Expert: 'Stop Googling and start weeding'

17:01:20 13th January 2010

Gardening should not focus on a rule book but on using natural instincts and simply being outside, a gardening correspondent has claimed.

Writing for the Independent, Anna Pavord states that in the past decade things such as the internet have caused people to lose their natural instincts when gardening.

She advised people to "stop Googling" and "start weeding".

"Websites and blogs have multiplied, fertilised by a curious anxiety about the natural world, but that world is not going to get more familiar by way of a computer screen," she said.

"Being outside is what matters in gardening, where, given time you can begin to absorb the complex set of circumstances that makes plants grow."

Research commissioned by the National Trust found that over 70 per cent of the UK population think that spending time in their gardens is important for quality of life.

For many people, gardens were seen as places to unwind and distress, states the report.