Climate Friendly Gardening – Tips from the BBC

Fri, 3rd July, 2009 - Posted by admin

Recent advice from the BBC offers suggestion to enable gardeners to cut their CO2 emissions, and do their bit for the environment. Having and maintaining a garden is a step in the right ‘eco’ direction, but your gardening tools could be causing more emissions than are offset by your lovely trees and hedges!

So, if you want to help the environment and make your garden more climate friendly, then try the following hints and tips:

One of the biggest changes you can make is to swap your petrol mower for a manual one. This simple step may mean more hard graft for you, but can annually cut your carbon emissions by 36kg! (And just think of the exercise)!

Be more climate conscious with your garden furniture purchases. Check you furniture comes from sustainable wood sources, to ensure your furniture has not been made from wood obtained from illegally logged forests.

Install a rainwater butt, saving £200 on water bills and 0.6kg of Carbon, every year! (A ‘how to’ guide is available on the BBC website).

Embrace the old fashioned ways and use a watering can rather than a sprinkler!

Nitrogen-rich fertilisers emit nitrous oxide, and should be avoided, as the emissions they create are more than three hundred times more damaging, and more harmful to the environment than Co2!

Use recycled or reclaimed materials for garden paving, walls and/or garden features.

Do not use patio heaters, as they are a terrible waste of energy.

Be creative when it comes to flower beds and try to plant flowers that do not require frequent watering.

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Category : Garden