How to Create an Eco Friendly Garden

If you want to build a strong connection with nature, an eco-friendly garden is the way to go. Sustainable gardening is gaining in popularity and if you’ve even a small garden, it’s something we can all do to be environment friendly at home.

Before you rush out to hug the nearest tree, let’s get straight what an eco friendly garden is, then we can look at some of the many ways you can create yours.

Lakewinds Food Co-op

What is an eco garden exactly?

Creating an eco friendly garden can reduce your carbon footprint and is a positive step that you can take towards securing a sustainable future. It includes everything from preserving biodiversity, reducing waste and water consumption, to the choice of plants and fertilisers, composting, sustainable garden furniture and looking after the health of your soil. It’s a holistic approach to gardening that can make a real difference to the enjoyment of your garden and the future of our planet.

Seametrics

Where do you start?

Planning and bringing an eco friendly garden to life is something you can do in little steps. Tackle them one at a time and within a year, you can have a sustainable garden that looks beautiful and is environment friendly. In this guide, we’ve pulled together and sown the seeds of 14 ideas that will inspire you to and make your eco garden grow.

Robert Dyas

More beds, less lawns and paving

Lawns need a surprising amount of water, fertilisers and intensive care. All this uses natural resources including water, chemicals, electricity or petrol, which goes against the idea of eco gardening. Also, large paved areas reduce the ability for rainwater to replenish and maintain ground water levels. Lawns and beds can also help to prevent flash flooding.

Lilydale Instant Lawn

Collect Rainwater

As mentioned above, gardens are intensive when it comes to the use of water. Therefore, for more sustainable gardening, rather than turning to the tap whenever you need water, connect a water but to your guttering to collect rainwater from your roof. This gives you a natural source of irrigation and takes the strain off water supply and sewage treatment.

Farmers’ Almanac

Irrigation and watering

Another good way to be more efficient with water is to use drip irrigation or a soaker hose. A soaker hose is a porous hose that is buried under the soil that lets water soak out to water the soil. This is great for eco gardening as it cuts down on surface evaporation plus it gives you better results when growing plants and vegetables.

T&S Architectural

Composting

Don’t throw away grass clippings, leaves, plant trimmings and waste food such as potato peelings, coffee grains – use them to create wonderfully rich and nourishing compost for your garden. Not only is it environment friendly, it’s a free source of compost that’s there whenever you need it.

RHS

Choose plants carefully

The most sustainable plants are those that keep coming back year after year. Hardy perennials are perfect for an eco friendly garden because not only do you get to enjoy them each year, you don’t need to replace them, which is wasteful and expensive. Do ensure though that whichever perennials you do buy are ideal for your soil type and the Great British climate. Native ones also use less water, are used to our climate and easy to maintain.

Gardingect

Think outside the box

Old bricks, broken pots, cardboard boxes, plastic milk bottles – these can all be put to good use in your eco friendly garden. Break up old bricks and chipped or broken crockery to make crocks which you can use in other containers. Laying carboard on soil can suppress weeds. Plastic bottles cut in half and cardboard toilet roll tubes make great little cloches for growing from seeds. The list of things you can recycle and put to work in your eco garden is endless!

Moral Fibres

Help wildlife thrive

Sustainable gardening isn’t just about growing things, it’s about embracing all of nature’s eco system. Birds, insects and other animals can all contribute to your goal of having an eco friendly garden. Providing habitats such as bird or bat boxes and bug hotels is a great way how to garden design sustainably.

WestSound Magazine

Eco friendly pest control

Pests do exist in gardens and some such as aphids, caterpillars, and mites, can ruin all your hard work. Rather than reaching for a bottle of pesticide, look to green gardening techniques for a sustainable solution. By encouraging natural predators, such as birds, ladybirds, lacewings and spiders, you can control pests and maintain a healthy eco friendly garden.

Wicked Leeks

Mulch more often

Mulching makes great sense if you want a sustainable garden. By scattering organic straw, leaves and wood chips around your plants, it does three great things. It boosts the health of your soil, keeps weeds down and keeps moisture in the soil for your plants to thrive.

Gardening Know How

Helpful hedges

If you need an environment friendly boundary, an alternative to a fence made from sustainable FSC certified wood is a hedge. A hedge not only looks natural, it captures carbon, encourages biodiversity and, if you pick a flowering one, will blossom and bring pleasure.

The Middle Sized Garden

Promote nature’s pollinators

Butterflies, bees and other flying insects are brilliant for pollinating the flowering plants in your eco friendly garden. That’s why you should do everything you can to welcome them into your garden and encourage them to stay and do their fantastic work. They make your plants bloom and flourish, and to help them continue to pollinate, plan your sustainable garden planting carefully so that you can have flowering plants right through the season .

Kedron Pet & Garden

Grow your own

Rather than getting in the car to go to the shops, spend money on expensive packaged vegetables, fruit and herbs, you can cut down on waste, save money and be eco savvy by simply growing your own organically. Not only do they taste better and reduce your carbon footprint, they are there ready to pick and eat fresh whenever you need them. Less waste, more taste! Plus why have shop-bought flowers when you can freshly cut some from your own garden?

Storage Direct

Use natural materials

If you are constructing something in your garden, such as a shed, decking, planters or paths, use those made from natural materials like wooden decking, timber fencing, natural stone paving, wooden planters and garden sheds. These can all be recycled after the end of their natural life. Consider recycling or upcycling timber and old pallets. It all contributes to an eco friendly garden.

Design Heights

Sustainable garden furniture

After all that hard work, it’s great to sit back and take in the beauty of your eco garden. Sustainable garden furniture, made using FSC certified wood from sustainable sources, adds the finishing touch to your eco friendly garden. Whether it’s an elegant arbour, a handsome wooden bench or a family-sized picnic table, always check that the wood is FSC certified and has an anti-rot guarantee so it will last and not need replacing for many years. Alternatively, upcycle existing furniture and protect it with an attractive paint or wood stain to give it a new lease of life.

Pure Garden Buildings

And if you have any further questions on gardening and landscaping, or you would just like to know some further information about the products we sell at Howarth, please visit your local friendly Howarth branch, or contact our customer services on the number 01472 907051.

You can also explore our wide range of landscaping products on our website here, or you can even visit us in branch for more information.