One Garden Against the World: In Search of Hope in a Changing Climate by Kate Bradbury

Five years after her first book, Kate Bradbury has a new, slightly bigger garden two miles away. Kate’s garden hosts red mason bees, bumblebees, house sparrows and dragonflies. Hedgehogs, hoverflies and lots more birds regularly visit. The entire frog population of Brighton and Hove seem to breed in her small pond each spring. And now, toads are here, too. On summer evenings, Kate watches bats flit above her, and everything seems alright with the world for a moment. But she knows habitat loss remains a massive issue in gardens, the wider countryside, and worldwide, and there’s another, far bigger climate change. Temperature increases are starting to bite, and she worries our wildlife will be unable to cope with the new normal. In her uplifting new book, Kate writes passionately about how her climate-change anxiety pushes her to look for positive ways to keep going in a changing world. As in her first book, she invites you into her life, sharing stories of her mum’s ongoing recovery, old and new relationship drama, her intense love for her new rescue dog, and a few parties, festivals and hangovers are thrown into the mix. One Garden Against the World is a call to arms to all of us – gardeners, communities and individuals – to do more for wildlife and the climate. Climate change and biodiversity loss go hand in hand, but if we work together, it’s not too late to make a difference.