A narrow path is maintained for access, while the surrounding vegetation is largely left to natural succession. Management is guided by purpose rather than appearance.

Unusual edible plants in the food forest.

Could We Manage Nature Less?

What if the healthiest landscapes aren't the ones we manage the most?

It may sound like a controversial question.

What if we only managed landscapes to the minimum extent necessary to achieve our goals?

What if, instead of fighting an endless battle against every "undesirable" plant, we intervened only where it truly mattered?

Recently I visited De Nieuw Hof, a four-hectare mature food forest ecosystem near Sint-Truiden, Belgium. After retiring, Marc and Christel became the stewards of this remarkable place. Originally established by Dutch permaculture pioneer Taco Blom, the site had become heavily overgrown by the time they acquired it. Many people would have seen a neglected landscape in need of clearing. Marc saw something different.

Rather than trying to restore order everywhere, he has taken a restrained approach. He clears paths where people need to walk. He creates openings for new plantings. He occasionally removes vines that threaten young trees. Beyond that, he largely lets the ecosystem decide what belongs.

The result doesn't resemble a conventional orchard. To many visitors, it might even look untidy. But walking through it tells a very different story. Our visit became an almost continuous feast of tasting fruit and edible plants directly from the landscape. We picked sweet raspberries, sampled numerous varieties of apples and pears, and discovered species that many people have never encountered. There was the aromatic Szechwan pepper (Zanthoxylum piperitum), the unusual medlar (Mespilus germanica), thornless jostaberries (Ribes × nidigrolaria), horseradish (Armoracia rusticana), towering Chinese toon or "onion soup tree" (Toona sinensis), and even cardoon (Cynara cardunculus), a striking perennial vegetable as beautiful as it is edible. I stopped counting after thirty different edible species, and I'm certain there were many more.

Equally remarkable is what isn't there.

No pesticides.

No herbicides.

No synthetic fertilizers.

Very little intervention.

Yet the soils are dark, rich, and alive. Beneficial insects thrive. Pests rarely become serious problems. The ecosystem continues producing an extraordinary abundance of food, year after year.

Nature, it seems, is doing much of the work itself.

Challenging Our Definition of "Well Managed"

This experience made me question something that extends far beyond food forests.

Why are we so uncomfortable with landscapes that look messy?

In parks, streetscapes, nature preserves, and even our own gardens, we often equate maintenance with success. We remove volunteer plants. We clear undergrowth. We battle every invasive species we encounter. We eliminate anything that interrupts our vision of tidiness.

Sometimes those actions are absolutely necessary.

Invasive species can threaten native biodiversity, alter ecosystem processes, and overwhelm sensitive habitats. They should not be ignored.

But not every site has the same objectives.

Do we always need to fight every plant that appears? Or are we sometimes managing simply because our cultural expectation tells us that a cared-for landscape should look neat?

How much time, money, fuel, and labor do we invest in creating landscapes that appear controlled, rather than landscapes that are functioning well?

Managing for Purpose

Perhaps the better question isn't:

How do we remove every unwanted plant?

Instead, it might be:

What are we actually trying to achieve?

If our objective is to maintain safe walking paths, then manage the paths.

If we need to establish young trees, then protect the trees.

If an invasive species genuinely threatens biodiversity or the long-term health of the ecosystem, then intervene decisively.

But beyond those goals, could we allow ecological processes to do more of the work?

Not every volunteer plant is a problem.

Not every untidy corner represents ecological failure.

Sometimes it represents resilience.

Sometimes it represents succession.

Sometimes it represents a healthy ecosystem that simply doesn't conform to our expectations.

Learning to Trust Nature

As landscape architects and land managers, we often see ourselves as controllers of ecological systems.

Perhaps our role is evolving.

Perhaps our greatest contribution is not designing every outcome, but creating the conditions where ecosystems can thrive—and then knowing when to step back.

That doesn't mean abandoning management.

It means becoming more intentional about where management actually creates value.

In an era of shrinking maintenance budgets, biodiversity loss, and a changing climate, this may not only be the more ecological approach, it may also be the more resilient and economical one.

A Different Measure of Success

De Nieuw Hof is not a prescription for every landscape. A mature food forest ecosystem cannot simply be replicated in every park, streetscape, or nature reserve. But it does challenge one of our deepest assumptions.

Perhaps successful landscape management isn't measured by how much we do but by understanding what truly needs to be done and having the confidence to leave the rest to nature.

So I'll leave you with one question:

Are we sometimes managing landscapes for appearance, when we could instead be managing them for function?