Can a given name turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy? In the case of Benny Hawksbee, it certainly can. A marine biologist turned ecological gardener and naturalist, Benny has become a self-taught expert on bees and pollinators – and a passionate campaigner for natural green spaces in cities. One day a week, he manages the Eden Nature Garden in Clapham, south London, a community garden that is tucked away beside St Paul’s church and treasured by locals as a haven of peace and wildlife. The rest of the week, he works in other people’s gardens and runs workshops at Hilldrop, the plot in Essex belonging to experimental ecological gardener John Little and his wife Fiona.
Having grown up in South Wales, Benny studied marine biology and, for several years afterwards, worked on sea turtle projects in Greece and further afield. He returned to the UK in 2011 and found himself in London, yearning for a new direction: ‘I thought, what can I find to keep me inspired by nature and wildlife?’ Around this time, he came across the writing of Dave Goulson, a specialist in bee ecology and the founder of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. He was hooked. ‘Since then, I’ve gone pretty deep into solitary bees,’ he says. ‘There are just under 280 species of bee in the UK – one species of honey bee and 24 species of bumblebee, and all the rest are solitary bees. Among them are mining bees, mason bees, shaggy bees, resin bees and wool carders. There’s an incredible raft of exciting bees out there.’
Most bees can forage for pollen on a range of plants – native and non-native – but some depend entirely on a specific plant to survive. With climate change and modern gardening practices pushing some of these plants into extinction, the existence of these bees hangs teetering on the edge. ‘For example, the sainfoin bee will collect pollen only from the sainfoin plant, and the white bryony mining bee cannot exist without that plant.’ White bryony (Bryonia dioica) is one of the many native plants grown in the Eden Nature Garden, its delicate greeny white flowers and twirling tendrils swathing an arch. ‘If it was in Sarah Raven’s catalogue, people would be all over it,’ says Benny, smiling.
Having stumbled across Eden when he first arrived in London, Benny started by volunteering in the garden and, six months later, found himself the head gardener. ‘I knew nothing about gardening,’ he says. ‘It was a baptism of fire. I’ve learned almost all I know about gardening here, so I’ve not done anything in a formal way.’ Everything he does in the garden is designed to bring in as much wildlife as possible, from the bees and insects to the birds that occupy the native rowans and cherry trees.
Eden is not just a space for wildflowers and weeds left to its own rewilding devices. ‘I aim for a 70:30 ratio of British native plants and ornamental plants from elsewhere in the world,’ he says. So wildflowers such as alkanet, red campion and garlic mustard (a key plant for orange-tipped butterflies) grow among tulips and euphorbias, while gooseberry bushes and other edibles thrive under echiums and palms. Plants are chosen not just for pollinators, but also as food for moth and butterfly larvae and caterpillars – something often overlooked by gardeners.
Benny points out a rose with perfect, semicircular holes around the edges of some leaves. ‘This is the work of leaf-cutter bees,’ he explains. ‘They wrap up their eggs and pollen in a leaf casing and finish off the nest with chewed leaf material. Last year, I planted a couple of species roses near a bee-nesting post and one of the roses was totally covered in those beautiful holes. I realised that, by having a rose closer to their nesting point, it was saving them energy. If something is utilising or eating your plants, it’s fantastic. We have to accept these imperfections.’
The Eden Nature Garden is wild and free, but the wilderness also has to be tamed. ‘Every week, I take out things that might be in flower to create bare ground for nesting bees and self-seeding plants. It can’t all be totally wild. That’s not the optimal ecology or aesthetic, and it doesn’t make you feel great when it’s too wild. The key thing is to interact with it and keep everything in check. I try to manage the garden in line with top ecological advice.’
Fizzing with life, this small community garden could become a blueprint for other gardens in other cities, and Benny is trying to get his message out by running workshops and talks. But he is sanguine about the state of British gardening: ‘In so many areas, gardens are still disappearing. You see giant patios and driveways going in, and skips filled with soil standing outside. People want an empty space that is easy to look after, but the ultimate sadness will be the fact that there will be no berries for them to pick and no insects feeding on the plants. Society promotes sterility and cleanliness, and there’s a real disconnect with natural green spaces. We just need to try and switch it up a bit and get more people excited about plants’.
Eden Nature Garden: edennaturegarden.org
