Gardeners need to be even greener, says Francine Raymond
What could be greener than gardening? At its most basic, to garden is to grow, to compost and to recycle. But the fun bit is buying new plants, trying out new kit and experimenting with new techniques. This involves visiting garden centres and nurseries, and suddenly teetering stacks of plastic pots, a clutter of labels and bags of peat compost enter the frame.
Of course, you can swap plants locally (our NGS group recently raised £1,200 selling members’ excess output) but sooner or later, the siren call from your favourite nursery beckons and you’re seduced. Some growers are greener than others, and we’re lucky here in the South East: Madrona at Bethersden in Kent has reduced its peat content and reuses pots; Beth Chatto’s in Essex propagates in peat-free compost, pots up in taupe-coloured pots (recyclable in some areas) and don’t offer plastic bags; and Great Dixter has always made its own excellent compost and its recycled packaging is legendary, if labyrinthine. (Check the website for the latest on its essential Autumn Plant Fair).
Online, Burncoose uses taupe pots, water from its own lagoon and have cut back plastic packaging, while Hardy’s Cottage Garden plants grow mainly in peat-free compost and, while looking into the latest plastic-free pots, it offers cashback when its own pots are returned. Best of all though, near me in Faversham, Kent, Edible Culture has been selling peat-free compost in refillable bags and home-grown plants in paper pots, all delivered in an electric van. So it can be done.
David Ware and Chris Williams told me: “We took a long, hard look at our horticultural practices and decided to switch to plastic-free selling, to stop using peat and forgo pesticides. The sector has an important role to play in addressing climate change and linking people back to nature and its inherent health benefits. Customers love what we’re doing. It’s not as convenient, but look where convenience has got us.”
Rooted in the local community and housed in redundant horticultural classrooms and glasshouses at Abbey School, the nursery is packed with herb and veg plants, fruit bushes and trees, all grown in plastic pots that will be reused by the nursery. Rather than you taking them home to landfill, your purchases will be decanted into locally produced, cardboard POSIpots (the name stands for Positive Pots, an Edible Culture design) that rot down in the soil.
Buy the peat-free compost and it comes in a reusable bag, and soil additives are sold in paper bags by weight.
Because plants are grown in tougher conditions they don’t suffer so much during the transition to real life in your own garden. Ware and Williams have strong opinions and often disagree with established thinking, but the nursery doesn’t wear its green credentials like a hair shirt: there’s plenty to be joyous about, with lots of seasonal events.
All nurseries must adapt, but with economies of scale it’s up to the behemoths that supply garden centres to really make the difference. Several large wholesalers didn’t return my calls, but Hortus Loci, which supplies much of the Chelsea Flower Show, came back with an impressive array of measures: peat-free for the past year, taupe pots and growing 80 per cent of its own plants. In future, it’s converting to rainwater harvesting and natural predators for pest control.
The industry has had a very difficult year, but this is a nudge in the direction we all have to go, sooner rather than later.