Episode 18: Aesthetic Ecology with Toby Diggens

Have you ever noticed how natural landscapes always seem to work? The colours, shapes, scale and textures of a natural landscape appear pleasing to the eye despite little or no human input. It’s this sense of innate beauty in nature, speaking to us on an almost subconscious level, that interests today’s guest Toby Diggens. 

We speak about naturalistic and ecological gardens which incorporate elements of nature that gardeners have traditionally sought to keep out. Key talking points were:

• Naturalistic planting and designing – elaborating on what Toby refers to as Aesthetic Ecology 
• The importance of plants as food for invertebrates
• Unpopular plants that are actually good for wildlife
• The best wildflowers/weeds for wildlife
• Wildflowers that are too badly behaved for the garden
• Ornamentals that work well in naturalistic gardens
• Resources for those interested in practicing wild gardening
• Toby’s top tips for wild gardeners

About Toby: Toby Diggens runs Digg & Co., a design studio focussing on ecological landscape design and architecture. His style is one which brings ecological science into the design process, and marries this with the aesthetic and artistic practice of design. Toby studied Landscape Architecture at the University of Gloucestershire and received distinctions in both Post Graduate Diploma and Masters. His masters work, entitled Second Nature explores how wild life can be brought back into our cities and towns through the understanding of ecology as a function rather than only an aesthetic. A great lover of plants, he sees the opportunity of beautiful landscape design, touched by a hint of the wild, as a moving way to rekindle the human passion for the natural world, and hopes that his work, regardless of scale, adds both drama and beauty, but importantly nature back into the gardens and parks of the UK and beyond. 

To contact Toby his email is below: You can also request a copy of his Masters work.

[email protected] 

Or Follow his Instagram 

@diggandco

Further Resources

Emorsgate Seeds – www.wildseed.co.uk 

Books

The Wild Garden – William Robinson

The Dynamic Landscape: Design, Ecology and Management of Naturalistic Urban Planting – Dunnett & Hitchmough

Meadows – Christopher Lloyd

Sowing Beauty – James Hitchmough

Get in touch;

Email [email protected]

Website www.rootsandall.co.uk 

Twitter @rootsandall

Instagram rootsandallpod

Patreon Link;

Help us keep the podcast free & independent! Donate as much or as little as you like at https://www.patreon.com/rootsandall