Spending time improving your garden not only makes your property look good, but it is also a relaxing way to spend your time. Leave your smartphone in the house and step away from the computer or TV for a while and step out into your garden for a dose of fresh air and creative ideas.
When we build our housing developments, we always build them in a sustainable way, so we thought we’d share some innovative ways that you can tend to your garden whilst keeping the environment in mind too.
Sustainability means using the planet’s resources in a way that doesn’t deplete the ecological balance, by following some of the tips below you’ll be helping to sustain the planet’s natural resources at the same time as making your garden look fabulous.
Create your own compost
Save vegetable, fruit (not citrus) and grass cuttings in a composter and never have to buy prepacked compost again. Pear compost is particularly harmful to the environment as it is harvested from peat bogs which are an important reserve of water and natural habitat for many diverse plant and animal species.
Limit your lawn
Lush green lawns are ecologically expensive, they need a lot of watering and chemicals to keep them looking pretty. Reducing the amount of turf in your garden and replacing it with low shrubs and grasses which consume less water and need less maintenance saves both your time and is more sustainable option.
Save the rain
Harvest rain water for your garden in a water butt to save watering your garden from the garden tap.
Recycle and reuse
How many cappuccinos does it take to grow a tomato plant? Save your takeaway coffee cups and use them to grow seedlings in, by cutting off the bottom inch they can be planted straight in to the ground.
Old tables, chairs or chests of drawers make excellent plant display units and if the plants you bought from the garden centre came in hard plastic pots, then these can be returned back to the centre for them to reuse.
Grow organic
Reduce your dependence on supermarkets where often the food we buy has travelled hundreds or thousands of miles and grow your own organic produce. Even if you only have a small garden you can still grow your own vegetables and every little really does help when it comes to reducing food miles and the chemicals used to grow them.
Waste no water
By using a technique called double digging, you can reduce the amount of watering needed for healthy plant growth, naturally aerate the soil and disseminate organic material deeper into the soil to help root growth.
Using mulch means you water the garden less as it holds more water than soil, and planting plants and shrubs that drink less water will also help to conserve water.
Silence is golden
As trees and plants act as natural sound barrier, growing a thriving garden will also help to reduce noise pollution in your area. This is particularly good news if you live in a city or near a motorway as the very trees in your garden will help people, and wildlife, be less disturbed by traffic noise.
Natural pesticides
By growing the right type of plants, building insect houses and providing bird seed, you will attract the right birds and insects to your garden who will do a far eco-friendlier job than chemical-based pesticides of keeping a check on nasty pests that want to attack your plants.
