Natural
Habitat
Garden
Restoring Biodiversity and Ecological Balance at Dilston Physic Garden
At Dilston Physic Garden, we are pioneering natural-habitat cultivation, and rewilding, to help restore biodiversity and revitalise our regional ecosystems. Unlike conventional botanic gardens, we focus on minimising human intervention to enhance the health of our natural environment and our cultivated plants. Key practices include creating wild corridors directly in cultivated areas, minimal digging, and dispersed composting—all designed to encourage natural soil health, support plant health, and foster a diverse and balanced ecosystem.
Sustainable approaches such as our help to address biodiversity loss, restore ecological systems, improve air and water quality, mitigate climate risks like extreme heat and flooding, as well as promote wellbeing in the community.
We aim to inspire local communities to embrace conservation, biodiversity, and regional environmental stewardship, whilst also enhance public access to wild green spaces to improve physical and mental health in our community.
Our natural-habitat management
Dilston Physic Garden demonstrates that natural-habitat cultivation not only protects biodiversity and regional heritage species but also helps sustain agricultural productivity without synthetic pesticides or fertilisers. Over the past 30 years, our 2-acre site has evolved from agricultural land into a thriving natural habitat. Dilston Physic Garden is renowned for its wildlife-friendly design, supporting 500 native flora, and wide varieties of pollinating and predatory insects, spiders, lizard, amphibians and birds. Our management practices have evolved as we saw the benefits both for nature and the cultivated plants. Here are some of the sustainable methods we employ:
Wild Corridors: Regularly dispersed wilderness areas, throughout the cultivated sections, provide habitat corridors to enhance biodiversity and promoting natural pest control and ecological balance.
Minimal Digging: Hand-weeding preserves the natural soil structure and equilibrium, encouraging the formation and retention of the naturally beneficial soil fauna and bacterial, viral, protozoa and fungal networks that enhance and maintain ecosystem and plant health.
Dispersed Composting: Small-scale composting across the site creates rich, naturally-produced diverse healthy soil, while reducing the need for chemical fertilisers and pesticides.
Natural Fertiliser and Pesticide: We rely on the comfrey plant for easily produced natural fertilisation, and on insecticide plants such as chrysanthemum, wormwood and thyme, reducing chemical input, waste, and environmental impact.
Cardboard Weed Suppression: Using cardboard to suppress weeds reduces work, eliminates the need for chemical herbicides, retains soil moisture, supports mycelium growth, and uses up landfill/recycling materials.
Natural Seeding: Plants are allowed to seed and migrate naturally through the site, and through the wild corridors, which acts a natural crop rotation, improving their health and their medicinal properties (we have portable plant signs to accommodate this).
Soil Health Practices: Stones and rocks left in the soil help with mineral supply, drainage and aeration, preventing soil compaction, absorbing and releasing water, and providing niches for certain plants root systems, leading to healthier plants.
Plant material: Once dead, plant ‘litter’ is generally left in place (rather than being cut and removed) fostering insect habitats, food for birds, natural soil regeneration and self-seeding.
Rewilding Meadow & Wetland Area: These spaces allow native flora such as the Northumbrian bloody cranes bill and fauna such as small mammals, hedgehogs, newts and dragonfly to thrive, further enriching our ecosystem. Our Medicinal Meadow is establishing with the range of wild medicinal species found in the region. We are also working to support the reintroduction of endangered species such as meadow sage, caper spurge, ladybirds, greater crested newts and bats to strengthen biodiversity.
Rewilding & Expanding Wild Green Spaces
Community Impact
Expanding wild green areas is essential to restoring ecosystem balance and biodiversity where human activity has disrupted the balance, especially in the UK, one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world.
Rewilding areas serve as habitat corridors, not only preserving endangered heritage species, but increasing diversity of plants, animals and microorganisms including mycelium networks to help restore ecological balance.
In sparce or barren areas of natural habitat including urban areas, where limited green space is often of a forced non-diverse design, rewilding is especially important.
Rewilding networks allow species to move freely between ecosystems, supporting natural pest control and disease regulation, whilst further promoting ecological balance.
Restoration of contaminated soils is possible through encouraging plant species that absorb and neutralise toxic elements such as cadmium and nickel (phytoremediation). Our wild native common yarrow (Achillea millefolium), hedge bedstraw (Galium mollugo), meadow foxtail (Alopecurus pratensis), false oatgrass (Arrhenatherum elatius), greater stitchwort (Stellaria holostea), bladder campion (Silene vulgaris) and particularly mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris), are examples of high toxic-element absorbing plants, and are more efficient than grasses in toxic element uptake.
Rewilding and natural-habitat cultivation benefits the whole ecosystem, improving the environment and life of human communities too. These projects:
Enhance the community environment whilst raising awareness about biodiversity loss and climate change, encouraging local involvement in conservation efforts.
Inspire public participation in urban rewilding, especially in marginalised areas, fostering a sense of ownership and empowerment, which itself advocates further change.
Provide access to wild green spaces, which lowers health disparities, and strengthens community bonds. Time spent in green spaces improves physical and mental health, with the effect amplified in spaces that are more biodiverse.
Help prevent disease, by restoring ecological balance which naturally supports pest control and fungal, bacterial, protozoa and viral disease, helping ensure no single population of pest or pathogen dominates to cause disease and pandemic.
Improve Air, and Water Quality and Management: Regular wild areas of plants, shrubs and trees help filter air pollution and water, trapping sediments and absorbing excess nutrients and toxic elements, reducing polluted air and water, as well as stabilising soil and retaining moisture to reduce the risk of flooding.
Provide “free services”, providing multiple benefits, and are free to maintain after the initial introduction of biodiversification species.
Benefits of Natural-Habitat Cultivation For Agriculture & the Environment
Integrating natural-habitat cultivation into agricultural systems offers a pathway to more sustainable farming practices by fostering environments where crops, livestock, and ecosystems coexist in harmony. This approach aligns with a growing public demand for healthier, sustainably produced food, alongside rising awareness of issues such as food waste, bacterial resistance, animal welfare, and the environmental costs of industrial farming.
However, adopting these practices presents significant challenges—including financial investments, shifts in productive output, and complex logistical demands—often necessitating government support and policy alignment. Nonetheless, the gradual adoption of these methods reflects the delicate balance between environmental stewardship, agricultural viability, and evolving consumer expectations. Despite these hurdles, key advantages include:
- Resilient Plants: Pests spread rapidly in agricultural monocultures, but rewilding networks within crop, livestock, and forestry systems create corridors that help restore ecological balance. These corridors support natural pest control by naturally managing populations of pests, fungi, bacteria, protozoa, and viruses, encouraging a balanced ecology and reducing outbreaks and associated diseases.
- Healthy Soil: Natural-habitat cultivation improves soil fertility by fostering the activity of mycelium networks, earthworms, soil fauna, and microorganisms. This enhanced soil biodiversity strengthens plant resilience, reduces the need for chemical fertilisers and pesticides, and protects surrounding agricultural areas from the rapid spread of disease.
- Increased Mycelium Networks: Mycelium in the soil is now recognized as a vital part of the ecosystem. The symbiotic relationship between plants and the mycelium entangling their roots helps plants and trees absorb water and nutrients, building collective immunity and promoting ecological balance. This, in turn, reduces the need for pesticides and fungicides, while improving water quality and management.
- Pollinator Support: Wild areas provide critical support for pollinator populations, which boosts crop health and productivity.
- Natural Pest Control: Wilderness corridors serve as shelters and breeding grounds for natural predators of crop pests, helping to control pest populations and reduce the need for chemical pesticides. This natural regulation prevents the spread of pest outbreaks.
- Water Retention & Erosion Control: Wild plants, shrubs, and trees enhance water quality, stabilise soil, and retain moisture, reducing erosion and lowering the risk of flooding.
- Natural Animal Health Solutions: Grazing animals benefit from wild medicinal plants, which offer natural antimicrobial properties and boost immunity. This leads to healthier livestock and reduces reliance on prophylactic antibiotics, which in turn helps combat antibiotic resistance.
By gradually integrating natural-habitat cultivation into agricultural systems—starting with measures like rewilding—we can protect biodiversity, improve crop resilience, reduce the environmental impact of farming, and enhance the health of both the environment and our communities.
