Gardeners

Advice and suggestions for greener living

If you're a keen gardener, you can help the environment by creating spaces for wildlife or producing your own food.

You can also choose green materials, and save money and energy with energy efficient appliances.

Here are some suggestions to make your garden greener:

Pesticides

Some pesticides can harm humans, wildlife and plants, pollute water and poison aquatic life. It also costs millions of pounds each year to remove pesticide residue from drinking water.

You can control pests in your garden by following these tips:
- pick slugs and other pests off plants by hand
- pull up weeds
- use beer traps to catch slugs
- cover young plants at night to protect them from pests
- plant marigolds near vegetables to deter greenfly and blackfly
- plant lavender near roses to ward off aphids.

Composters

Buy a home composter and create your own fertiliser, using food scraps, grass clippings and shredded paper and cardboard.

Buy a home composter

Fertilisers

Protect peat bogs by choosing peat-free mulches, soil improvers and fertilisers for your garden. These are widely available at high street stores and garden centres.

Wildlife

Encourage insects, hedgehogs and other wild animals into your garden by creating a variety of places for them to live and eat. Flowering plants that offer nectar and pollen will attract bees, butterflies and other insects, while trees and shrubs that produce berries provide food to birds.
- Read more wildlife gardening tips

Wood and charcoal

Look for labels on timber products, such as sheds and garden furniture, to check they have been produced sustainably.

Common labelling schemes include the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) or the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes (PEFC).

Use barbecue charcoal from sustainably managed forests. These will also be labelled by the FSC or PEFC.

Reclaimed or recycled materials

Inject new life into old timber, metal and plastic by buying decking, planters and garden ornaments made from reclaimed materials. Reuse unwanted items from your home. For example, discarded bottles make ideal watering cans.

Grow your own food

Producing your own food saves money, reduces packaging and cuts the cost of transporting food and the fuel used to travel to and from supermarkets and shops.
- More information about growing your own food

Rain water

Save water by collecting rain water to use in your garden. Water companies often sell water butts, which collect the rainfall, at subsidised prices or you can pick one up at your local garden centre or hardware store.

Patio heaters

Patio heaters powered by gas or electricity use a lot of energy. In fact, the average heater uses the same amount of carbon dioxide in four hours as a standard car emits in one day! Wrap up warm or go indoors instead when you get chilly.