Bringing regeneration home
Untangled Landscapes started off working with domestic jungles, transforming them into well-manicured ornamental spaces. None of what they did was regenerative, however, and eventually the weeds would return. Since then, their approach has evolved and it’s more about untangling people from the need to use chemicals and industrial materials in their gardens. They have stopped using poisons and weed mats – in part because they just don’t work very well – and have instead started using natural principles and techniques borrowed from regenerative agriculture.
As Matt Bates Cummings says: “Too often we see a symptom of something and we go ‘I can’t have that. I need to stop this.’ And then you stop the regenerative process. We need to let things play out a lot more. It needs a bit of trust. You need to trust the process and watch it and observe it until we understand it completely.”