaic of habitats, really. Apart from feeding birds, we don’t deadhead everything, as you need seed heads and so on for the birds. Don’t tidy up the garden in autumn, as it leaves lots of shelter habitats for all kinds of creatures.

What steps do you take to keep it ‘tidy’ whilst being wildlife-friendly?

You don’t have to have a messy, untidy, unattractive garden. It’s a balance. You could have a neat lawn without using chemicals, lawns are a good resource for a lot of birds as long as you treat it the right way. My understanding is that as much variety as possible, as much of it and as dense as possible. Don’t have bare earth and don’t deadhead things too much. There’s no reason you couldn’t have really neat edges if you’ve got lots of interesting plants packed in. 

You can have areas that you mow, but I tend to mow paths rather than the whole area. Mowing a path gives an intended feeling. There’s a limit between letting things do what they want to but having some measure of control. If wildness is encroaching then you just have to start cutting and weeding. 

We don’t do anything formal around the mill, as it’s an old, industrial building. It’s intervention when you need to. You don’t have to have a large patch of nettles and brambles. They have their place, but it might not necessarily be in your garden. You can be wildlife-friendly without being anymore wild than you want to be. 

What are your future plans for helping wildlife?

My main one is putting in some kind of small pond. We have the river, which supports a different kind of life than the pond would. 

You can keep up to date with open days at Sprint Mill through the National Garden Scheme website. Alternatively, you can arrange to visit by emailing: mail@sprintmill.uk