Permaculture. A lesson in inclusion
When I first began thinking about developing my permaculture garden, Q Gardens (see what I did there), I thought I was simply just upholding my grandfathers legacy. Digging into the soil and being visited by the same robins when I spent time as a child “working the land” with him.
The tongue in cheek label was a framing for my own searching for sustainability, solace, and perhaps a little beauty. But what I unearthed was far more profound lesson in balance taught not through books or boardrooms, but through trees, pollinators, and forgotten wisdom.
My mentor Liam is probably somewhere rolling his eyes that I managed to include gardening into my leadership canon, but I am here now.
Walk with me.
Permaculture, at its heart, is not a modern invention. It is a return.
A reclamation of practices that indigenous, rural and community-based cultures across the world have known for generations. That contrary to the rapacious aims of industrial farming and agriculture we need to work with nature, not against it. Observe the patterns of the land. Care for the earth, care for people, and share the surplus. Whether you are no dig, a fan of drip irrigation or making your own compost, all was about care.
For me this meant co designing a space with my wife and gardener (yes I have a gardener) where flora, fauna, and food were not just present, but integrated. Companion planting, water harvesting, perennial crops, natural composting, vegetable, herbs and cottage gardens all form part of the ecosystem (wildlife ponds and bug hotels incoming). And yet, despite my careful planning, I was about to encounter an imbalance I hadn’t considered.
My youngest daughter has hay fever the worst. Me and the eldest also have some form of allergies but not to that extent. I found out that my youngest has allergies to birch trees - the biggest tree in our garden - and also to hazel trees, lined up at the back and one in the front. So I went on a quest to see how best to mitigate this. To nurture a low allergen space in the garden.
While researching the biodiversity of trees and their relationships with pollinators, I came across something that stopped me in my tracks, that most urban environments are dominated by male trees.
It felt almost absurd at first. Could trees be gendered in a way that affected how we breathe, sneeze, and feel? The answer was an emphatic, yes.
Many trees are dioecious—meaning they are either male or female. While female trees bear fruit, seeds or pods, male trees produce pollen. Lots of it. And because city planners in the 20th century preferred ‘clean’ streets, they chose male trees en masse. No messy fruit, they said. Less maintenance.
But what they also planted was a pollen-heavy, allergen-rich atmosphere, contributing to increased rates of hay fever, asthma, and other respiratory issues especially in children, the elderly, and communities living in high-density urban environments.
This phenomenon has a name yo. Botanical sexism.
A name coined by horticulturalist Thomas Leo Ogren, which refers to the bias toward planting male trees and shrubs in public spaces, without consideration of the broader ecological and human health consequences. What may have seemed like a neat solution to a litter problem became a complex public health issue.
As I reflected on this in my own garden and how we would plant a mix of male and female trees, choosing species pollinated by insects rather than wind, and creating space for wild edibles and herbal borders I realised something. Amongst the cypress, birch and hazel trees we also had fruit bearing trees. Apples, pears, plums and maple that absorbed much of the wind driven pollen of these trees. Not only that the lavender, rosemary and much of the insect pollinated plants in the cottage garden reduced the allergen nature of the garden.
For me, much to the chagrin of my mentor, wife and best friend hearing me constantly rattle on about my discoveries, This wasn’t just a gardening lesson. It was a leadership lesson.
You see, we often think of inclusivity as a human-to-human issue. But what happens when our decisions about what to plant, build, pave, or preserve fail to include the full ecosystem?
Urban planners, city councils, landscape architects: these are leaders too. And like all leaders, their decisions ripple outward, often in invisible ways. The choice to exclude female trees for convenience led to generations of higher pollen counts and declining biodiversity. A seemingly small exclusion became a large-scale health issue.
This is why inclusive leadership is not just about who is in the room—but about what perspectives and systems we consider. Inclusivity means seeing the whole, not just the neat. It’s about asking who or what might be affected and not just now, but long after we’re gone.
In Q Gardens, I plant now with this expanded view of inclusivity in mind. I plant to attract pollinators, support biodiversity, capture carbon, nurture soil, and also restore gender balance among trees. Probably gonna be called the woke gardener, but yeah SYM innit.
It’s an act of stewardship. It’s also an act of resistance. Against the sterile, extractive, and short-sighted thinking that too often governs our public and private decision-making.
Inclusive gardening, I’ve come to learn, is really about inclusive thinking. It’s about designing with care for people, for place, and for possibility. In my case with my family front and centre. So much more than just the workplace.
And if leadership is, at its core, about taking new journeys, learning from the past and designing better futures, then perhaps the soil can teach us more than the spreadsheet ever could.
Maybe there’s a speech in here but in the meantime, happy to work with you and your team through programmes or coaching about the importance of inclusive leadership.
