Come what blooms

The new head gardener at Knepp in West Sussex talks to Flora Watkins about a different direction for the rewilding pioneers-and why gardeners need to unclench

- Flora Watkins

CHARLIE HARPUR'S arrival at Knepp Castle comes at an interesting juncture for the West Sussex estate. A few days before we are due to talk, his new bosses, Isabella Tree and Sir Charles Burrell-often dubbed 'the king and queen of rewilding'-announce that they're returning, after a fashion, to farming. Some 370 acres, previously tenanted to a sheep farmer, are being brought back into the fold and will become the Knepp estate regenerative farm.

Mr. Harpur is key to this vision, by setting up a market garden that will supply vegetables for a local box scheme, farm shop, and café, due to open next year.

What has made headlines is the Burrells' admission that, had they always farmed regeneratively rather than intensively they may not have accumulated the debt that pushed them into rewilding back in 2000.

'It's just a different way of managing the land,' stresses Mr. Harpur, when I ask him if this admission undermines the whole rewilding experiment. No one is saying that everything has to be a rewilding project. There's no silver bullet. We've got to be able to feed a growing population, restore biodiversity and use the land sustainably.'