Go peat free to help save world
HANGING baskets, window boxes, pots and containers, beds and borders.
All part of creating a wonderful outdoor space.
But what if by using peat-based composts they could be doing more harm than good?
Our region has lost 98 per cent of its lowland raised peat bogs.
These amazing habitats were once stuffed full of rare and specialised plants and animals, soaking up excess rainfall and helping to prevent flooding - and perhaps even more importantly absorbing carbon from the atmosphere and locking it away in their peaty soils, helping to fight climate change.
However, this was not to last. Drained and degraded, our amazing peatlands were converted to agriculture, the peat historically cut for fuel, or even commercially extracted to use the peat in horticulture.
Little Woolden Moss on the outskirts of
Salford is one such example. Once a thriving lowland raised peat bog, by 2008 Little Woolden Moss was a bare, desolate, black wasteland criss-crossed by cavernous drainage ditches and home to huge trucks and diggers who were working to extract every last inch of peat.
But why?
Globally peatlands such as Little Woolden Moss are being systematically stripped of their precious peat, all to fill the cheap bags of composts and grow the plants that you can buy in your garden centre.
In fact, the UK alone uses three million cubic metres of peat for horticulture every year.
Not only is this destroying these amazing habitats for the wildlife that calls them home, but as soon as a peatland is drained or damaged in any way, all of the carbon that has been stored within its soils gets released into the atmosphere - contributing to climate change.
It is estimated that five per cent of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions come from degraded peatlands.
But you can help to change this simply by going peat-free in your garden.
Choose peat-free composts and look out for peat-free plants (check online for these) and once you’ve done so join our #PeatFree campaign and shout about it.
Tell all of your friends, take to social media and loudly ask for peat-free options when you’re next in the garden centre – everything will help to get the peat-free word out there.
So, whilst your average hanging basket might look pretty – a peat-free hanging basket will both look pretty and can help to save the world!