Sustainability In The Context Of Garden Design

Sustainability in the garden

There is a lot of interest in sustainability at the moment. Unfortunately most articles describing what this means are just exercises in green-washing - a method of proclaiming environmental credentials that are not really represented. As such sustainability is fast becoming a confusing concept for consumers as it lacks definition and consistency of use - meaning different things to different people.

In order to remedy that I wanted to discuss how it is possible to make more sustainable choices in relation to your outdoor space, as what we do in the garden is an area where our choices can make a large difference (be that in reducing our carbon footprint, consuming less, encouraging biodiversity, or removing certain materials from our garden). This can improve the overall green infrastructure of the garden and the locality.

Fundamentally there are a series of questions we could be asking ourselves every time we make any purchase:

- for any material choice (be that paving or decking for example) we should ask: where is it from, how was it produced, how far has it travelled, how is it packaged, how long will it last, and how can it be recycled once it is no longer needed.

- even for plants we can ask similar questions - where was it grown (how locally?), how far has it travelled (if the local nursery does not grow its own plants), how is it packaged, is it in a peat-based compost, how long will it last (one year or many - either as a perennial or through self seeding), and how will I recycle the plant (via the compost heap?) if it does not thrive and survive.

We then need to make a decision as to whether we are happy to accept the plant, or other material, or not….

Indeed, the sustainability choices we make for our gardens are overlaid by a host of other considerations as well - where we are balancing the needs of the people using the garden space against concerns for the planet. Most importantly few of us have the time to be able to weigh the results of each and every decision we make - even just in the context of the garden. It is unfortunate that there is no convenient accurate online calculator (or paper tome) that allows us to weigh up the actual results of our decisions - especially as  in an increasingly cynical world we may chose to sometimes not take at face value the validity of sustainability statements made by corporations seeking to sell us their products…

Simple sustainability

Fundamentally, and cutting through all of the noise, our primary concern should be an assessment of pollution, in all of its forms. The issues faced in the twenty first century will be addressed by a balancing of pollution (due to our population size and industrial processes) against our consumption (i.e. things we can actively manage through the choices which we make).

We therefore, for now at least, need to concentrate on some simple, achievable actions that we can use to improve the world around us.

Actions for sustainability we can take

In a new garden, we can simply reduce the amount of hard surfacing that we use in our landscape designs. Not only does this help with the overall ‘carbon footprint’ but it ensures that water can percolate into the ground and reduce flooding elsewhere (on or off the site). It also creates a greater area for nature to inhabit and use.

We then need to design our gardens to try to enhance the biodiversity across the garden and the landscape. This includes providing both a diversity of habitats and planting to maximise the areas available for a multitude of species.

Perhaps most challengingly, we need to learn to embrace the chaos that is the natural world. I’m not suggesting we allow our gardens to go to scrubland and I’m also not advocating a lack of design and forethought in the planning of spaces. What I do believe though is that traditional ideas that an entire garden is there to be tightly controlled and moulded to a human concept of what is ideal is not sustainable. Worse it can lead to bringing in herbicides or, worse still, pesticides to try to maintain a garden that is fighting against the local environment rather than bolstering its scope, scale and diversity.

Sustainability therefore starts with allowing a few weeds without berating yourself (although only where they wont take over across the site), letting plants grow to the forms and sizes they wish to, leaving grass to grow longer, leaving beds with a cover of leaves and the ‘skeletons’ of perennials into the late winter or spring, and above all…spending time outside enjoying the space you share with the wildlife of your garden. Chance sightings of moths, dragonflies, hedgehogs, wrens, butterflies, and foxes are far better for the soul than bare ground slowly growing weeds through our increasingly mild winters.