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Why Green Gardening?
- To minimize your impact on the environment
- To help the environment to help you to garden
The second point needs a little explanation - A garden
is an artificial construct in what should be a wild place. Any plants you
put in it, particularly those that are not natives are invaders and will
be seen as competition or food by the native plants, animals and fungi.
If you destroy the natives too effectively, then biodiversity will
fall, this is the variety of life that lives in your garden - despite the
sound of this it is not a good idea as it makes it more likely that a pest
or disease will run away with and destroy your favourite plant than if
there are natural checks and balances to keep it under control. Green
gardening maintains biodiversity which enhances stability and so becomes
self-enhancing.
 Composting
organic waste is one of the oldest, easiest and most effective forms of
recycling that you can do.
All plant material that comes from your garden can and
should go onto a compost heap, likewise any potato peelings, carrot scrapings,
cabbage outer leaves and so on. I've found that a compost bucket outside
is better than one in the kitchen, doesn't take up any space and prevents
any smell and fruit flies in the summer. Just take it down to the heap every
few days and add it to the top.
Cooked food shouldn't be added as it can attract rats
and mice, but this doesn't need to go to landfill as a bird-table is an
ideal way of dealing with this, see below.
Ideally compost should be shredded and mixed on addition
to the heap, not just placed on top. I find the ideal is to have a commercial
plastic compost bin with lid that I add everything to initially and then mix it
up, this is where the rotting starts and reduces the volume by about 3 or
4 fold. When this is full I move the contents to one of two larger long-term
heaps. 3 or 4 initial bins full fill the main heap. When this is full and
I need more room, I turn it upside down to a second long-term heap, this
is then distributed when space is needed for more plant material.
 For
larger branches and tree trunks, I cut them as long as I can and try to
use them in the garden to make frames for climbers or border edging for
beds, they don't last forever, but at least as long as wooden edging you
can buy and are much more sympathetic to the garden situation.
They will
rot down, but provide a habitat and food for countless animals and fungi
in your garden as they do so. I hold them in place with hardwood pegs about
a foot long and 2" wide that I cut from old decking boards and bash
into the ground with a lump hammer, a single 3"
nail fixes the peg to the branch, one every 3 feet or thereabouts is enough.
Advantages:
- No transport requirement, no taking it down the skip
or getting the bin men to collect it
- Makes valuable organic material to make your garden
grow wonderfully
- Keeps nutrients in the garden, less need for additional
fertilisers
- Cheaper than buying compost in bags and doesn't come
from possibly endangered peat bogs
More on composting
 Almost
all food you can't compost can go on the bird table, there is
some bird that will eat just about everything from bread
to burnt pizzas, hummus, browned avocados, unwanted cheese,
old shreddies and excess cooked rice to name just a few things
that have gone on ours in the last week. The trick is to cut
everything up reasonably small, about the size of a piece of
chocolate, as long as it's ok to eat, but not mouldy or rotten
it's usually fine. Bones don't seem to have any takers though!
Forget those twee ones with little thatched roofs,
the most effective type I've come across is that shown
in the picture to the right that we have used for about the
last 4 years. It's very simple to make, about 12" by 18"
(30 x 45cm) with a lip nailed around the edge to stop stuff
falling off. There should be a gap at each corner of the lip however to
help with cleaning the table which you should do every couple
of weeks - I use a scrubbing brush and water from the water
butt.
Mine hangs from an old apple tree
positioned
in front of the kitchen window, I used a branch as the vertical
hanger to look more rustic. The birds seem to like the fact
that it swings like a natural branch when they land on it, it
also gives a good clear view all around of any predators so
making them feel safer. It's
useful to put some food on the ground too as some species prefer
to feed there while others will prefer the table.
Advantages
- Recycles left-overs into bird-song
- Helps wild bird populations
- Brings birds into your garden
- Avoids smells from the bin and saves
putting material into landfill
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| Grow insect and bird friendly
plants |
Now you could go the whole hog and have a wild flower
area or wild flower lawn, though unless you have a large garden with an
area you can do this in I suggest you don't. Why not? Because they look
great in late spring, but then they go-over when they've flowered, often
literally falling over and becoming something not very pretty at all. You
have to keep it at this stage if you want the full benefit from it, then
later on when you mow it down, it's all yellow and takes ages to recover
- fine for a meadow out in the countryside, but not terribly attractive
in your garden. I have tried this in my not that large garden and I know
several other people who have tried it too, no-one I know has bothered to
repeat it.
Instead, I find it's more successful for me as a gardener,
to grow some appropriate plants mixed in with the rest of the garden, particularly
as I'm likely to keep it going year after year rather than the one-off my
wildflower meadow area was.
There are many such plants and they don't have to be wild
ones to have value for wildlife, here are some I grow that are good garden
plants and beloved by wildlife too:
Herbaceous
-
Verbascum or Mullein, great big leaves, 12" x 6" with a wonderful
soft furry texture in spring, flower spikes to 6ft that are dotted with
individual flowers, long lasting - a real magnet for hoverflies.
Biennial
-
Digitalis or Foxglove, old cottage garden favourite, good for
bees. Biennial
- Lilies,
wonderful large often scented flowers that produce pollen to drive hoverflies
barmy. Perennial
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Lavender, another magnet for pollinating insects. Perennial
-
Fennel, especially bronze fennel. A stately and attractive plant
with wispy foliage is that is like mist from a distance (well I think
it is anyway), flowers attract insects and seeds in the winter attract
birds. Self-seeds, but less of a problem than growing them from seed, just
pull up the ones you don't want. Perennial
Climbers
-
 Lonicera
- honeysuckle beloved cottage garden climber, grow up
an arbour, through a mature tree or an infrequently trimmed hedge. Flowers
are loved by many insects, berries in the autumn are favoured by birds
-
Rosa felipes kiftsgate,
great big rose that in my garden is about 15ft wide and 12ft high up
a large conifer hedge. Flowers visited by bees and loads of pollinating
beetles, hips in the winter for the birds.
- Ivy, wild is best, if you can, leave it to
do its own thing up and old tree, fence or wall. Bees go mad for the
flowers which are produced usually long after any others in the garden
and so are especially valuable, birds then love the berries which
are also late. Not the prettiest plant, but often the only plant
that will grow in a dark or difficult place in the garden.
Shrubs
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Pyracantha,
an often underestimated plant, burglar proof (your house with it - that
is), grow as a wall shrub or bush, not too fussy about soil and grows
in the shade, flowers popular with many pollinating insects and blackbirds
in particular love the autumn berries.
-
Cotoneaster,
Many wild and cultivated
varieties, almost doesn't matter which you have as they are all wildlife-friendly.
Flowers are an absolute favourite for bees, birds love the berries.
Trees
- Fruit - Almost any fruit tree is wildlife friendly,
the blossom in spring and the fruit in late summer and autumn. There
will always be windfall fruit to leave for the birds, if you don't want
it littering the lawn up, then kick the bruised windfall
fruit into the nearest border. You won't see it easily as the plant
leaves will hide it, but the birds will find it easily and what they
miss will rot down and add to the humous content of the border soil.
Crab Apple -
Plum -
Pears -
Apple -
All fruit trees
Advantages
- Increases biodiversity
- Many attractive plants in their own right
- Plants with life around them are always more "planty"
to me than something that wildlife wouldn't consider approaching
| Pesticides and other chemicals |
Best avoided, though I have to admit that I am partial
to the occasional spray with a systemic insecticide when aphids start to
take over my favourite plants - I'm not expecting forgiveness or understanding,
it's just the way it is.
There are natural ways of fighting pests with soap solutions
and arcane mixtures brewed from plants though I find that they don't really
work - the odd smart-missile spray is far more effective.
How to avoid chemicals in the garden (I do
all these things too):
- If you get pests or diseases on a small part of a
plant, then consider just cutting that part off and burning it or putting
it in the "green bin" or similar - if your council provides one.
- If you can't really cut the part off, then you have
your hands, rub aphids off or pull them off up the stem, a rub on the
lawn gets you clean again. Caterpillars can be put on the bird table.
- Hygiene especially in the autumn is important, don't
leave dropped leaves on the ground, pick them up and compost them. If
the plants has shown signs of disease, burn the leaves or dispose of
them outside the garden.
- Make and use garden compost (above) as your
fertiliser. Wee on your compost heap on a regular basis, it adds
nitrogen and gets the whole rotting process going.
- Bury old leather near large trees and shrubs, remove
plastic and metal bits from shoes and handbags first, leather is high
in nitrogen and rots slowly releasing its goodies over a long time.
I cut the leather into smallish pieces 6" x 3" ish, make a slit with
a spade, open it up, slide the leather in and close the slit up again.
- If you add extra fertiliser, make sure it is organic
and not man-made. I favour the slow acting blood, fish and bone which
as it has a N:P:K ratio of of 6:6:6 and considering it's origins
I call it the "Fertiliser of Beelzebub" - you may of course make up your
own amusing name.
- You can also make fertiliser from steeping fresh
horse manure, nettles or comfrey
in water.
- Don't bother spraying your fence with preservative
like the ads say you should, it just sells preservative which preserves
the wrong bits anyway. Fences fail at the posts, so brace the verticals
and you'll do more than all those chemicals ever could. Instead place
wires and grow climbers up your fences or plant shrubs in front of them
to hide them and appreciate the rustic way in which the wood ages.
| Get a water butt or two
or three |
Catch the rain from the sky before it disappears
down the drain. We all know how important this is, and many of us
are on a water meter.
Advantages
- Reduce water bills
- Reduce the need for reservoirs and lower water
take-up from bore-holes
- Better for plants that tap water
- Beat hosepipe bans
More on water
butts |
