Rebel gardeners are grasping the nettle

As gardeners prepare for the biggest event in horticulture, the Chelsea Flower Show, a quiet and very English revolt is taking place. It is a rebellion against decking, pebbles, water features and foreign plants, and its weapon is perhaps the most powerful force in the garden: the weed.

As gardeners prepare for the biggest event in horticulture, the Chelsea Flower Show, a quiet and very English revolt is taking place. It is a rebellion against decking, pebbles, water features and foreign plants, and its weapon is perhaps the most powerful force in the garden: the weed.

With specialist nurseries reporting blooming sales of nettles, thistles, dandelions and daisies, cultivators of the unkempt garden are finally fighting back. And in their sights they have the decking brigade: the millions who spend their weekends armed not with hoes but with Black & Decker drills, installing the latest designer features promoted by the rising tide of garden makeover shows.

There is even evidence of the backlash against the commercial gardening boom amid the manicured exhibitions of the Chelsea show, which opens to the public in nine days ­ sponsored, for the first time, by a City firm, Merrill Lynch. Visitors will be able to see organic wilderness gardens, a traditional post-war English garden, a wild meadow and a garden entitled "Mother Earth" featuring wildflowers, native grasses and even fungi.

Rosemary Verey, the Cotswolds-based garden writer regarded as the doyenne of English horticulturists, is a confirmed weedophile. Imported plants do have a place, she says, but native wildflowers and plants must be protected. "Gardens are about plants, and all those ghastly pebbles and paving is a passing phase. Anybody who really likes gardening as such doesn't want much of that," she said.

Rosemary Castle, the author of Liberating Lawns, is worried by the undue influence of programmes such as Ground Force, fronted by Alan Titchmarsh and Charlie Dimmock. "I think it's probably like good aerobic exercise: it makes you feel good, especially if you can produce an effect in a day, but it's a little bit alarming that people should aspire to a limited set of standards," she said.

From her half-acre garden in the Forest of Dean, Mrs Castle runs a cottage industry selling plants including the Orkney Broccoli daisy, the Butter and Eggs toadflax, the Brightstone Bitch nettle and the Martin's Freaky plantain.

The weedies' plant-growing operations are in stark contrast to the big business that is conventional gardening. The industry has grown by 14 per cent since 1995. Britain's gardeners spent over £2.6bn last year ­ including £805m on plants.

Alan Titchmarsh, who has just finished sowing a one-acre "butterfly meadow" at his home, believes the criticism of Ground Force is unwarranted. "Gardens by their very nature are cultivated objects. They always have been," he said. "Gardeners shouldn't be made to feel guilty that they're not using all native plants. That would be like a library without books.

"I have been involved in a movement which has seen gardening become infinitely more popular than it was five or six years ago. It makes people more aware of their environment. It makes them more responsible ... for the planet and makes them wiser custodians of the landscape."

All the same, there are gathering concerns of environmental damage done by foreign plants. Grahame Dixie, who runs Really Wild Flowers, near Shaftesbury, Dorset, selling wildflower seedlings, said: "Ornamental plants are like statues. They look good but contribute nothing to the eco-system."

The company sells about 300,000 wildflower and tree seedlings a year, two-thirds of which are taken by home gardeners. "We're talking about nature and creating habitats," said Mr Dixie. "It's just a shame that gardens are being dominated by these garish ornamental foreign plants."

Grahame Peter Loosley'sNatural Surroundings Centre for Wildlife Gardening at Holt, Norfolk, began as a one-man crusade to conserve wildflowers 12 years ago. It now employs five staff and has sales of £150,000 a year. His mail-order business, selling wildflower, grass and weed seeds such as meadow saxifrage, cuckoo flowers, ribwort plantain, wild carrot and garlic mustard, has doubled in the past five years.

These enthusiasts believe the continued survival of many threatened British species is at stake. Gardens are now seen a crucial refuge for once common flowers which in turn can help to save threatened insects, birds and butterflies.

The rebel cause has been taken up by the Natural History Museum in London. It has launched a Flora for Fauna campaign to promote indigenous flowers, mosses and grasses. On its website ( www. nhm.ac.uk/science/projects/fff), gardeners can find lists of all locally growing native plants by tapping in their postcode.

Martin Cragg-Barber, a professional gardener from Chippenham, Wiltshire, and author of Appreciating Lawn Weeds, is scathing about the army of gardeners who spend over £4m a year on lawn weedkillers. "This mentality amounts to an attempt to destroy part of a natural environment," he wrote. "It is time that the flag was raised for the weedy lawn, not as a sign of failure by the gardener but as a platform for co-existence with nature."