Planted and the National Trust; a match made in nature

28 April 2022

By Sam Peters, co-founder of Planted

There is a wooden message board which visitors to Planted Country will pass on their way down to Planted Country from the visitor centre at Stourhead which sums up why the National Trust are our natural partners.

The message, written by Octavia Hill, the 19th century social reformer who dedicated her life to improving access to nature for city dwellers while campaigning against development on urban woodlands and for equality across society, is beautiful in its simplicity.  

It reads: “…the need of quiet, the need of air, and I believe the sight of sky and of things growing seem human needs, common to all men.”

While the language is of its time – Hill of course meant all people, not just all men – the message endures.

Being connected to nature is a basic human need, scientifically proven to improve our mental and physical health, while enabling us to concentrate for longer, be more productive, feel better. In contrast, the absence of nature is now undeniably linked to poverty, ill health and social inequality. Indeed, National Trust research into just these topics at the start of the global pandemic opened many people’s eyes to this injustice.

At Planted, we talk a lot about biophilic design. In simple terms this means placing nature at the front and centre of the design process. From designing buildings we work in to products we use in the home to artwork we hang on our walls, biophilic design means designing places and spaces with nature in mind. Biophilia, after all, means the love of nature.

Just like Octavia Hill, we at Planted believe access to nature should be a fundamental right for us all to enjoy, not just the privileged few.

We want to make the commercial case for nature by promoting businesses and organisations who recognise that protecting nature and regenerating it is the only way for us to build a truly sustainable future for generations to come. As with all things, education is key. 

Fyodor Dostoyevsky  wrote “One cannot love what one does not know” and Planted stands side by side with the National Trust in trying to educate and inspire current and future generations to love nature for all its weird and wonderful imperfections.

And what better way to begin to understand how nature works than by starting with the complex beauty of soil? The very foundation upon which so many of our ecosystems depend?

The Save our Soil talks programme at Planted Country, exploring why the earth matters for food, farming and nature, will look to challenge our understanding of the very thing we deliberately design urban spaces to hide, to its detriment, and our farmland to artificially expose, also to its detriment; Soil. 

After centuries of industrialised neglect, can we now design spaces which preserve, renew and enrich our soil and in so doing extend its lifecycle and enable us to live longer and healthier lives?

We have drawn together an amazing panel of expert speakers including leading environmentalists, designers, journalists and National Trust experts. The talks will be filmed in front on our stunning off-grid cabin and are free to attend.

A special thanks to our friends at the Forest of Selwood for their invaluable expert support for our editorial programme.

Complimenting our talks programme at Planted Country will be our amazing Natural Living and Botanical Market spaces, showcasing some of the UK’s finest nature-based designers and brands, alongside VERVE Festival at Planted Country, who are helping us deliver a programme of nature-based wellness workshops. 

We have had tremendous support delivering this event, not least from Stourhead’s brilliant team who have gone above and beyond to ensure we have felt at home from the moment we set foot on their patch. In just a little over four months of planning, this collective effort has delivered what we hope you agree is an exceptional event unlike anything on offer anywhere else in the UK. Thank you, everyone.

Most importantly, we hope the event inspires you to really think about what living sustainably means and what we should all be doing to regenerate, reenable and restore nature and biodiversity across our land.

After all, we have designed our way into a climate emergency. The real question is, can we design our way out? If we are to do so, we must start by protecting and caring for the very earth beneath our feet.