An eco-friendly garden has a net positive or net neutral carbon footprint. That means it reduces the overall impact or has no further impact on the creation of greenhouse gases and pollution of the environment caused by humans. 

An eco-friendly garden can be achieved in various ways, and it really speaks to the number of opportunities we have in our everyday lives to find small ways to make a difference. Some eco-friendly options include encouraging biodiversity in your garden’s native populations or reducing the amount of chemicals or water used throughout the garden. 

Enhancing Soil Health

Everything in your garden comes down to the health of the soil; it’s also at the heart of your garden’s eco-friendly status. The most eco-friendly option is always to use what is there, and improving the health of your soil can help to improve the health and resilience of your plants and reduce the chance of them needing to be replaced often. 

This not only helps you feel accomplished as a gardener and gives you a bevy of fruit or vegetables (depending on what you plant), but it also reduces the amount of carbon going into green waste because your plants remain healthy and alive. 

You can keep the soil healthy with composting or mulching techniques. For instance, mushroom compost is a fantastic fertiliser as it slowly releases nutrients into the soil, improving soil fertility and root development. It can also be a more eco-friendly option than traditional chemical fertilisers. 

Choose Native Plants

If you’re just starting out with a garden or if you need to do some extensive remodelling, then choosing native plants is a great way to make your garden more eco-friendly. 

Planting vegetation native to your region helps to support the local biome, including native species of insects, worms, and arachnids. These are essential to the overall biodiversity of the region but often have their homes and food sources removed for human populations and can be overlooked in rewilding efforts. 

Choosing native plants also allows you the chance to appreciate the beauty of the natural state of your land and can be a great way to see which plants might be more suitable for the climate. Selecting from native plants can be a great way to have a quickly thriving garden. 

Natural Weed Suppression

You can suppress weeds naturally (instead of using chemicals) by simply laying down a layer of stones between the plants in or around the garden. This is a great choice because it reduces the weeds and thus reduces everyday maintenance. It also looks fantastic!

The key to this approach is choosing suitable stones. Large river pebbles are big enough to stop weeds from pushing through and pretty enough to keep your garden looking fantastic.  

Choosing a natural alternative to chemical weed suppression is an excellent choice for a more eco-friendly garden. This is because it stops the need for using chemicals in the garden, reducing the chance of accidentally killing the biodiverse lifeforms around the unwanted weeds, as well as reducing the chance of chemical runoff soaking into the soil. 

Using river pebbles also helps to reduce the unseen carbon cost of manufacturing the chemicals and is, in the long term, a cheaper option as you only need to purchase the pebbles once. 

Practice Water Conservation

Water is one of the biggest reasons gardens aren’t inherently eco-friendly. Choosing options that conserve water can be great when initially setting up a garden. Or, if you want to make an existing garden more eco-friendly, you can try making modifications to existing structures. 

One of the easiest ways to reduce water usage is to collect it when it rains. A series of rain collection barrels can be an excellent and cheap source of water for your garden. 

Alternative methods also involve drip irrigation or timed watering to minimise wasted water. Both of these methods reduce the amount of water used in watering the garden, making it more eco-friendly. 

Drip irrigation can be a great choice if done from the garden’s set-up, as it slowly releases water above the plant’s roots. Planning is necessary because if you discover it doesn’t work after setting it up, you’ll be left with a lot of wasted plastic tubing. 

Timed watering is a tried-and-true method of reducing water waste. In this method, the water is automatically turned on and off at certain times. It is a great choice for reducing water waste and is often cheap and convenient as well. 

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