Natural gardens and landscapes are gaining popularity worldwide. And with good reason – a true garden should not to be a constant struggle with wilderness but instead an ecosystem that lives and develops by its own course. The role of the gardener is that of a guide and helper, not fighter or transformer.

While one can seek deep ecophilosophical reasons for using native species and close-to-nature design in landscaping, there are also two simple and easy-to-understand ones. First and foremost a natural garden is beautiful and secondly, everyone feels well there. The gardener himself, who is freed from a lots of backbreaking work, the plants, who grow by themselves in the natural environment, and all other creatures who are co-tenants in each garden.

Natural gardening is based on two basic principles:

1. A garden is a working ecosystem
2. The garden is part of a larger landscape

The basic guidelines that follow from these principles are:

1. Prefer local and well acclimatized plants.
2. Avoid large lawns in areas that sre not constantly treaded, use flower lawns and meadows instead.
3. Brightly colored tropical plants and varieties belong to the boundary between natural and artificial environment
4. Flower-beds are mini-ecosystems and should be larger rather than smaller
5. Narrow and geometric shapes belong to the boundaries of larger natural areas (eg between lawn / meadow and pathway)
6. The ecosystem includes both flora and fauna. Humming, crawling and flying creatures belong to the garden as much as flowers.

Advantages of a natural garden:
Local species require less work and effort. In the wild, they can handle cold winters, pests and intense competition with other species.
Don’t be afraid that wild flowers bloom too little and too little. Intense competition in the natural ecosystem forces them to be frugal. In the fertile soil many meadow plants surprise us with the sea of ​​flowers.
The human eye seems to be used to seeing community as a whole. Plants growing together in nature also look visually good together.

Of course there are disadvantages too:
Local plants have local pests. Pests of many tropical species cannot survive in our climate.
Many domestic species bloom for a short time. Summer is short and seeds have to ripe before autumn.
The colors are generally pastel. It is difficult to find local plants is intense color patches are needed.