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Designing and Gardening a Rewilded Garden Workshop
Join one of Knepp’s gardening team for a full-day workshop exploring both the design and management of a wilder garden. Combining our Designing a Wilder Garden and Gardening a Wilder Garden workshops, this immersive day will take you through the complete journey of creating and nurturing a dynamic, wildlife-rich garden inspired by rewilding principles.
Rewilding doesn’t mean simply setting the scene and letting nature take over. From the first design decisions to ongoing seasonal management, thoughtful intervention can create resilient habitats, boost biodiversity and help gardens adapt to a changing climate. Through presentations, discussion and time spent exploring Knepp’s Rewilded Walled Garden, you’ll learn how to work with natural processes while understanding the gardener’s vital role in encouraging and sustaining natural processes.
Morning Session: Designing a Wilder Garden
You’ll learn:
- How to apply the principles of rewilding at small scale
- New approaches to habitat creation, working with what you’ve got
- Why topography matters – how to use physical features and vary the surface area to allow for a wider range of plants
- How to use different substrates, such as sand and crushed brick and concrete, to create a broader range of planting conditions
- Which plants (native and non-native) are particularly great for insects and birds
- How to choose and source your plants
- How to think about the soil, with sustainability and climate change in mind
- How to reduce inputs such as fertiliser and watering
- The importance of connectivity
Afternoon Session: Gardening a Wilder Garden
- How to sustain a wilder, more dynamic ecosystem in a garden
- How to mimic natural disturbances in a garden
- How a gardener can become a keystone species, thinking like a beaver, a rootling wild boar, a grazing pony or cow, an ant or an earthworm
- How to manage thuggish plants and pioneers
- How to give weeds and wildflowers a benefit ratings score to help decide what can stay and what can go
- Approaches to clearing and cutting back, and when to leave seedheads, dead wood and other material as natural habitat
- How to manage varied soil conditions and topography over time
- Sustainability, both in terms of resources and gardening time
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Combining both our Designing a Wilder Garden and Gardening a Wilder Garden workshops, this full-day session, led by one of our garden team, takes you through the complete journey of creating and managing a wilder garden, providing the knowledge, inspiration and practical tools to help you put nature first in your own garden. The day is divided into two sessions, each beginning with tea, coffee and biscuits, as well as an illustrated presentation in the Apple Shed.
There will be an hour and three quarters for lunch 12.30pm – 2.15pm, providing time to either visit the Wilding Kitchen (booking essential) or bring your own lunch and perhaps have an exploratory walk around the Middle Block.
PLEASE NOTE: The garden visits begin at the Apple Shed, located next to Knepp Castle Estate Office in the Middle Block of the rewilding project – a different place to all other safaris. Please do not go to the campsite/safari car park, but follow the directions to the Apple Shed on your pre-visit email.
10:00am – 4.30pm
£140 per person
Please find the pre-visit information online here.
Important information
- All guests must be over 12yrs. We cannot accommodate unaccompanied guests under 18yrs
- We regret we cannot offer date changes once your booking is made, please refer to section 15 of our T&Cs for refunds
- We cannot guarantee the great British weather, or that you will see your target species
- Nature is unpredictable! However we’re confident you’ll enjoy your experience with us, come rain or shine, and there’s always plenty of wildlife to see