All You Need To Know About Sustainable Gardening In The UK

Here in the UK we are avid gardeners, whether we grow flowers or our own fruit and veg. But many common practices aren’t the best for our environment.

Our gardens, if we are lucky enough to have one, have the power to improve our mental health and wellbeing. (Ainamani et al., 2023)

But they can also play a part in providing a habitat for many insects, birds and mammals and help counter biodiversity loss.

However, many practices that are used actually contribute to biological diversity loss and are generally bad for our environment.

But there is a solution: eco-friendly gardening practices. In this article we answer your questions about sustainable gardening in the UK.

Why Are Common Gardening Practices Bad For The Environment?

Let’s start at the beginning and look at why gardening in the usual way isn’t good for our planet. The act of growing plants is of course a good thing, but many things we do as part of that are harmful.

Neatness And Tidiness

When we think of a typical British garden, we imagine short lawns, trimmed hedges, weed-free beds and borders and neat rows of flowers or vegetables.

While this neatness might please our eyes, it’s not natural, and therefore won’t attract much wildlife. Studies have shown that short lawns have a reduced biodiversity. Only cutting your grass once or twice during the season increases the diversity in your lawn by 30%. (Sehrt et al., 2019)

Fewer insects in the grass means fewer insects that predate them and that leads to fewer birds and mammals visiting your garden who eat them.

This means the neater and tidier your garden, the less wildlife will visit it.

Keeping wilder areas, where nature flourishes, can make a difference for biodiversity and make your garden buzzing with life.

Digging And Monoculture

As part of the neatness we so like in our gardens, we tend to grow the same plants together. A row of tulips in the border or carrots in a veggie patch. This is called monoculture and is also practised in agriculture.

It might sound logical, after all, it means that the plants in this bed all need to be treated the same when it comes to caring for them.

But only growing one type of plant can degrade the soil. Our garden soil is host to a wide variety of microorganisms, which is called the soil microbiome. It contains anywhere between 4,000 and 50,000 microbes.

These are fungi, bacteria, viruses, protists and many other tiny organisms. (Wentworth et Stevenson, 2019)

These microorganisms are a vital part of the ecosystem and are needed if you want to grow anything. They can turn vital nutrients into a form that plants can absorb them, but also support the health of plants and make them more pest and stress resilient. (Compant et al., 2019)

To get a diverse soil microbiome, you have to grow diverse plants in the soil. This means that biodiversity above ground will foster biodiversity below it. (Hermans et al., 2023)

In other words, the more different plants you grow in your border, the healthier the soil will be, which will lead to healthier plants.

To keep the soil microbiome healthy you also have to refrain from disturbing it. This means no digging, which is the contrary to what many gardeners do. They dig in organic matter to replenish the nutrient level in the soil.

But every time you do that, the microorganisms get disturbed, which can lead to a less diverse microbiome and soil degradation. (Hermans et al., 2023)

Instead, add a layer of organic matter on top of the bed and leave it. The nutrients will seep in slowly without disturbing the network of microbes.

Chemical Pesticides And Fertilisers

Most gardeners will at some point use chemical fertilisers and pesticides, if not regularly. Feeding your plants is especially common with vegetables as it can increase the yield.

However, studies have shown that chemical fertilisers aren’t easily absorbed by plants. This leads to big quantities of, for example, nitrogen remaining in the soil unused. There it can lead to biodiversity loss, which will degrade the soil. (Galloway et al., 2003)

But fertilisers also have a habit of contaminating areas which they weren’t meant for. Droplets can be dispersed by wind, get into gourd water through the soil or into waterways through run-off.

There they can cause harm to various organisms.

And it’s the same with pesticides. But as those are designed to kill pests or weeds, they are even more harmful.

Have you ever looked at the label of a commonly available pesticide? It will say that it’s toxic to aquatic life. And research confirms this. A study has shown that pesticides are harmful to fish (Saha et Dotta, 2004), for example.

But the pesticides can also directly impact the soil microbiome, reducing its diversity even years after you have stopped using them. That’s because these chemicals persist in the environment for a long time. (Riedo et al., 2021)

Learn more in our article about why pesticides are bad for our environment.

Growing Unsuitable Plants

When we decide what plants to grow, we often look at things like:

• What do the flowers look like?
• When will they flower?
• How easy is it to care for them?

Maybe we also wonder what conditions they need. And all these questions are valid, but there are other questions we should also ask:

• Will the plant thrive in our climate without needing huge amounts of resources like water?
• Is the plant suitable for our garden’s condition?
• If it isn’t a native plant, could it be/become an invasive species?
• Will the plant feed native wildlife?

The problem is that if we grow plants that aren’t suitable for our garden/climate, we have to use more resources to keep them alive. And resources, such as water, aren’t infinite.

A UN report suggested that we will use 60% more resources in 2060 than we used in 2020. So it’s vital that we try to reduce our use. In our gardens, this can be done by growing plants that thrive in the current conditions.

But we also need to make sure that any plants that aren’t native to our area or country won’t become an invasive species. Japaneese Knotweed or bamboo are probably some of the better known plants that aren’t native and can cause issues.

But there are many others, which can be detrimental to the ecosystems they are invading. They can bring with them diseases that our native plants don’t have defences for. (Simberloff et al., 2005)

And if one part of an ecosystem disappears, the other parts will suffer. This can lead to biodiversity loss.

Many non-native species are also not suitable for our native wildlife. No matter how beautiful a flower is, if it can’t feed any of our insects, it’s useless for wildlife. And without food, our wildlife will struggle to survive.

The solution to all this is adopting eco-friendly gardening practices. Read on to find out more.

What Is Sustainable Gardening?

In short, sustainable gardening means to work with nature instead of against it.

In other words: you grow plants that suit your garden, only use the resources your garden naturally provides, don’t use harmful/toxic chemicals or materials made from non-renewable sources such as fossil fuels. (Kiesling et Manning, 2010)

To achieve this you have to alter the way you look at your garden and your behaviour. These are the steps you need to take:

1. See your garden as a habitat for wildlife as well as your outdoor space
2. Show neatness and tidiness the door and let your wild side in, leaving some areas grow wild
3. Don’t use chemical pesticides and fertilisers
4. Give wildlife a place to thrive by providing food and shelter
5. Save resources by making your own: collect water in water butts, make your own compost, mulch and liquid fertiliser
6. Choose plants that will thrive in your garden’s conditions
7. Reduce waste and the use of plastic as much as you can by using eco-friendly gardening products

If you want to know more, read our article about what eco-friendly gardening is and how to implement it in your home.

What Are The Benefits Of Sustainable Gardening?

If you are considering becoming an eco-friendly gardener, you will be interested in the benefits it will bring you.

• Increase the biodiversity in your garden – give wildlife a home
• Reduce your carbon footprint – eco-friendly practices will produce fewer emissions
• Use fewer resources – by making your own compost or collecting rainwater you can save resources
• Save money – because you use what your garden provides and have to buy less
• Improved physical health – weeding by hand, raking leaves and other chores are like a workout
• Prevent chemicals impacting your health – by not using chemical pesticides and fertilisers you create a better environment for your own health
• Improve your mental health – we know that gardening is good for your mental wellbeing, but even more so with an eco-friendly garden

Of course, everything in life also has drawbacks and sustainable gardening is no different. However, in comparison with the benefits, the disadvantages are quite slight and there aren’t many:

• It’s more time-consuming – often eco-friendly gardening practices consist of turning back the time and doing things like your grandparents did and this can take more time
• It’s more work – weeding your garden by hand is more work than spraying weedkiller and other tasks done more sustainably will also be more work

For me personally, the drawbacks aren’t strong enough to outweigh the benefits. But everybody has to decide for themselves.

You can find out more about this in our article about the benefits of environmentally friendly gardening.

How Do You Keep Pests Under Control In An Eco-Friendly Garden?

As we have seen, the use of pesticides has a profound impact on the biodiversity in our gardens. But pest control is necessary in some form if you want your plants to thrive.

So even sustainable gardening in the UK has to include ways to keep pests from ruining your crops, but without using harmful chemicals.

But one thing you have to realise, what we consider pests are part of the ecosystem of our garden and as such they have a place. That’s why you don’t want to just kill them.

And plants can tolerate small amounts of pests, so don’t think you have to keep them completely pest-free. You just want to keep the numbers in check to prevent an infestation.

So here are ways to control pests in an eco-friendly way:

• Let nature sort it for you – encourage beneficial insects to your garden to do the pest control for you
• Use companion planting – by growing different plants in the same bed you can deter pests
• Put up physical barriers – insect mesh, bird netting and copper mesh are all ways to keep pests away from your plants
• Improve the microbiome of your soil – healthy soil grows healthy plants, which are more resilient to pests and diseases – by adding probiotics to your soil, you can give your plants what they need
• Practice crop rotation – pests can build up in the soil, so by not planting the same species in the same place every year, you can keep pest numbers down

Each of these methods will help you to control pests without the use of chemicals. But if you use two or more in combination, you can make sure that pests will never ruin any of your plants again.

If you want more detailed information, read our article about eco-friendly pest control.

Are Soil Probiotics Worth Buying?

Following on from what we have said before, healthy soil is vital if you want healthy plants who are more pest and disease resistant. The health of soil depends on its microbiome.

If you are unfamiliar with this term, it’s the combination of all the tiny organisms, such as fungi, bacteria, viruses and many more that live in the soil. It’s these microorganisms that are supporting the health of plants. (Compant et al., 2019)

To improve the diversity of the soil microbiome, which is vital for it to function properly, you can add probiotics to your soil. These come in liquid form and are basically live beneficial bacteria.

It’s like you drinking a probiotic drink to improve your gut microbiome but for the soil.

While we’re only beginning to understand how these microorganisms influence our own health as well as the health of anything else, including soil and plants, evidence is growing that they are vital for the survival of all life.

So the question if it’s worth buying probiotics for your garden isn’t that easy to answer. We just don’t know enough about it yet. However, what we do know is that diversity is key.

And adding beneficial bacteria to your soil will increase the diversity. What’s important is that you add the right ones.

We would recommend Microbz garden probiotics. They are brewed here in the UK from soil. This means soil with a healthy and divers microbiome is used to make probiotics for your soil.

Once you have added the probiotics, you have to ensure that you feed the little helpers. This is easily done by adding a layer of organic matter, such as organic compost or mulch, ideally homemade.

We have done just this and can’t wait to start the new growing season with our improved soil. You can read more about our first impressions of the Mircobz probiotics for the garden in our review.

If you want to know more about this topic, read our article about probiotics for the garden.

How Do You Create A Wildflower Meadow?

An eco-friendly garden provides areas for wildlife to thrive. This can be done in many ways, such as leaving a patch that you don’t touch, leaving a pile of leaf litter or creating a wildflower meadow.

The latter is especially good, because it doesn’t just increase the biodiversity in your garden, but will also attract beneficial insects that can help with pest control.

And the UK has lost 97% of its wildflower meadows since the 1930s, which is a huge loss.

You can just stop cutting the grass, but the likelihood is that you won’t get a meadow full of flowers. You can try it, but if you want to make sure, you’ll have to put in a bit more effort.

We created one in our garden after we moved to the country and while it was hard work, it was definitely worth it. These are the steps you have to take:

1. Remove the top layer of the turf – this will get rid of the grass and also remove many nutrients. Wildflowers thrive in nutrient-poor soil.
2. Dig over the soil – this will show up any perennial weeds, such as dandelions, which will need removing. This is best done by digging out the roots.
3. Rake the soil – this will prepare the soil for the seeds
4. Sow the wildflower seeds – you want to make sure you buy a seed mix that contains only native wildflowers and grass, it wouldn’t be a meadow without grass
5. Press in the seeds – that’s necessary so that the seeds have good contact with the soil. It’s easily done, just walk over the area.
6. Water the soil – to give the seeds a good chance to germinate, water the area, ideally with rain water from a water butt
7. Cover the area with bird netting – this will prevent birds from eating the seeds, but keep an eye on the netting during winter to prevent birds getting caught and hurt
8. Wait for the first shoots to come up and get excited

The best time to start this is autumn before the soil gets too hard. We did it in October, which was a good time because it wasn’t that cold yet either.

You should see the first green seedlings come up in spring. If you want to know more about creating your own and our experience, read our article about how to create a wildflower meadow.

How Can I Get Rid Of Weeds Without Using Chemical Weedkillers?

Every gardener knows that removing weeds is part of gardening. And while some hate the job, others find it satisfying and enjoy it. I’m somewhere in the middle. I do find it satisfying to see a weed-free veggie bed, but I do hate it while I’m doing it.

Although, I have come to see it as a sort of workout that is good for me. This change in how I look at it has made me dislike it a bit less.

One thing I don’t like at all, is the word ‘weed’. That’s because it implies that some plants are desirable and useful while others aren’t. And as an environmentally conscious person, this isn’t my way of thinking.

Every plant is important and needed for the survival of its ecosystem. That’s why I try to weed sparingly, only in places that really need it.

As a result, the only areas I weed are my veggie beds, any pots I grow fruits or vegetables in and three flower beds that contain alpine plants that are great for pollinators.

The latter don’t grow very high, so grass or other taller weeds could take over the beds if we don’t weed them. Our veggies need all the nutrients in the soil to grow strong and produce a good yield, so weeds competing for these nutrients aren’t a good idea.

But everywhere else, weeds are welcome and left alone. We even have a nettle patch, which is not just good for wildlife, but also the source of a delicious nettle soup in early spring.

For the areas that do need weeding, these chemical-free methods work great:

• Weeding by hand – it takes time and can be hard work, but it works and is eco-friendly
• Smothering weeds – adding a thick layer of organic mulch will prevent weeds from coming through
• Blocking weeds – more stubborn weeds like dandelions can be blocked by laying cardboard on the soil, making it wet and adding a layer of mulch
• Cutting back weeds regularly – if the above won’t work, you can cut back tougher weeds regularly which will weaken and eventually eradicate them
• Create physical barriers – this can be useful if you don’t want grass from your lawn getting into flower or veggie beds
• Plant cover plants – bare soil will attract weeds, but if you plant it up with ground covering plants, this can be avoided
• Natural weedkillers – there are ways to kill weeds without chemicals, which are especially useful on patios, paths and driveways – they include salt, boiling water and citric acid

For best results, I would recommend using a combination of the above. It will also depend on the area that you need to weed.

To get more detailed information, read our article about weeding without chemical weedkillers.

I hope that you found the answers to any questions about sustainable gardening in the UK you had and feel confident to turn your outdoor space into an eco-friendly garden where you and wildlife can thrive.