Nature is resilient.
A few years ago, my next-door neighbour took an industrialstrength weedkiller to the brambles and bindweed that towered over the boundary of the fence at the back of his garden. He used a pressure sprayer so powerful that it took out the plants that had risen and tumbled over my own fence too. The devastation was almost instant. The following year the loss I felt deepened – gone were the pretty bramble flowers, the blackberries that I liked to turn into sharp sorbet, and the thicket of leaves the sparrows loved to shelter within. I thought the damage would be permanent, but I hadn’t counted on the resilience of nature. Just a couple of years on and the brambles are higher than ever, I have more blackberries than I know what…