What do we want gardens to sound like? (The Guardian)
'What do we want gardens to sound like? It began with a frog pond – then suburban rewilding became an obsession
By Cynthia Banham, The Guardian, 15 February 2026
On a wintry January day in Manchester, I crossed University Green, navigating a paved path behind our hotel through lush patches of lawn. It was the start of the inaugural “Wilding Gardens” conference. For two days, scientists and practitioners were gathering to discuss new ways to think about gardens and nature, about what nature needs to thrive, and the untapped potential of gardens – if we step back and allow ecological processes to unfold – to help counter climate change and biodiversity loss.
ManchesterClumps of snowdrop flowers poked through the unmown grass and a grey squirrel streaked across it, from one bare-branched tree to another. Probably common alders, going by the University of Manchester Tree Trail. The world’s first industrial city seemed an apt venue for a talkfest on the urgency of rewilding suburban gardens to help save the planet from precisely what drew Marx and Engels there to study, 180 years ago: the impacts of industrialisation.
What madness made me travel all the way from Sydney, in the grip of a heatwave that was probably devastating my own beloved garden? Having escorted me and my wheelchair safely to the lecture theatre, my husband and son had left. I was alone, quite possibly the only Australian in the overheated room. And then she walked past. Isabella Tree. Less than a metre away.
