Modern heroes of horticulture - Jane Caston, helping Britain grow wilder
When you speak to Jane Caston, one thing becomes clear almost immediately – her passion isn’t just for plants, it’s for everything that depends on them.
As part of the team at Meadowmanie, Jane spends her days helping gardeners, landowners and communities create thriving wildflower spaces that support biodiversity, restore habitats and reconnect people with nature. But her journey into horticulture wasn’t a conventional one.
Although she’s worked professionally in horticulture for around ten years, gardening has always been part of her life. It was the wildlife that first captured her imagination.
“I enjoy noticing the wildlife that shares these spaces – the birds, insects and pollinators – and just watching what’s going on around me,” Jane explains. “Whether it’s a garden or a meadow, I like the peace of working outdoors and the chance to slow down and just observe.”
Today, her role at Meadowmania is wonderfully varied. From advising customers on the best wildflower seed mixes for their soil and conditions, to creating educational content, visiting the company’s seedhouse and nursery, and continually expanding her own horticultural knowledge, every day is different. What remains constant is her desire to help people create spaces that flourish.
Before joining Meadowmania, Jane worked on an organic flower farm, where she was responsible for propagation. It was here that her fascination with seeds truly began.
Working with thousands of seedlings taught her an invaluable lesson that still shapes the advice she gives today: successful gardening starts with understanding the site you’re working with. Every location has its own conditions, challenges and opportunities, and choosing plants that are naturally suited to those conditions will always produce the best results.
Even earlier in her career, Jane worked as a children’s book editor – a role that might seem worlds away from horticulture, but one that developed a skill she still uses every day: making complex information easy to understand. Whether she’s explaining soil preparation or helping someone choose the right seed mix, that ability to communicate clearly makes wildflower gardening feel accessible to everyone.
For Jane, wildflowers offer far more than seasonal colour.
Native wildflowers provide essential nectar, pollen, shelter and food for an extraordinary range of wildlife, from bees and butterflies to birds and mammals. They also improve soil health, slow water runoff, store carbon and help create landscapes that are more resilient as our climate continues to change.
Yet despite growing public interest, Jane believes one misconception still catches many people out.
Many assume creating a wildflower meadow is simply a case of scattering seed and waiting for nature to take over. In reality, successful meadows require careful ground preparation, selecting species suited to the site and ongoing management. Once established they are generally lower maintenance than a traditional lawn, but they still benefit from annual care to keep them thriving.
Fortunately, that’s exactly where Jane enjoys making the biggest difference. Helping people understand the process gives them the confidence to succeed and ensures more wildlife-friendly spaces flourish across the UK.
If there is one message Jane hopes more gardeners will embrace, it’s that every planting decision matters.
“Every planting decision is an opportunity. Choosing native wildflowers where they’re appropriate doesn’t just create something beautiful; it also provides food and habitat for wildlife and helps restore healthy ecosystems. Lots of small, thoughtful choices really do add up.”
For anyone inspired to get started, Jane recommends sowing native wildflower seed in either autumn or spring. Autumn naturally mirrors how wildflowers disperse their seed in the wild, while spring offers warming soils and excellent growing conditions. Wildflower plug plants also establish best during these cooler, moisture-rich seasons.
Her advice is refreshingly simple: prepare the ground properly, choose plants that suit your conditions, and don’t underestimate the impact even the smallest space can have.
In a world where biodiversity faces increasing challenges, Jane Caston is helping people realise that every patch of land, no matter how large or small, has the potential to become something far more valuable than just another garden. It can become a home for wildlife, a place of beauty, and part of a much bigger solution.
