A new dutch film, The Garden Ape is making waves as part of a global campaign to inspire wildly diverse gardens & protect nature.

Partnered with sustainable homewares giant IKEA, conservation organisation Natuurpunt, has produced the short film as a part of its new campaign to ‘stimulate people into cultivating more natural and wilder gardens’. Film-makers Marc & Emma (Marc James Roels & Emma De Swaef) have used their mysterious woolen ‘Garden Ape’ to underscore the importance of biodiversity and cultivating natural ecosystems in built environments, and to reinvigorate a more personal connection to backyard (and sustainable) food production. You can check out more of Marc and Emma’s amazing work here, and learn how to encourage backyard diversity here.

We often see our backyards as ordered and well mannered courtyards, with neat plants that can be controlled in size and shape, but this film brings back a sense of childlike wonder and delight at discovering little everyday miracles in natural environments that are left to thrive and grow wild.

Watch the dumbfounded little Garden Ape in action and try not to run out into the bushes and discover your own hidden ecosystems.