HortWeek Podcast

This week's guest on the HortWeek Podcast is Rebecca Bevan, who leads on sustainability and plant health for National Trust Gardens. 

Rebecca comes fresh from publishing her new book, the National Trust Book of Nature Friendly Gardening, which "looks at gardening in a way that's good for people and good for the planet" and is full of ideas and tips for amateur gardeners.

"I was given fair amount of freedom about what to include, but it made sense really to cover creating wildlife habitats and gardens ... making sustainable choices about what you buy in the garden, what materials to use ... a bit about well-being ... growing your own and also what to grow that you're really actually going to eat that's going to keep you out of the supermarket a little bit."

The book chimes with a shift at NT by head of gardens and parks, Sheila Das, who introduced the World Food Garden to NT along with an ethos of sustainable planting with a 21st century aesthetic. 

Rebecca says it's "really encouraging people to think about, to learn about their soils and their situations and choose plants that will last and trying to slightly get away from the impulse buying that many people do and the heavy use of bedding, which is not as sustainable as choosing perennials that are really suited to your garden are going to last a long time."

"I've come to realise that actually, with farming as it is, really quite intensive, our gardens are quite an important refuge...they might be only place that is providing habitat." She has applied this to her own garden - with help from her late partner ornithologist Rich Hearn - where she has focused on enhancing it for the local birds.

Her diverse career includes a period working with the fruit team at RHS Garden Wisley followed by a stint as a researcher on BBC Gardeners' World in Monty Don's garden.

"It's fun, it's fun, you learn a lot, you get to meet some great growers." she admits, adding "it's not always easy being the person during filming that has to listen in and question whether things are exactly right and stop filming so things can get looked up."

Despite the ecological downsides of bedding plants, NT is still using them and she explains it's policy on this and sourcing plants in general where. The charity has lead on peat-free plants with a relatively early commitment to peat-free growing and selling of plants.

"Certainly, for us, when places like Kernock [Park Plants] have gone over to providing peat-free plugs, then that's making life much easier for us and for some of our suppliers as well."

Part of Rebecca's remit is pests and diseases and she talks how she's made peace with slugs and snails: "I hope that lots of people over time will start to see their gardens as part of the ecosystem and accept that if there's something nibbling their plant, that's because their plant is providing something to the ecosystem. Our gardens shouldn't really be bereft of plant-eating insects and slugs and snails are just a part of that." 

Looking further afield, she says Xylella is the biggest threat to UK biosecurity and has the potential to exceed ash dieback in terms of impacts on our national landscape.

"One of the things we try to do within the National Trust is to encourage our gardeners to buy plants that have actually been grown in the UK. Because that obviously really minimises the risk.

She adds that we need to be producing more peat-free plants, particularly trees: "Meeting our tree targets is absolutely crucial. I think that we [must] increase our capacity to produce what we need within the UK because it is mad to be meeting our own tree planting targets with imported trees that are at the same time increasing our risk of importing diseases."