What are the criteria for eco friendly gardens?
Added on 24 January 2023
Many of us, whether having busy working lifestyles or older retirees, want to follow a more environmentally responsible route in our gardens but can be put off by a number of perceived factors such as the garden may not be big enough, it’s hard work, the lack of required knowledge, fear that the garden will look untidy, cost and whether only native plants should be used over non-natives?
The simple answer to all these concerns are erroneous;
Garden size does not matter for biodiversity, a large garden will obviously hold more wildlife but not necessarily more variety of species. Although occasional bees, birds, hedgehogs may make their home in your garden many are just foraging visitors. Researched sampling plots with average healthy soil from different sized gardens shows a similar number of species and numbers of micro-organisms and invertebrates per sqm. Wildlife is not influenced by human boundaries such as fences or hedges or whether the garden is in an urban or country setting.
The Office of National Statistics estimates that the average garden size varies depending on where you live.The average size in the UK is 188 square metres, with Scotlands average being 700 sqm. Dundee, close to where I live, is 249 sqm. Another National scale survey carried out by Davies, Z.G., et al (2009) in an issue of Biological Conservation estimated the total area of gardens in the UK around 433,000 hectares or 4330 sq km or 1672 sq miles if preferred. These provide an enormous value to wildlife which continues to be excluded by ‘garden grabbing’ for house building and intensive agricultural practices.
An eco-friendly approach can be followed where ever you have the opportunity to create a green space including window boxes and balconies. From now on I will refer to average sized gardens including balconies etc , as ‘ordinary sized green space’. Ecologically speaking the ‘green space’ part which may be bare soil or planter refers to the opportunity to create a mixed , generally green planting with minimal regular human interference, Although a regularly cut lawn is technically a green space, the interference of regular mowing and application of lawn care products disturbs and unbalances biodiversity. As mentioned earlier it is not always desirable to not have an a wildlife unfriendly feature such as a lawn in favour of a wildlife friendly wildflower patch but a lighter level of upkeep allowing lower growing pollinator friendly weeds to establish may be acceptable to some?
Effort wise it’s as hard as you want to make it, the aim is always minimal human input, allowing wildlife to get on with it. As will be addressed later there is no need for fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides etc so is cheaper and as already mentioned wildlife has little bias towards natives preferring them over non-natives.
The variety of non-native ornamental plants and perceived natives* in combination provides a free flowing naturalistic visually legible rather than neglected untidy look helping us to relax, unwind and enjoy our garden space which can also improve our health and well being.
This ‘dip in resource’ will inspire and guide you in seeing how quick and easy it is to understand and follow an eco-friendly gardening pathway for your ordinary sized green space. So no more excuses.
*see What’s a UK native plant and what’s a non-native plant?