JOHN LITTLE is a bit of a garden visionary. Not for him the tweaked borders of country houses or the starched formality of the city garden. For him, gardening is all about diversity of species and how people can comfortably cohabit with as wide a range of invertebrates as possible.
As a starting point, he talks about a brown-field site on Canvey Island (the south Essex home of 1970s rock band Dr Feelgood), which he thinks is a more important habitat than meadows and ancient woodland. It is a post-industrial site (formerly an oil refinery) that has been left alone for 50 years. The concrete has cracked, the steel has rusted and native plants have self-seeded. ‘The fact that it has not been shut away and kids ride their
