You can reduce the impact you have on our environment in many different areas, and often it brings additional upsides. The benefits of sustainable gardening are manifold, so it’s a good idea no matter what.
Whether you have a big garden or a small one, or even just a balcony or window box, gardening is beneficial to our wellbeing and mental health. (Ainamani et al., 2022)
The joy it can bring is priceless, but the way we traditionally garden in the UK isn’t necessarily good for our environment. The use of chemical pesticides and fertilisers, our obsession with neatness and short lawns and much more impacts on our planet.
Eco-friendly gardening is the answer, as it can help us make our gardens a vital part of the natural environment where nature can flourish.
The good news is that sustainable gardening brings many benefits, which any gardener will love.
The Basics Of Eco-Friendly Gardening
But before we delve into the benefits, let’s briefly summarise what it means to be a sustainable gardener. In short, it’s defined as a way of gardening that works with nature rather than against it.
Here are the basic criteria for eco-friendly gardening:
- Accepting that your garden is also a habitat for a variety of organisms
- Leaving wild areas where wildlife can thrive
- Avoid using chemical fertilisers and pesticides
- Provide wildlife with food, shelter and safe spaces
- Make as much as you can yourself, such as compost, mulch or liquid fertiliser
- Work with nature by growing plants that will thrive in your garden’s conditions
- Reduce, reuse and recycle as much as possible
- Avoid plastic wherever you can
If you want to know more details, read our article about sustainable gardening.
But now let’s look at the advantages of eco-friendly gardening.
1. Reduce Your Impact On The Environment
The biggest and key benefit is that you will become more sustainable as you’ll reduce the impact your gardening has on the environment. Of course, that’s why you’re considering adopting this gardening method.
But let me show you what positive effects sustainable gardening practices can have on our planet.
Increase And Protect Biodiversity In Your Garden
One of the main issues with traditional farming practices, which are mimicked on a smaller scale by many gardeners, is that they’re responsible for biodiversity loss.
Chemical fertilisers and pesticides are used regularly on agricultural land as well as in domestic gardens.
Intensive farming and growing in monocultures results in the need to use chemical fertilisers to get the required nutrients into the soil to ensure plants grow.
However, only about half of the nitrogen from chemical fertilisers is actually used by plants. (Bender et al., 2023) The rest stays in the soil, where it can alter the soil’s ecosystem, making it less healthy by decreasing its biodiversity. (Galloway et al., 2003)
Pesticides have also shown to be responsible for a reduction in the biodiversity of soil, even decades after the use was stopped, due to their persistence in the soil. (Riedo et al., 2021)
But the use of pesticides also impacts on other wildlife, such as non-target species including bees and butterflies. (Schwartz et al., 2023) Research has also shown that fewer birds will visit gardens where pesticides are used (de Montaigu et Goulson, 2023)
There are many ways to stop pests from ruining your crops without using chemical pesticides.
Other agricultural practices, such as regular tilling, disturb mycelium networks in the soil, which help plants to get the nutrients they need. (Banerjee et al., 2019)
To keep your soil microbiome healthy and able to support your plants, refrain from using chemical fertilisers and pesticides, digging, and consider adding probiotics for your garden to your soil.
We also have the tendency to have neat and pristine gardens, with short lawns, trimmed hedges and well-organised beds. But this neatness doesn’t foster biological diversity.
Short lawns that only consist of one type of grass have low biodiversity. Leaving the grass to grow longer can increase the amount of different organisms by 30%. (Sehrt et al., 2019)
By adopting eco-friendly gardening practices, such as not using chemical fertilisers and pesticides, using the no-dig method, creating wild areas and planting different plants together, we can ensure that the biodiversity in our garden is healthy.
Reducing Your Carbon Footprint
Many things we do will release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which contributes to global warming and climate change. This is called our carbon footprint.
But it’s not just the things we do, like using a petrol-powered mower or hedge trimmer. Products need to be made and often this involves environmental impacts, such as carbon emissions.
The manufacturing process involved in making synthetic chemical fertilisers is energy-intensive, which means it contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. Water pollution does also occur during the process. Some fertilisers need to be mined, which again has environmental impacts. (Singh et al., 2024)
It’s a similar story with synthetic pesticides. On top of that, many of these synthetic chemicals are made from petrochemicals, which means they are made from fossil fuels. And we know that their use is one of the main drivers of climate change.
Many gardeners still use peat compost, which is bad news for the environment, although it’s getting less. Peatlands are carbon sinks and destroying them to get the peat for bags of compost releases these greenhouse gases. (Matilla 2024)
Sustainable gardening aims at reducing your and your garden’s carbon emissions by using fewer tools and products. And the ones that are used are eco-friendly products and tools.
Save Resources And Reduce Waste
According to a UN Report, we will use 60% more resources by 2060 than we have used in 2020. But our planet doesn’t have enough of these resources to sustain this increase in consumption.
We would need more than one earth, which we don’t have. Water, fossil fuels, wood, metal and other resources are at risk of running out, if our consumerist society doesn’t change.
And we consume just as much in our gardens as in any other areas of our lives. Whether we water our plants, add mulch or compost to our beds, cut our grass and trim our hedges and trees or buy ornaments or tools, we use resources.
One of the keys to eco-friendly gardening is to create our own resources from our gardens. Collecting rain water to use to water our plants isn’t just good for the environment, but is also better for our plants, because it has a lower pH.
Making your own compost will feed your plants while you reduce your need for resources, and you reduce your waste, because rather than binning kitchen scraps you can throw them on the compost heap.
Mulching is a great way to replenish the soil after the growing season and also to suppress weeds. And by making your own, for example from leaves, you save resources.
But if you garden sustainably, you also try to avoid creating waste. This can be done in several ways: reusing items in the garden rather than throwing them away, is one. Many things make great plant pots, as long as you can make holes in the bottom.
Buying less is another. It’s simple: the fewer things you have, the less waste you are going to create.
Using natural materials that can be composted, rather than thrown, is yet another way of reducing the amount of waste you produce in your garden. Wooden plant markers work just as well as plastic ones, but they can be composted once they are no longer of use.
And they won’t leak microplastics into your soil either. I use natural twine string to attach plants to supporting canes, which do the job and are compostable.
And those canes: swap plastic ones for bamboo ones, because they’re also compostable. There are plenty of other ways, just get creative.
2. Save Money
For many, one of the biggest benefits of eco-friendly gardening is that you can save money. That’s down to various factors:
- You make your own rather than buying
- You don’t use chemical fertilisers or pesticides
- You use fewer things so have to spend less money
- If you grow your own food, you reduce your shopping bill during the growing season
- You exchange plants and seeds with other gardeners rather than buying them
- You borrow tools from other gardeners, which saves you from buying them
Like many things in life, gardening can get expensive. So making your own compost, mulch and liquid fertiliser will save you a lot of money. Utilising what nature gives you, like rain water, will further reduce your bill.
Pesticides aren’t cheap either, so by not using them you will again save money. And the same goes for tools and ornaments. There is so much that we think we need, but actually don’t.
Growing your own fruit and veg can be a low-cost way to feed your family with nutritious and healthy food. We save around £10 a month on our food shopping during summer and early autumn.
Because we grow more than we can eat fresh, I also preserve our fresh produce so we can use it in winter too and save more money.
Eco-friendly gardening means going back to a way of life that is less consumption based. This approach also focuses on reusing things in the garden rather than throwing them away.
For example, we got rid of curtains in two of our bedrooms. The fabric I used to make cushions for our cats to sit on windowsills and watch the world go by. The poles will become a frame for our veggie beds.
I can then put either netting or insect mesh over the frames to protect the plants from pests. Not only does this keep the curtains and poles out of landfill, I also don’t have to buy materials or the finished product.
Once you put your mind to it, you can find many ways of reusing things you don’t need any more in the garden.
3. Health Benefits Of Sustainable Gardening
It might not occur to you, but adopting eco-friendly gardening can also benefit your health. First of all, you don’t use chemical fertilisers and pesticides.
Pesticides are toxic, after all they have been made to kill unwanted organisms. But that also means that they’re harmful to us humans.
Studies have shown that the exposure to pesticides can have various health impacts for humans, including cancer, diabetes, harm to the neurological system, the liver, the respiratory system and eyes. (Zhou et al., 2024)
So by avoiding to use them, you can protect yourself from the potential harm they could cause your health.
Synthetic fertilisers can be equally harmful to us humans, according to some studies (Suciu et al., 2022) and also the United Nations.
By not using either of these synthetic products, you can reduce the risk to your health.
Another health benefit of eco-friendly gardening is the activity it gives you. While any gardening is good for your health because it keeps you active, sustainable gardening practices are even more so.
Weeding by hand rather than spraying weedkiller gives your body a workout. An hour’s weeding could burn between 200 and 400 calories. Not bad, eh?
Raking up leaves and bagging them up, rather than using a leave blower, won’t just reduce your carbon footprint and energy bill, but will also burn anywhere between 350 and 450 calories.
Eco-friendly gardening is a way to stay fit, active and healthy, without having to ever go to a gym.
One thing that sustainable gardeners do is reduce the amount of plastic they use in their garden. And that can also have health benefits. Did you know that anything that’s made of plastic and is outside will degrade into smaller bits, called microplastics?
So planter markers in the soil, plastic plant pots, etc. all leak microplastics in your garden. Plants can absorb them through their root systems. (Hasan et al., 2024)
If you’re growing your own vegetables, you will ingest these microplastics, which can cause you harm. (Lalrinfela et al., 2024)
But by keeping your garden as free from plastic as possible, you reduce your risk of these microplastics impacting your health, at least from your garden.
4. Increase Your Mental Wellbeing
It’s considered common knowledge today that being in nature contributes to your mental wellbeing. But having a biodiversity-rich garden, which you get from using sustainable gardening practices, can boost your mental wellbeing even more. (Sutcliffe et al., 2024)
I myself feel that since we have started to be eco-friendly gardeners my mental wellbeing has increased. When I walk around the wildlife meadow in summer, looking for the different insects, it calms me down and any stress I might have seems to disappear.
There is nothing better than after a stressful day to take a walk in your garden, or sit quietly watching the wildlife going about its business.
Studies have shown that biodiversity in greenspaces has a positive impact on people’s mental health. A variety of different flowers or birds improved people’s perceived wellbeing. (Houlden et al., 2021)
I get really excited and happy when I see all the different bird species that visit our garden. It makes me smile when I see our resident robin or wren. And a visit from the beautiful goldfinches never fails to brighten up my day.
Eco-friendly gardening also provides people with a nature-connectedness that improves mental health. (Jones et al., 2020) Knowing that you are doing something that’s good for our environment just makes you feel good.
The Drawbacks Of Eco-Friendly Gardening
There are always two sides to a coin and everything has pros and cons. So it’s only fair to also discuss the downsides of having a sustainable garden. Although it has to be said that they might not be seen as such by everyone.
1. It Takes More Time
In a world where time is seen as a scarce commodity, we are all looking for ways to get things done more time-efficiently. But gardening in an eco-friendly way can take more time.
If you weed your garden by hand instead of using weedkiller, it will take more time. If you rake up leaves and bag them up, rather than using a leaf blower, it will take longer.
Cutting a hedge using secateurs instead of an electric trimmer will make the job more time-consuming.
So if you are pressed for time, you will have to find a way to fit in doing the jobs in the garden. Maybe this means sacrificing time sat in front of the telly.
However, there are some things that will also save time. For example, if you don’t cut your grass every week in summer, you can spend the time doing other gardening tasks.
Leaving wild areas means there is less grass to cut and areas to weed. We turned a third of our garden into a mini-wilderness and another third into a wild flower meadow, which I scythe once a year at different times.
But it means that we don’t have to weed the areas and only have to mow the paths that lead through and around the areas.
So while eco-friendly gardening can take up more time in some areas, you can also save time in others. And isn’t it nice to spend an afternoon working in the garden?
2. It Can Be More Work
For the same reason sustainable gardening can take up more time it can also be more labour-intense. Hand-weeding your whole garden is harder work than spraying weed killer.
But, it also burns a lot of calories, as we have seen, which is good for your health. And the up and down as you move from bed to bed is quite a strength workout for your legs. After all, you are essentially doing squats.
It’s the same with raking, picking up leaves and many other jobs, as they are basically workouts.
And that’s all good if you are fit and able to do the jobs. But that’s not the case for everyone, and then the additional work can be a problem.
But there are tools that can help to make these tasks a little bit easier, such as a Dutch hoe to weed empty beds. This tool allows you to keep upright while getting rid of weeds.
Or maybe you can enlist the help of children, grandchildren or the neighbours’ kids. In return for a reward, they might be happy to lend you a hand and learn about eco-friendly gardening at the same time.
Adopting Eco-Friendly Gardening Practices Is Well Worth It
As you can see the benefits of sustainable gardening are quite strong and many are based on scientific evidence.
One thing that struck me when I first started looking into it was that it saves you money. There is often the perception that being more sustainable is expensive. And while it’s true that some eco-friendly alternatives might be more pricey, it’s not always true.
With gardening, it’s mainly due to the fact that you’re becoming greener by using fewer things, such as tools, accessories or products.
And the health and wellbeing benefits are priceless, aren’t they? By changing a few habits, putting in a bit more work and effort and buying less, you can make a big difference for the environment and yourself.
If you’re now as convinced as me that an eco-friendly garden is the way forward, read our guide about sustainable gardening and become an eco-friendly gardener today.
