Concrete examples of gardening’s decline
Get Britain gardening again
IT IS a trend that could definitely be described as a growing concern for the organisers of the Chelsea Flower Show.
A survey carried out for the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has found that more and more of Britain’s gardens are turning from green to grey.
The results, released ahead of the Queen’s preview visit to the Chelsea Flower Show today, reveal that the percentage of front gardens that are entirely paved, concreted or gravelled over has tripled in a decade.
RHS director general Sue Biggs said: “We need to urgently increase plants in urban environments, and better understand how to select and use ornamental plants, not reduce them, as this report indicates we’re doing. Whatever the pressures to pave, there is always room for plants.”
About 165,000 people are expected to flock to this year’s show, which opens to the public tomorrow.
Domestic talent will vie with designers from as far afield as Australia and Dubai to win the coveted title of best show garden at the RHS event. One exhibitor, Sean Murray, a nurse from Northumberland, claimed his spot after winning the BBC’s Great Chelsea Garden Challenge show.
The Welcome To Yorkshire tourism agency will be represented with a garden celebrating the county’s breweries and microbreweries.
IT IS ironic that, as events such as Chelsea Flower Show become ever more popular, the number of gardens which actually grow flowers, or feature any kind of greenery at all, is dwindling.
According to the Royal Horticultural Society, almost a quarter of Britain’s front gardens are now paved over entirely, the number rising by more than three million in the last 10 years.
It is a depressing comment on our increasingly busy lives and growing remoteness from nature that fewer and fewer households have the time to spend on gardening. And considering the increased flooding risk caused by the lack of run-off for rainwater and the inevitable impoverishment of the nation’s wildlife, the trend for concrete and paving-stone carries some serious implications.
So it is to be hoped that the RHS’s campaign to boost the amount of greenery in gardens is a successful one. It is time to put a stop to the grey advance and get Britain gardening again.