Eco-friendly gardening is more than just a trend, it’s a commitment to protecting the environment and the local wildlife from harm caused by chemicals and harsher gardening methods
By adopting sustainable gardening techniques, you can enhance the health of your garden, reduce your reliance on chemicals, and even save money.
Discover six practical ways to implement eco-friendly gardening methods in your garden today.
1. Grow Native Planting and Food Gardens
Why choose Native Plants?
Planting native species in your garden is one of the most sustainable ways to support your local ecosystems. Native plants thrive in Cornwall’s climate and soil conditions, requiring less water and maintenance while also offering shelter and food for the local wildlife.
The best Native Plants for Cornwalls gardens
If you want to create an authentic Cornish feel in your garden, there are plenty of native plants available. Consider adding these species to your garden to enhance biodiversity and create an authentic Cornish landscape.
Native plants to consider implementing in your garden include:
- Frog orchid
- Sea campion
- Greater water parsnip
- Lesser celandine
- Lady’s bedstraw
- Marsh marigold
- Garlic mustard
- Wood sorrel
- Cuckooflower
With the correct selection of native plants, your garden can flourish all year round. Our landscape and garden experts can help you design a landscape that complements your surroundings while also benefiting the environment.
Kitchen Garden Design
A kitchen garden allows you to grow your very own organic, homegrown produce, reducing your trips to the supermarket while cutting down on plastic waste. Food gardens are also a great way to add some colour and variety to your garden as well as enhancing your cooking.
There are a variety of different foods you can grow in your eco-friendly garden. You can plant fruit and vegetables, create up your own herb garden or even set up some vines to grow tomatoes and grapes.
Wild garlic is a very common herb found in Cornwall but you can also plant:
- Marjoram
- Oregano
- Mint
- Thyme
- Sage
- Fennel
- Basil
A number of herbs like marjoram are perfect for attracting pollinators to your garden, promoting biodiversity and creating a more sustainable and healthy outdoors environment.
2. Encourage Pollinators for a Healthier Garden
Pollinators like bees and butterflies are essential for plant reproduction. Without pollinators, food and plants that need them to survive will decline and become lost, which will impact agriculture and damage the ecosystems that other animals need to live.
Common Cornish Pollinators
There are a number of bee and butterfly species that are native to Cornwall that can help boost your garden’s biodiversity. These include:
- Ivy bee
- Heath bumblebee
- Honey bee
- Wood white (butterfly)
- Chalkhill blue (butterfly)
- Brimstone (butterfly)
Building Bee Homes for Pollinators
By constructing or buying a bee hive or bee hotel, you can encourage bees to stay in your garden and continue to promote biodiversity. Make the bee homes out of eco-friendly materials such as wood to keep your garden fully sustainable.
When hanging a bee home, make sure that you put it up in an area that gets a lot of sun early in the day, encouraging the bees to wake up for work. Try not to hang your beehive too high as bees will get exhausted with the long commute and might leave for greener and more accessible pastures. Aim for a height of about 1-1.5 metres and make sure the entrance to the bee home isn’t obstructed.
3. Shelter for Wildlife
Bees and butterflies are not the only important animals to protect in your garden. Bats are also common pollinators, and they also help to control insect populations, a strong benefit for agriculture. If you’re planting a food garden, bats can be instrumental in ensuring your crops flourish.
Common bat species found in Cornwall are:
- Barbastelle
- Pipistrelle
- Greater and lesser horseshoe bats
- Noctules
- Natterer’s bat
- Whiskered bat
Outdoor Lighting
Excessive artificial lighting can be harmful to bats, as they prefer the natural light of the moon. If you live in an area with a high bat population, you may want to consider keeping outdoor lighting to a minimum so as not to disturb bat roosting.
In particular, Bats are sensitive to harsh green and blue lights. When installing your outdoor lighting, consider using amber or red lighting instead. You can also reduce your energy consumption by opting for solar and LED lighting.
Eco-Friendly Mowing
Mowing your lawn less often can also help to boost the diversity of wildlife habitats in your garden. Longer grasses provide more shelter for animals and less mowing will also lower your impact on the environment.
Plantlife’s ‘No Mow May’ initiative encourages homeowners not to mow their lawns for a month, allowing wildflowers and grasses to grow and assisting in attracting bees and other pollinators to your garden naturally.
4. Eco-Friendly Gardening Tools
Keep your garden looking its best with eco-friendly gardening tools.
You can adopt more gentle gardening methods by using hand tools which can help protect wildlife. Scything is an sunstainable alternative to mowing which has seen a new surge in popularity.
A scythe is a long-handled, curved blade instrument which unlike motorised mowers, operates silently. Scything is gentler on the soil, less disruptive to insects, small animals, and nesting birds compared to noisy, high-speed machinery.
Scythes don’t require fossil fuels or electricity, reducing carbon emissions and reliance on non-renewable energy.
Because scythes allow for selective cutting, they help maintain wildflower meadows and encourage pollinators like bees and butterflies in your garden. If well looked after, a Scythe can last a long time and is considerably cheaper than a motorised mower.
Sustainable gardening also means eliminating the use of harsh and dangerous chemicals that can kill your flowers and grass and can be harmful to pets or any wildlife sheltering in your garden.
Pesticides and weedkillers can damage more in your garden than just pests and weeds. Aside from harming soil and leaving residues in the earth, pesticides and weedkillers is also a contributing factor to pollution.
You can avoid using weedkillers by manually pulling weeds yourself. It’s worth noting that some weeds like dandelions and clovers should be left in your garden as they are good pollinators. Avoiding pesticides can create a safe habitat for animals like bats who naturally eat and control pest and insect populations.
5. Eco-Friendly Garden Waste
In a sustainable garden plan, nothing goes to waste. Green waste in your garden can be everything including:
- Grass clippings
- Pulled leaves
- Dead flowers
- Leaves
- Hedge trimmings
- Tree branches and sticks
The best way to reuse and recycle your garden waste is by turning it into compost which can then be used to enrich your soil. This is useful for gardening, landscaping and in food gardens to increase the health of your crops.
Compost is a great alternative to fertiliser, whether you’re mixing it into soil or using it as mulch.
Other Peat-Free Composting Alternatives
Peat can be dangerous to both the environment and to human health. Draining peat bogs can lead to loss of wildlife habitats with its overuse contributing to pollution and global warming.
There are a number of composting alternatives that you can use to enrich your soil and protect your plants. Here are some example of ingredients you can mix in with your green compost:
- Wood fibres
- Coconut fibres
- Leafmould
- Sand and loam
- Bracken
- Sheep’s wool
What are the Benefits of Compost?
Composting has a number of benefits for your garden, helping to make your soil healthier and improving the growth of the flowers and plants in your garden.
Compost makes your soil moist, giving your plants more nutrients and reducing the risk of soil erosion. You can make your own compost by mixing your green waste materials with hard brown natural waste such as sticks and plant stems.
You can also make your own fertiliser using the leaves from nettle and comfrey. Submerge them in water and leave them to rot for a few weeks before combining the mixture with water and spreading it over your garden. If you need some advice on how to make your own compost or fertiliser, get in touch with Wilde spaces.
6. Water Efficiency in Your Garden
Save water in your garden by limiting your use of a hose, or by carrying out regular periodic checks to ensure your hose is working properly. This can include checking for leaks around the tap, ensuring the hosepipe is undamaged and making sure you only turn the nozzle on when you’re watering to conserve usage.
Changing your garden watering habits can also help you to save water. Take some time to learn which of your plants need more water to survive, and which need less. Water your plants in the early morning or the evening so that the water can reach the roots before evaporating, and prioritise young plants to encourage growth.
Collect Rainwater in Your Garden
Rainwater is a great way to collect water for use in watering cans. Collect the rainwater in water butts for a sustainable source of water that conserves your local water supply. Harvesting rainwater will also help you to lower your water bills.
Rainwater is often better for your plants as well as it has a lower pH compared to purer water. As it falls through the atmosphere, it takes in carbon dioxide, making it slightly more acidic. Rainwater provides a boost of nitrates that will help make your plants healthier.
Be careful not to harvest too much rainwater as collecting too much can contribute to the depletion of inland water and groundwater sources.
Here at Wilde Spaces, we practice eco-friendly methods to ensure that your garden’s health is maintained and your outdoor ecosystems can flourish.
Book a consultation with our garden designers in Cornwall to learn more about implementing sustainably driven methods in your garden today.
