Gardening for nature

A wilder way of gardening and looking after our world

Learn the wild way of growing and living, a new ecological approach to gardening explained in an email newsletter by landscape designer and writer Jack Wallington from his remote garden in the Pennine hills in northern England. Studying nature and natural habitats to learn more about our world and how that makes gardens, and us, stronger.

Hi, I’m Jack, I’m a wild garden designer, permaculture food grower, nature lover and artist. I created the term wild way of gardening as a way of explaining how I’ve felt about gardening my whole life, which seemed different to the way it was described on TV and in books. I started this site and newsletter in 2014 to document my thoughts and findings, attracting other likeminded people in our community that’s grown over the years.

Everything you read from me is based on my direct hands-on experience in my own garden and allotment, now based on a little farm in West Yorkshire. As well as my experience designing almost 100 gardens all across the UK, from Somerset to London, Yorkshire to Scotland.

I’ve written best selling books and popular articles for the likes of The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Royal Horticultural Society, Gardeners’ World, Gardens Illustrated, The English Garden and more. Here on the Wild Way I am entirely independent with no ads and able to say whatever I want!

Sign up for free and I’ll send you weekly newsletters on organic regenerative gardening, food production, foraging, wild garden design, wild plant insights, ornamental plants for wildlife benefit, wildlife profiles and stories, and other articles along these lines. Always with photos from my travels to help bring things to life.

Paid supporters receive an additional set of articles that contain my best writing and insights, as well as full access to the years of archived content found on this site. My aim is to offer something for everyone and together we’ll all work together for a better planet full of the nature we love.

What is the Wild Way?

The Wild Way is about taking what nature teaches us and learning from it to grow better regenerative and sustainable food, and to surround ourselves with beautiful wildlife benefiting plants. It is about putting nature first and seeing us as part of it, but not more important than any other life.

Because ultimately, by helping wildlife to survive and flourish at a time it is under immense pressure, we help ourselves. Recognising that the whole world is our shared garden to explore, protect and sensitively forage. Leaving this planet in a better state than it is now.

I have been working on the Wild Way of gardening for over a decade surrounded and supported by wonderful people. It is an ongoing work-in-progress of learning and sharing - mistakes are part of the approach! I’ve listed more of the key principles below…

Wild Way principles

• study nature and how everything is connected

• art and design runs deep

• embrace our own human need for wilderness

• explore equality around land access and ownership

• research and reclaim self-sufficient growing and farming

• regenerative gardening is essential for the future of food and ornamental planting

• understanding the growing history of indigenous peoples and early human history

• analyse farming through both historic and modern knowledge and technology

• explore our role in nature’s cycle

• use our ability to enhance an area of land’s contribution to the planet

• keep a wider eye on the dwindling wild world at large

• be experimental and playful

• always learn and adapt

• make mistakes, they are brilliant, they are how we learn!

What do you get for £25 a year?

Everyone can join for free to receive the weekly newsletter, but if you pay £25 for an annual subscription, you’ll receive some of my best insights and writing found anywhere. For 48p a week, paid subscribers receive:

• Exclusive articles and photos every month

• Full archive access to hundreds of articles

• Annual and perennial food production advice

• Permaculture and forest gardening advice and trials

• Garden design guides, advice and examples

• Wildlife profiles and photos from heartfelt encounters with the likes of otters, hedgehogs, interesting birds and insects

• Organic gardening advice and how to transition to no chemicals

• Planting design tips and easy to follow guides

• Wildflower, tree and shrub profiles in the Wild Plant A-Z

• Occasional online workshops held over Zoom

• Many other timely tips

• 20% discount in my online shop

And much more as we explore the Wild Way together!

WHY IS IT DIFFERENT?

I promise to reward readers with insights into nature and gardens, and my paid supporters with no-holds-barred, exclusive emails filled with my latest wilder way of gardening thoughts and photos.

Your subscription makes this newsletter truly independent, with no advertisers or biased media owners. I feel it’s the best value garden and wildlife knowledge I can give you, my raw thoughts that month.

The free newsletter is weekly and the main Wild Way newsletter goes out at the start of the month, paid members have access to the archive of back issues online.

Learn with me as I explore this funny, wonderful world and grow following its wild ways.

What other people say about the Wild Way

"Very reasonable price and I'm very interested in gardening with wildlife"
- Rachel

"Really love your writing and your philosophy chimes perfectly with the way I try to garden - and live”
- A.

“Interested in making my garden really environmentally friendly, decided to join”
- Margaret

“I'm learning a lot - and implementing what I learn"
- Sarah

"Just loved your article about leaving fallen leaves around plants! That’s a gardener, I thought”
- Sally

“Inspiring and helpful”
- S.

“Always find your newsletters helpful and inspiring”
- E.

Why your support is so important

It takes me a lot of time to not only write articles on the Wild Way, but to also do the work first, trialing plants and techniques myself to report back to you what did and didn’t work. It’s always been important to me that I write about what I have actually done.

The world of writing is facing multiple challenges, it doesn’t pay very well at all these days and you often have to write to a brief. By setting up my own independent platform with the Wild Way, I can write about the topics that matter to you, concentrating on helping nature and wildlife.

Your £25 subscription also allows me the time to represent my readers on important topics online, on nature marches and campaigns, visiting Parliament to meet with MPs and House of Lords peers to raise topics such as a peat compost ban. I also donate money each year to nature charities and give up weeks of my time to support them, such as by attending events or meeting with important organisations to lend my voice.

On a personal level, the Wild Way has been so important to me creatively, allowing me to explore writing, photography and more. Essentially, I can be more me, and that means I am confident that I can give you 100% of what I have to give. I have grown as a person thanks to your support for the Wild Way, and I’ve seen my readers grow too (and I don’t just mean literally!)

Thank you everyone who joins, for free or paid, by coming together on the Wild Way, to learn and grow together, we have started a movement that I hope sets nature and the planet up for a better future.