The Garden Jungle: or Gardening to Save the Planet

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Where Goulson’s book is so good is in suggesting specific, practical and easily implemented remedies that every gardener can adopt, no matter how small their patch. It’s easy to feel that we are powerless to stand in the way of climate change and the collapse of pollinator numbers, but, Goulson says, even the smallest act of resistance is meaningful both in the cumulative effect widespread green gardening would have on the environment, but also in the message it sends about where our priorities lie.

I bought this book for its title: Gardening to save the planet, and the blurb promised a discussion of the kind of re-wilding I had learned about from Isabella Tree‘s Wilding as applied to a smaller-size garden. I‘d already stopped mowing and weeding, and this seemed to furnish the scientific justification for it. The author is a professor of biology. The increasingly institutionalised racism against Europe’s non-white peoples whether in Spain and Germany, Italy and France, Britain and the Netherlands, to name the most prominent examples, are clearly not sufficient to dissuade Borrell of the fictional version he has of Europe. Wat een supermooie cover en wat een boeiend onderwerp, ook al heb ik geen echte tuin, alleen maar een koer vol potten. Ik kan alvast zeggen dat Goulson een geweldige man is. Dit is het eerste boek dat ik van hem lees, ik wil al jaren zijn bijenboek lezen maar dat blijft maar uitgeleend in de bib, zegt genoeg hé. Dave is slim, wijs, bevlogen, nieuwsgierig, een geweldig schrijver en enorm grappig. Vaak zat ik luidop te lachen met zijn boek (ik duidde de grappen aan, ze zijn niet te tellen), dat was wel nodig want De tuinjungle is best zwaar en soms heel wetenschappelijk én best deprimerend van tijd tot tijd maar de humor en vlotte pen van Goulson maken het vlot leesbaar. He declared in 1914: “We are not a young people with an innocent record and a scanty inheritance... We have engrossed to ourselves an altogether disproportionate share of the wealth and traffic of the world. We have got all we want in territory, and our claim to be left in the unmolested enjoyment of vast and splendid possessions, mainly acquired by violence, largely maintained by force, often seems less reasonable to others than to us."Dave Goulson has changed the lives of thousands of insects in my neighborhood. He has inspired me to let the lawn grow, to grow bee friendly flowers from seed, to only buy peat free earth for my pots. He has opened my eyes to the ecological collapse happening right before our eyes.

Je blijft niet bij de pakken zitten. Integendeel: als je ook maar over een beetje potgrond beschikt, ga je anders naar de flora en fauna kijken, in het bijzonder dan naar het gekrieuwel. Ik hoop dat nog veel meer mensen dit boek gaan lezen, ook als ze niet tuinieren in potten of bakken, in een sier-, moes- of volkstuin. Ook als je geen groene vingers hebt, gaan je handen jeuken. Je denkt: hoe zal ik het ánders doen, béter, en waar zal ik eens beginnen?

It seems that Europe’s own colonial and neocolonial institutions are not what made it possible to build the European "garden" - with the labour of immigrants from the “rest of the world” and with the stolen wealth of the "rest of the world". Rather, according to Borrell and the rest of Europe’s white supremacists, with the fantasised ingenuity of Europeans themselves. And, although it looks as if it may be only available second-hand or on Kindle, Architectural Plants by Christine Shaw is worth getting your hands on.

My reference to 'jungle' has no racist, cultural or geographical connotation," the diplomat said. "Unfortunately, the 'jungle' is everywhere, including today in Ukraine." Before he died, Christopher Lloyd started his last book, Exotic Planting for Adventurous Gardeners. It was finished by his friends, and is considered one of the best books on exotic gardens you’ll find. Firstly, Goulson displays astounding political naivety if he believes that the politicians driving Brexit are in any way interested in saving the planet and turning farming on its head to fund small holders and allotments (Goulson’s dream: we all become self-sufficient food growing allotmenteers, as in the “Dig for Victory” war years). Borrell’s final clarion call to young Europeans that they must “keep the garden, be good gardeners. But your duty will not be to take care of the garden itself but [of] the jungle outside", is indeed nothing short of another directive for them to be better racists and colonialists. This is hardly a new call. Plus ça change!

5) Combine lush planting with bright colours

Secondly, Goulson does not know whereof he speaks. Here again Isabella Tree is much more knowledgeable, even-handed and nuanced: she has trodden the paths of bureaucracy; she knows that it takes perseverance and international co-operation to make a difference to nature preservation; she notes how industrial mono-cultural farming began way before Britain joined the Common Market. The feel of a jungle comes by creating different levels of plants – called canopies or storeys. Aim for tall plants underplanted with lower tiered plants.