An Evening with Peter Korn and John Little

Ever since he started growing plants, Peter has tried to understand what it is that makes a plant establish in the specific place where it occurs in the wild, and then translating it to garden conditions. He has travelled to numerous places with climates similar to Sweden to see how plants grow in their natural environment. The trips, combined with great curiosity and own growing experiences, have given him an unusual understanding of what plants want – no matter how specific their needs are. Peter uses this knowledge in his landscape and garden design with great success and gives regular lectures on growing conditions, creating habitats and naturalistic plantings. Nature is always his greatest source of inspiration. A planting should solve problems, not create them.

John argues:

Put the best gardeners in the poorest places

Move money from capital into care

Understand that gardened places are best for biodiversity and people

Move novel landscapes higher up the BNG metric

Understand that a modern public space gardener is much more than a horticulturist

Question our obsession with specifying topsoil in all new projects, especially on highways and new developments

Keep waste on site and use it to make places beautiful and biodiverse

Put soil and plants on roofs