Green Gardening
Your garden is one of the most important areas in which your actions can protect wildlife and the environment. The Trust aims to raise awareness about sustainable, wildlife friendly gardening by encouraging gardeners to think about what they do in the garden.
Read the gardening for wildlife section to help get you started or for fantastic ideas on planting for wildlife. Read the other pages for key areas where gardeners can make small changes that will make a big difference to the environment.
Gardening for wildlife
Our gardens can be a refuge for wild plants and animals and help prevent them from fast disappearing. Once a natural balance is established, we can do away with harmful chemicals and save money as well as protecting the wider environment. All wildlife needs food, water and a place to live and breed. We can provide these whatever the size of our garden. Here are some ideas to get you started.
Alternatives to peat
Peat is made of plant remains, mainly sedges, grasses, reeds and mosses that have not decomposed completely. The natural process of decay stops because of the lack of oxygen and waterlogging. This old plant material is compacted by the new plants growing on them, to form peat. It is a slow process with an average growth rate of less than 1 mm a year. Its unique characteristics make it an ideal growing material. The peat is stripped from peat bogs and used in multi-purpose compost. The effects of extraction are irreparable as peatlands take thousands of years to form.
Green manure is good for the garden
Green manure helps to cap winter carbon dioxide production, improves the fertility of your soil and is good for wildlife. It helps to prevent soil erosion, the leaching of nutrients and to capture winter sunlight and carbon dioxide and convert it into biomass.
Home Composting
Composting your biodegradable waste at home can help not only helps in the amount of rubbish going to landfill by is an important part of the nutrient cycle. It reduces the need to buy mulches and acts as a soil improver. A home compost bin is also home to a vast array of beneficial minibeast and micro-organisms and could help to attract other wildlife into your garden.
Mulches and mulching
Mulches are an invaluable garden aid. They are used to reduce water usage, to clear ground and to suppress weeds in planted areas. They work in weed suppression by excluding light, without which plants cannot grow. Mulches are applied as a 5-10 cm layer, depending on the material.
Slugs - how to control them
The most commonly used form of slug control is slug pellets, which contain one of two poisons – metaldehyde or methiocarb. These are poisonous to many animals and each year there are incidents of domestic pets dying from poisoning. Hedgehogs are particularly vulnerable because they eat dozens of slugs each night and the poison builds up to lethal concentrations. Find out here how to control slug numbers without the use of chemicals
Watering wisely
The latest UK climate predictions warn us that our total annual rainfall is likely to increase in the future. However, in the summer, when demand is at its highest, rainfall is likely to reduce by 10 – 20%. This has serious implications not just for us, but also for our wildlife. If we are to protect our beautiful wetlands both for the sake of wildlife and for people to enjoy, then we have to save water. But it is not all doom and gloom, as happily there are lots of things we can do in the garden to save water.
