Book review: No Nettles Required

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Ken Thompson is a plant ecologist and a lecturer at the University of Sheffield. He’s also a keen gardener. His book ‘No More Nettles’ is subtitled ‘The Reassuring Truth About Wildlife Gardening’ and is very different from other wildlife gardening books that you might have read because it is based on scientific research undertaken by the BUGS project in Sheffield.

The BUGS project surveyed the wildlife present in a wide range of Sheffield gardens, and tested out several commonly held beliefs about wildlife gardening. And what they found was that the evidence just doesn’t support much of the conventional wisdom about what makes gardens good for wildlife.

No More Nettles is divided into 9 chapters. The first asks the question ‘What is garden wildlife’, and you might be surprised at the answer. The second chapter describes the BUGS experiment itself, what it looked at and what it couldn’t look at and how the wildlife surveyed was identified. It’s not written in science babble, so it’s easy to follow and adds a lot of weight to the conclusions that the book reaches.

The third chapter uses data from the experiment to counter some of the worries you might have about whether your garden could be good for wildlife. A wildlife garden doesn’t need to be big, or in the countryside. Ken reiterated this last point in the talk I attended. Much of the wildlife in your garden doesn’t know it’s in a garden, let alone whether that garden is on the edge of the countryside or in the middle of a city. It’s too small to notice, and may well live out its entire life in your garden.

After explaining what you don’t need to do to make your garden attractive to wildlife, the rest of the book covers the factors that really did make a difference – many of which are easily and cheaply implemented. It also recommends that you don’t look at your garden in isolation, but rather at gardens as a whole in your neighbourhood – because garden wildlife doesn’t see fences and hedges as boundaries in the same way that we do. There doesn’t need to be a pond or a big tree in every single garden, a mix of habitats is important.

I’m not going to ruin the book by giving away all its secrets. It’s enough to say that if you have a genuine interest in increasing the value of your garden to wildlife then this is indispensable reading. Whilst listening to Ken’s talk about the BUGS project, I wrote down two memorable quotes. The first is “compost heaps are practically nature reserves” and “butterfly larvae don’t like being mown”.

My (now signed) copy of No Nettles Required is the original hardback version, a small book with a gorgeous cover that’s available from The Book People for just £2 at the moment! It goes beautifully with An Ear to the Ground in the same format, Ken’s book on science for gardeners. No Nettles Required is also now available in paperback, as is Compost, Ken’s most recent book.

The maximum temperature in the Grow Dome yesterday was 8°C.
The overnight minimum was 2°C.

Posted 19 March 2008, 16:33.   Posted in .
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2 Comments for Book review: No Nettles Required

  1. This sounds like a very interesting and informative read. I’m very interested in wildlife gardening and this will go on my wish list. Thanks for a good review!

    Nancy Bond · Mar 19, 09:02 PM

  2. Also available for nothing – as a prize if you win my competition

    GM

    http://thegardenmonkey.blogspot.com/2008/03/garden-monkeys-big-bash-books-3.html

    The Garden Monkey · Mar 21, 03:56 AM

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