Gardeners snub warning to stop using peat compost

Environmentalists stress damage done to precious bogs, as sales reach three billion litres a year

GARDENERS are continuing to use the country’s endangered peat supplies instead of alternatives, despite repeated warnings by environmentalists.

Speaking before one of the busiest gardening weekends of the year, campaigners urged growers to use peatfree substitutes to conserve supplies.

They said peat was a vital asset in the fight against climate change as it absorbs more carbon dioxide than trees.

However, it takes thousands of years for peat bogs to develop and they are shrinking as they continue to be harvested for fuel, farming and gardening.

According to Plantlife, the campaign group, commercial extraction can remove more than 500 years’ worth of peat growth in a single year. It said that, despite alternatives being available for use as compost, British gardeners continue to buy peat – with sales at three billion litres a year and rising.

Ben Mccarthy, chairman of the Peat Partnership, said: “In the fight against climate change, the peatlands of the British Isles are one of our greatest assets – we cannot underestimate their importance for carbon capture.

“In the UK they hold more carbon than forests, but the extraction of peat destroys this carbon-rich habitat and results in significant carbon emissions and the lost potential of carbon sequestration. Governments across the UK need to act immediately to end the use of peat for horticulture and other commercial purposes.”

Environmentalists said peat extraction in the UK not only disturbs rare wildlife, such as the golden plover and the chequered skipper butterfly, but also releases an estimated million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year.

Gardening experts point out that there are viable alternatives for composting which do not use peat and are suitable for Britain’s favourite bedding plants, such as marigolds, geraniums, and begonias.

Trevor Dines, the presenter of Channel 4’s Wild Things, said: “A wellstocked display of summer garden plants and vegetables is a delight, providing instant colour and food for insects. But in using peat as compost for these plants, we are quite literally costing the earth.

“The good news is that peat-free compost is readily available at garden centres – it’s just as effective and competitively priced.”

He noted that the National Trust has been peat-free for several years and the Royal Horticultural Society’s gardens are 97 per cent peat-free.

In 2010 Hilary Benn, Labour’s then environment secretary, announced a new target to phase out the use of peat compost in amateur gardens by 2020, but shied away from imposing a ban.

It remains a government target to phase out the use of peat in industry and amateur horticulture.