This year’s Chelsea flower show will feature an ‘edible meadow’ designed to improve gut health.
The two gardeners behind the ‘microbiome garden’ say it will be filled with flowers that can improve gut health by being eaten or simply walking past.
The human microbiome – the trillions of microbes that live on and in people, mainly in the gut – is influenced by the bacteria and other microorganisms that people encounter in everyday life.
“Everywhere outside, every surface of a tree, a plant, leaves, they all contain microbes. Some are good, some are harmful. When you have a diverse landscape, you come into contact with diverse microbes,” says Chris Hull, who co-designed the garden, which will be unveiled in May.
Just as eating yogurt can increase healthy intestinal flora, so can interacting with plants. Research into this is still in its early stages, but peer-reviewed studies have shown that gardeners have healthier intestines than non-gardeners.
The intestines keep the body in balance, removing bad bacteria that can make people unwell and retaining good bacteria that help break down food and keep organs running. The importance of the gut to overall health is a topic of increasing research in the medical community, with connections to other organs including the brain having been identified.
“Digestive problems are so common these days… but by working with the microbiome and our health we can solve many of these problems. Health problems are often related to our microbiome being out of balance,” said Hull.
The key to the microbiome garden is diversity: the more different types of plants, the more different types of microbes. The designers also tried to show how we can keep soil healthy, because healthy soil contains more beneficial microbes, which are then transferred to the plants we grow and the food we eat.
“One of our most important plants is lupine and that’s a legume, so it’s really good for nitrogen fixation in the soil,” says Hull. “In typical gardens that you might consider a ‘beautiful garden’, the diversity is nowhere near what you would have in a meadow. The plantings in our garden would be much, much more diverse than in a conventional garden, and we hope that visitors can draw inspiration from it.”
After Chelsea, the garden will be moved to the Apricot Center in Totnes, Devon, where children will be cared for, giving them space to play and learn on the sustainable farm.
Playing outside in a diverse natural environment full of plants is crucial for children’s health, says Sid Hill, who designed the garden with Hull.
“There is a Finnish study where they assessed the microbiome of children’s skin before inoculating a sandbox in the forest floor playground. They reassessed it after the children played in the sandbox and found that the harmful pathogens on their skin had decreased and the beneficial microbes had increased,” he said.
Many of the plants grown in the garden are edible, and eating wild foods has also been linked to a healthier gut. The “edible meadow” combines a selection of plants including Persicaria bistortaCamassia and Lupine luteus, creating a rich tapestry of yellow, blue and pink. Although this trio of plants is commonly grown in gardens across the UK, few people know that they are traditional food crops.
Hill said: “Persicaria bistorta has been traditionally harvested from English meadows to make dock pudding since the mid-19th century. Lupines have traditionally been harvested around the world as a food source for gut health and were so sacred to the Egyptians that lupine beans have even been found in tombs dating back to 2000 BC.
“Camassia bulbs were harvested for hundreds of years by native tribes across the Americas. They were often baked in earth ovens or cooked on hot stones, making them very tender and sweet. They would be harvested using a specially crafted stick of wood or antler.
“Sesleria autumnalis provides a green blanket at this time of year, covering the ground and acting as the glue that binds the entire composition together. Silene vulgaris has been selected as a filling installation. It has a habit of weaving around plants and filling in gaps, and offers beautiful white oval flowers with leaves that can be eaten in salads and taste like pea shoots.
Hill said: “There are plants that you eat them from, ancient cultures have used them throughout history, and we’ve lost touch with that. Our garden explores many of them and brings them back to the fore. It is inspired by the history of foraging and tending the land around us for our food. Here in Britain we have a strong history of using pastures for our food.”
This agroecological system is very different from many modern agricultural methods, which involve growing a sterile monoculture, he said: “When we grow plants in an agroecological system, which has diverse microbial communities on the soil, on the plant roots, on the soil supports or houses, leaves, and even the air around the plants. When we spend time in those landscapes, they leach out to us and also when we eat those plants, they act as a probiotic. When we look at industrial agriculture, we are growing food that has been stripped of these beneficial microbes. So when we eat these foods, we miss out on the essential nutrients and microbes needed.”
When asked what readers can do to grow a gut-healthy garden, Hull responded, “Growing your own food… perennial crops to get more wildlife (and) to grow more diverse plants.”
Hill said: “The amount of things we’re discovering with the microbiome is fascinating; we know more about space than about the microbes in our own intestines.”
Playgrounds should be designed with microbial diversity in mind, he said, “so that people understand that we need green, wildlife-friendly and biodiverse playgrounds for their long-term health. If (a child’s) microbiome is affected by a lack of access to nature, it will have consequences throughout their life.”