When you walk into St Hilda’s college, there is no typical Oxford quad, crumbling sandstone, or Gothic gateway. Instead, you are met with a colourful riverside oasis of flowers, trees, and greenery, lovingly cared for by head gardener Deborah Bowden and her team.
The quality of the St Hilda’s gardens is no accident. The team of gardeners works around the clock to take care of the grounds; between them, they have well over 100 years of experience. “Not every college is so fortunate,” Bowden says. “There are so many fewer experienced gardeners about nowadays.”
Maintaining the St Hilda’s gardens is a year-round job. Bowden laments that some of the best times of year for greenery are the points when the undergraduates are not in college, although I struggle to believe that it gets much better than the tulips, wildflowers, and roses of Trinity term! The gardeners put a lot of effort into creating a garden with what they call a “long season of interest”, so that all the colour and beauty of the college gardens is not concentrated around peak blooming seasons. “It is really important for us to have autumn, winter, early spring stuff, otherwise it would all happen at a time when the students aren’t here,” says Bowden.
We are coming up to winter, one of the busiest times of year for the team; Bowden says that winter maintenance involves “putting the garden to bed and getting it ready for the next season”, which is a lot more labour-intensive than it sounds. Winter is also the time when the gardeners take on a project, working to improve every aspect of the St Hilda’s gardens year on year. “The garden is always evolving,” says Bowden proudly. Previous winter projects have included the border of Hall building, the library garden, and the beloved south riverside flowerbeds.
This year’s winter project is the continuation of the rock garden, a tiered, flowering rockery which sits alongside the river. Fifteen metres have already been completed, but there is at least double that to go. “It might take two winters”, Bowden admits, but it will be worth it to maximise the appreciation of the garden by staff, students, and anyone who punts by.
Engagement and enjoyment of the garden cannot be quantified, but Bowden calls it “one of our main goals.” It is why the garden at St Hilda’s is so diverse. With the pots, beds, and borders; the ornamental and rose gardens; the grasses and the meadow; the berry and suffragette borders, and the roof garden, there truly is something for everyone.
As well as hoping to make the staff and students get as much enjoyment as possible out of the garden, the gardeners’ other goal is their staunch commitment to sustainability. They have gone completely chemical-free, as well as investing in electric equipment to become almost completely fossil fuel-free.
Not only does the switch to electric make St Hilda’s a quieter and more pleasant place to be, but the gardeners’ practices buoy the college’s sustainability goals of reducing their carbon footprint and increasing biodiversity. Bowden has noticed that quitting chemicals has ushered in “the most enormous improvement in biodiversity”, as insects, wildlife, and native plants are no longer destroyed by weedkillers.
However, this innovation comes at a price. “If you don’t use chemicals, you need more labour – there’s no two ways about it,” says Bowden. Where previously weed-killing would involve walking around once a month and spraying chemicals, now it is a constant process that involves the gardeners weeding by hand every day. That’s a small price to pay for the explosion of biodiversity in the gardens. “I love the idea that we’re replacing chemicals with labour,” Bowden says.“That seems like a good trade.”
Another point of pride for the St Hilda’s gardeners is their aim to do what Bowden calls “recycling in its broadest sense”. Not only do they constantly practice regular recycling, but they also make their own compost and keep all soil, grass, and leaves onsite for future use. Nothing goes off-site that can be usable onsite at some point. It is the perfect sustainable cycle.
In many ways, the gardens at St Hilda’s are a living reflection of the college itself: quietly evolving, cultivating innovation and patience, and always looking toward the future. Deborah Bowden and her team remind us that sustainability is not just a policy but a daily practice with real-world consequences. It not only transforms the landscape, but benefits the community that flourishes within it.