Wilding Gardens CIC is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company set up by Charlie Burrell, Charlie Harpur, Adam Hunt, James Hitchmough, Tom Stuart-Smith, Isabella Tree and Lulu Urquhart.
As individuals, it’s often hard to think how we could have any influence over the crises our planet is facing; problems so vast it’s easy to think ‘this isn’t for me’.
Wilding Gardens’ aim is simple: we hope to show how gardeners can make a massive contribution. We want to engage individuals, groups and communities in applying a rewilding mindset to a garden or green space - and show how that can create a deeper, more dynamic habitat for wildlife, helping to reverse current declines, and create gardens with greater resilience to climate change. While at the same time providing a place of contemplation, beauty, and recovery for people.
Managing gardens in a way that sustains life is a powerful force for change.
Gardens can have significant effect on wildlife locally. And collectively their impact can be huge. In the UK gardens cover an area three times larger than the land designated to all our National Parks. Every garden, no matter how small, can play a part. And by thinking connectively and strategically, gardens and greenspaces can become stepping stones and wildlife corridors, helping weave nature together again.
wilding a garden is not about closing the gate and letting it go.
A gardener still needs to work hard to manage the space, especially when managing for biodiversity. But it is about thinking differently about the interventions and choices we make in a garden. It’s about challenging preconceived aesthetics, questioning the cultural norms we’ve grown up with, and opening ourselves to new ideas.
Through conferences and live events we want to bring together some of the most inspiring gardeners and ecologists, practitioners and thinkers.
We want to show how we can take a step beyond ‘nature-friendly’ gardening, shifting the dial to show how applying a wilder approach can create a deeper, more dynamic habitat for wildlife, and greater resilience to climate change and disease.
We hope you can be part of this movement, driving change in your own back yard – and beyond. Above all we hope that what you take from Wilding Gardens is a spring in your step, hope in your heart and new ways of thinking about your garden or green space. Together, we can change the world!
“Gardens and green spaces can play a massive role in restoring wildlife and helping combat climate change. Every single one of us can do our bit, on any patch of soil we have influence over. Together we can make a transformative difference and turn the tide on biodiversity decline.”
Charlie Burell"The neatness, the manicured lawn, the chemical use - we've just got to stop all of that and look at our gardens completely differently"
2026 conference attendee“To build a better Britain, and a better, more prosperous, more secure, safer, more joyous Britain - and the world while we go through it - if only we just do a little bit more wilder gardening.”
Craig Bennett, CEO, Wildlife Trusts