© Charlie Harpur
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Knepp Castle Walled Garden

The project began in 2019 and explores the concept of rewilding a garden. Set in an existing 1.3-acre 19th century walled garden adjoining Knepp Castle, the site has a dividing wall between two distinct areas: a traditional kitchen garden with raised beds and a pool garden with a flat croquet lawn. The project was a collaboration with Professor James Hitchmough, Professor Mick Crawley and Jekka McVicar as advisors.

The kitchen garden remains productive but has been planted with a wide variety of edible plants, herbs, fruiting shrubs and then vegetables grown in no-dig beds. The lawn and crushed hard limestone paths have been transformed into ‘dirty paths’ made using varying ratios of the existing crushed limestone and soil creating the ideal habitat for self-seeding herbs. The garden aims for maximum productivity and soil health.

The ‘rewilding’ of the pool garden started by corrupting the previously flat landscape into peaks and troughs up to 1.5 metres above and below the original ground level. Increasing the complexity of the typography to accommodate wet hollows that flood seasonally rising into sunny banks, has created a variety of habitats that in turn supports greater ecological richness. Diversity in soil fertility and drainage has also been achieved by laying a patchwork of planting mediums. This includes introducing crushed concrete from demolished farm buildings on the estate mixed with a sharp sand surface layer of about 200mm to create a substrate supporting plants that are outcompeted on ordinary soils. In turn, some areas have been left rich with just a cosmetic mulch of sand over the soil for visual unity. With a ridge of planting designed by Professor James Hitchmough the aim is to create a garden with great species diversity – at present there are about 800 different species of flowering plants.

Planting started in 2020 and the final phase took place in spring 2022. The garden will continue to evolve as it develops over time with management from the gardeners who will play an important role in the evolution of this horticultural experiment.

A survey of the flora and fauna in the garden was undertaken to record the starting point, and this will be repeated at regular intervals to monitor changes over time. To read more, visit https://www.kneppestate.co.uk/rewilding-the-garden-blog