17. Une graine d’espoir

Gini Denison-Pender founded Beautiful Wild, her Garden and Landscape Design Studio, out of a belief in the central importance of our relationship with the natural world.  She left her role as partner in a London law firm after her children were born, and in 2013 completed the Royal Horticultural Society Level II Certificate in Horticulture with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. She was awarded a diploma in Residential Garden and Landscape Design from the Oxford College of Garden Design. Her 2021 profile in the RHS magazine The Garden describes her love for gardens: in every project she examines how to create a fluent and interesting client-focused design within the context of enhancing the space for wildlife, ensuring that it plays its own small role in larger questions of sustainability and climate, and becomes part of greater wildlife ecosystems. She is interested in the broad relationship between aiming for net zero and looking after the natural world: she sits on the steering group for Communiheat Barcombe, a pioneering initiative undertaken by local and national energy groups to enable rural communities to develop greater energy resilience through ownership of low carbon energy solutions. She is a volunteer for Inspiring the Future, part of the RHS campaign to encourage young people into horticultural careers. She is a pre-registered member of the Society of Garden Designers and an affiliate member of the Landscape Institute. Beautiful Wild is a member of Ecologi, an environmental organisation which engages businesses in funding reforestation and carbon reduction projects around the world.

Dave Goulson is professor of Biology at the University of Sussex, specializing in bee ecology. He has published more than 300 scientific articles on the ecology and conservation of bumblebees and other insects. He is the author of Bumblebees; Their Behaviour, Ecology and Conservation, published in 2010 by Oxford University Press, and of the Sunday Times bestseller A Sting in the Tale, a popular science book about bumblebees, published in 2013 by Jonathan Cape, and now translated into fourteen languages. This was followed by A Buzz in the Meadow in 2014, Bee Quest in 2017, The Garden Jungle in 2019, Gardening for Bumblebees in 2021, and Silent Earth in 2021. He founded the Bumblebee Conservation Trust in 2006, a charity which has grown to 12,000 members. He was: Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council’s Social Innovator of the Year in 2010; given Zoological Society of London’s Marsh Award for Conservation Biology in 2013; elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2013; given the British Ecological Society Public Engagement Award in 2014; given Zoological Society of London’s Clarivate Award for Communicating Zoology in 2020. In 2015 he was named number 8 in BBC Wildlife Magazine’s list of the top 50 most influential people in conservation. In the four years 2018-2021 he was named as a “Highly Cited Researcher” by Thompson ISI. He is a trustee of Pesticide Action Network, and an “Ambassador” for the UK Wildlife Trusts, and president of Pesticide Free Scotland.

Greenscape Gardens are a multi award winning landscape construction company whose ethos is to build beautiful, sustainable gardens which make a difference. Founded in 2004 by MD Carl Chaney and assisted by best friend and manager James Gleghorn, Greenscape Gardens have organically grown to become one of the leading landscaping companies within Surrey and South London. They have long been passionate about sustainability and work closely with local designers to create gardens which have a positive impact not only for the client but for the environment and for nature’s own visitors and residents of the space. Greenscape Gardens are renowned for their creative streak and for working with reclaimed and recycled materials. Greenscape Gardens have won several industry awards including a 2021 BALI award, 2021 and 2020 APL awards and a 2018 Pro Landscaper award.