Great balls of briar

It's trowels versus Instagram at 40 paces, so what's it to be: a mulletry, a blobbery or à la carte?

- Jane Clifton

The latest trends in Northern Hemisphere gardening make a TikTok-worthy word salad. But while sounding just as hectically twee as the old “garden rooms” and “meadow chic”, they could actually make modern, environmentally sensitive gardening more achievable (and even a bit cheaty).

The mullet garden is a happy medium between the “rewilding” trend, that venerates weeds, and the infinitely longer-standing tradition of growing plants that look nice.

Mark Tuson, horticulturalist at the Royal Horticultural Society Garden Wisley, helped pioneer the concept, to great effect - not least in municipal gardens, where it has the virtue of reducing upkeep.

Quite simply, you maintain a bit of lawn and/or orderly planting, but leave other sections frothingly wild and weedy for animals, birds, insects and fungi. Cue eco-smugness about the biodiversity.