The New Gardening Status Symbol: Upscale Compost
‘Compost has become a staple of cocktail-party conversations.’ You can get manure from eucalyptus-eating goats and even a blend from Princess Diana’s childhood home
There are wait lists for high-end compost. PHOTO: HUGO YU FOR WSJ. MAGAZINE
Miranda Michaelis, a 56-year-old flower farmer in Oxfordshire, England, says she grows some of the healthiest tulips around. Her secret is simple, she says: compost harvested from Princess Diana’s childhood home.
She buys it from the Land Gardeners, a company in London that recently began to produce compost at Althorp Estate, the 500-year-old Spencer family property where Diana grew up. The mix, called Climate Compost Inoculum, includes waste from the Spencer family’s horses and cows, as well as ingredients such as weeds, young wood chips and buckwheat. A small, coffee-size bag goes for £20, or about $25 a pop.
Humble compost—a staple of agriculture for thousands of years—has become a luxury item. Amid a burst of pandemic interest in gardening and a growing focus on sustainability, shoppers are increasingly willing to pay top dollar for a bumper crop of artisanal fertilizer. Compost makers are giving their products, essentially manure and decomposed plant matter, a level of scrutiny that is typically seen in fine dining.
“It’s a craft, making compost like we do,” says Bridget Elworthy, one of the co-founders of Land Gardeners. “It’s like making wine, although making wine seems very glamorous, and making compost is very unglamorous. So maybe it’s like making yogurt.”