The Gardener's Almanac: A Treasury of Wisdom and Inspiration through the Year

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There are plenty of places where it is important – headlands and farms, the countryside in general, woodland and riverbanks, roadside verges. One friend who has done a survey of his wildflower meadow and of his garden found more wildlife in the garden than in the wildflower meadow.

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What saddens me more than anything else is that a well cultivated, well tended, well grown garden is getting disparaged – which is a nonsense. It was seeded as a wildflower meadow with a seed mix that’s good for chalk downlands, which we’re on,” says Titchmarsh.

That little bit of total wilderness in front of your house in the suburbs will not be better for insects. But what saddens me more than anything else is that a well cultivated, well tended, well grown garden is getting disparaged – which is a nonsense. What I can see is a lot of cola cans, which people have thrown over the wall, and dog mess bags because they thought it was just waste ground’.

Alan Titchmarsh: ‘Rewilding is not the answer to making our Alan Titchmarsh: ‘Rewilding is not the answer to making our

Alan Titchmarsh: ‘Rewilding is not the answer to making our country a green and pleasant land’ The gardening guru and broadcaster has mixed views about the rewilding trend, he tells Hannah Stephenson. National treasure and presenter of ITV's hugely popular Love Your Garden, Alan Titchmarsh brings us his month by month almanac of garden knowledge, facts, advice and inspiration. It should not and does not need to replace a well cultivated garden which has a wide range of species in it, which is equally as good and in many cases better for wildlife – and it’s beautiful too.

To learn your craft as a good grower of plants, to produce plants which look beautiful and are good for wildlife, is key for me. Titchmarsh, whose Hampshire garden incorporates a two-acre wildflower meadow filled with native species, adds: “I’ve been organic for 40 years, there are no sprays, I grow plants that are well suited to my soil, two enormous compost heaps that I pile back into the ground.