Eco Friendly House And Garden

Your garden might be green – but is your gardening schedule so eco friendly?

Your garden my well be edging on the eco-friendly side with careful planting, reduced disease and greater wildlife balance – so now look at some of the little things that could reduce it’s environmental impact that you might not have thought of.

By understanding how your plants work; you can reduce water use further, create a greener lawn and reduce pollution.  And by learning about garden processes; you can preserve natural landscapes, improve society and improve your health!

Below are some great garden facts for your plants and garden:

Control Your Water:
Many plants actually grow just as well with reduced watering.  They hold more in their leaves and flowers ‘waiting’ for the next watering.  And too much water can lead to rotting anyway.  Try to halve your watering and see the improvements.

Also, by only watering the actual plants rather than all the mud around them – they will make better use of ground nutrients and grow a better root network. 

If you just empty the entire contents of your watering can over the whole plot then not only are you wasting a lot of that water to evaporation – but the plants roots don’t need to spread far to get that water (and seeds could rot where they sit!). 

And if roots don’t spread far enough to take advantage of available ground nutrients this will result in weaker plants or increased feeding requirements.  So try putting small markers in the ground to mark the exact location of seeds and only water the ground right around your plants for best results.

Also, slightly longer grass will allow it to survive longer in dryer weather and the blades can hold more water.  Really short grass will be the first to die in dry sunny weather – and the dry mud left behind won’t absorb water as well – and will only cause localised flooding when the rains do come!

Mulching Makes A Difference To:
Just as the nutrients in the soil are used for your plants – they are also used for your weeds!  Why spend hours every week pulling out all the weeds – when you can virtually stop them growing in the first place?

Germination and all the growth that take places beneath the ground uses valuable soil nutrients that cannot now be used by your plants!  Each seed needs a certain balance of warmth, moisture and sunlight to germinate – so by covering your beds with at least 10 cms of mulch you will prevent these ‘ideal’ conditions from forming for most seeds. 

No germination – no weeds!

photo credit: jeffreyw

And that thicker layer over your earth will also reduce evaporation and help to keep the soil cooler and less parched: perfect for reduced watering and reduced effort from you weeding; both of which could save you the time to be doing something far more useful!

Save Resources:
By actively making your own compost, growing green fertilisers and maintaining your eco friendly balance (attracting natural predators to kill or outcompete the pests) – you can prevent all that growth, processing, packaging and transportation or man-made fertilisers and pesticides as well as limit the destruction of natural environments like peat bogs and wetland landscapes.

Your compost – reduces demand for water and chemicals to be used in fertilisers
Your compost – reduces the transportation of waste to polluting landfill sites
Your compost – reduces demand on peat cutting and packaging of plant materials
Your compost – offers the perfect home for invertebrates, snakes and birds

Green planting – increases the nutrients in your soil for your plants
Green planting – reduces the land available for weeds to grow on
Green planting – reduce the demand for chemical requirements for maintenance

Eco balance – reduces the need for chemical insecticides and treatments
Eco balance – reduces the risk of disease and plant damage
Eco balance – increases the biodiversity of life in your garden
Eco balance – increases your knowledge of ecosystems and climate change
Eco balance – increase your enjoyment of outside space and wildlife

Tips On How to Create And Manage Your Environmentally Friendly Gardens.

There are many things you can do around your garden that can make it more environmentally friendly – and this doesn’t just entail dragging bath water in buckets to the garden or picking slugs off your plants under the moonlight!

More people are moving into their gardens to make a difference to their lives, either to enrich the wildlife they attract, or to grow their own food and rear their own chickens!

This article hopes to highlight a few things that you might not have thought of in your garden plans, and explains why they will benefit you and your family.

Weeding:
Try to make time to weed by hand – not only does this reduce your dependence on artificial and possibly toxic chemicals, it will also give you a little bit of exercise and allow your skin to produce some Vitamin D – essential for health!

Obviously you will need some tools to weed with – but try to use manual equipment to do so. Not only is is quieter (there’s nothing more annoying than finally getting out in the garden to enjoy a good book and next door start their leaf blower or hedge trimmer!!) but it uses less energy. No petrol or electricity is needed to use your favourite pair of shears!

If you do have an extensive lawn or plenty of hedges, etc – then large – and often expensive – equipment may well be required. But rather than buying it all yourself and then leaving it in the shed until next year – why not borrow or hire a neighbors. Some communities join together to buy ‘shared’ equipment which you rotate through the group.

However if you do need these things – then it may well be cheaper to pay for a professional gardening company to do it once or twice a year for you, rather than buy, store and repair all your own items. This will then, of course, free you up some valuable time to do something more fun!

Avoid mowing your lawn in summer as young amphibians may well be killed.

Plants:
Make sure you don’t use peat products in your garden. Not only is it taken from a fragile and irreplaceable habitat – it is also a carbon sink – basically it is keeping all the carbon it absorbed years ago within itself. Digging it up releases this carbon into the atmosphere again – and I think we already have enough up there already!

Source local, native seeds if possible to limit invasive species gettting a hold here. Also local plants will be best suited to the environment you live in, therefore limiting their damage in terms of extra water demands and possible toxins if eaten by our native wildlife. Hopefully you will help to increase biodiversity with your choices and start to attract local species instead of killing them! Ideally, you would aim for the most drought-hardy versions of your selected plants where possible to reduce demands.

Ponds:
By putting in a garden pond, you could also attract frogs and toads who delight in eating garden pests! And you could also attract a whole host of other garden-friendly pest controllers with the mini wetland you create!

Ideally, you wouldn’t put fish in a wildlife pond as they may well eat insects, amphibians and their young. Also many products need to be used to keep the fish healthy including energy sapping filters and pumps (unless you install solar equipment) and these can go against the ‘eco-friendly’ grain so to speak. Having a few healthy fish at the expense of a delightful and welcoming wildlife pond teeming with local species and plants is your choice in the end.

Try to avoid to much fuss over the pond in summer as many creatures will be breeding and there will be young all around. You could throw them out if you start weeding!

Messy Area:
By making sure there is a part of your garden that is a bit dishevelled will ensure that more wildlife will find your garden a safe haven. Essential to attract is the humble bumble bee and you can do this by offering it a home in a hole close to the ground – they will help pollinate your plants and vegetables through the summer.

Your compost heap is an essential part of a sustainable garden – even if you are not growing your own veg. Plants can do very well on the composted result of your table scraps and dead leaves (it also saves a long drive to the amenity facilities to dump all your green waste too!)

Make sure you let nettles grow in a controlled area of your garden as well, as they are a great nitrogen fixer – making the earth beneath then become more fertile.

Ideally, your messy area and lawn should be proportionally larger than any paved or concreted areas, as these hard impermeable surfaces will increase rain run off during storms. As a result, it will divert valuable water away from your garden plants and send it (along with everyone elses run-off) into the drains and nearby creeks and streams. After long periods of heavy rain this could easily increase the risk of localised flooding as all the water gets to the waterways at the same time rather than slowly filtering through the ground first!

Pets:
Make sure that your pets are not causing a problem for wildlife or your garden. Cats for example catch mice and other small rodents which unfortunately is having a disastrous effect on bumble bees. These insects like to use old rodent burrows for their new nests, but if there aren’t any rodents digging the burrows in the first place – you can see the problem!

They also kill frogs, toads and wild birds.

Ducks are a tiny bit messier than chickens but they just love slugs and will eat them for you all day. However, they may destroy some plants along the way! Ducks will produce less eggs though if you were looking for a steady supplier!

Guinea pigs make great electricity-free lawn mowers and can keep grass down perfectly low if you rotate them around your garden in their spacious run. Rabbits also eat grass but will almost always burrow into your lawn creating a bit of a mess! Both will eat all the fresh table scraps you can offer and their bedding can be composted.

So, go get outside – and start developing you environmentally friendly gardens into something you can be proud of!!!