Wouldn’t it be awfully nice to plant a tree in stead of cutting one down in an altruistic spirit of Christmas? To know that somewhere out there, a gesture of yours that actually means something is turned into action. The NGO’s have been doing it for years after all and if I may indulge a little bit in self-righteousness, last Christmas my six nephews/nieces received 1000sqm each of rain forest. And that was it, no dolls, computer-games or plastic consumerism. Most of the recipients too small to understand the significance of such a gift did not seem to mind. I felt very proud and conscientious. Nothing to do with carbon offset it is true but still, a tree-hugging whim all the same. This year the alternative feel-good of inverse Christmas tree planting has reached impressive proportions with everyone, from Formula One to manufacturers of air-conditioners sowing forests to ease the bad conscience and showcase some green washing goodwill. Fair enough, it is probably better than nothing even if no-one seems to know exactly how much CO2 one tree actually soaks up. The only thing they (the newly green companies no matter what business they are in) usually want in exchange is your signature on some contract, be it for electricity or a brand new car. Sign-up now and save the world! So once again is up to you and me, the consumers, to do our bit. Since it is at least something it is perhaps not anything to get worked up about. But then we have something that is really endearing, it is when the top ten polluters do the same. From The Guardian today:

BP, one of the world’s biggest producers of carbon-emitting products [...] reported that among 100 trees planted for Andara at Alladale on 15 September 2008, the company had “allotted one tree to BP to offset carbon emissions of 0.75 tons per tree”. It’s nice to know BP is doing its bit for the climate, after all. *

Well, it is always something right? Let us put it this way, if you plant a tree it makes up for a larger percentage of your carbon footprint than that of BP when they plant one.

Merry Christmas tree planting.

* Article ‘Greenwash: Carbon offset trees are not just for Christmas’ by Fred Pearce in The Guardian 18 December 2008, read it here.

Leif Ahnland leif ahnland

Posted under Climate, Corporate, Environmental News, Gardening & Outdoors, How To's & Guides, Wildlife

I know what your thinking; what has lifestyle got to do with being eco-friendly?

A lot of people enjoy driving big cars, especially in the United States, but driving a small, energy efficient car is less polluting and not to mention cheaper. Perhaps we do not even need the car at all. The way that we live our lives can be altered so that we are living in an eco friendly way, for example, we should ask ourselves can we walk or bike to work or school. Many of us can.

A lot of people have outside lights either by their front door, in their back gardens or possibly in both, and a lot of these people have these lights on even when they are not outside, because “they look good”. It is estimated that 5 to 15 per cent of household electricity consumption worldwide is wasted on stand-by mode. Over £150 million worth of electricity is wasted each year in the UK simply keeping televisions and DVD players on stand-by. If we could eliminate this waste, we could close over one in 20 electricity power stations in the UK.

Drink tap water, not bottled. Apart from the fact that tap water in many parts of the world is drinkable, it is delivered straight into our homes eliminating the use of trucks to ship brightly labelled Spring Water. The number of people that drink water from bottles is astronomically high, so many of them not recycled, not reused; simply chucked away in the bin. Forgive me if I am wrong but when you go shopping, I am guessing that you use new plastic bags most of the times and if so, each time you do, that would be one or two of nearly 750 billion plastic bags used worldwide every year, the vast majority ending up in landfill sites. Buying a reusable one involves a small initial cost, but it eliminates that mountain of used plastic bags that accumulates in the back of our cupboards.

When we cut the grass a lot of people throw the grass clippings in the bin. But if we throw the grass clippings on the grass, and leave them to decompose, it will improve your lawn.

Posted under Gardening & Outdoors, House & Home, Lifestyle & Fashion

A viable study released by the Ecological Land Cooperative (ELC) has shown that there is scope to launch an ‘ecological land fund’, from which investors will, potentially, earn modest returns, while allowing the cooperative the freedom to buy pockets of land for use as small arable farms. All of this movement and its related policy have been headed by ELC as ‘Holding Land in Common for Sustainable Uses’ – which is undeniably a worthy foundation for ecological growth.

ELCs mission recognises that reworking the land has more of a role in society than just the production of food, fibre and fuel. Part of ELCs vision is to include other’s in the way they see land usage as having a ‘profound impact on us and ecosystems, locally, nationally and globally. And although seldom acknowledged, the way in which we use our land also shapes our minds and hearts.’

This rather profound take on, what is essentially, the development of smallholdings, does have a degree of truth to it. The culture of change is probably the most effective force that drives the ‘green wave’ of awareness. It is becoming a common acceptance from a lot of people that making the smallest changes in their daily routines can in fact lead some of the greatest ecological impacts into being. And it is a positive movement to see an organisation like ELC hold this as a high valued part of their business outlook.

‘As we become forced to address the consequences of our individual consumer wealth – a less stable, more toxic and more violent world – we will have to re-examine our relationship with the land,’ states ELC spokesperson. And it is true. With gas, food and electricity (to mention a few) prices spiralling, more viable and sustainable solutions are being solidified to ensure the security of an emerging ecological future.

ELC is a co-op of multiple stakeholders, including contractors, prospective tenants and current tenants and a micro-managing role for the investors who will finance the purchase of land. One of the methods the eco-firm operates within is the continual acquiring of planning permission for ecological uses for the land their investors support. To a certain level, ELC work to give parcels of British land the agricultural significance they need to receive the financial support that will re-float them within that respective market. In short, the company will help to continue and promote the ecological use of the UK.

Since receiving initial funding from the SW Co-op Group’s Cooperative Development Fund, the ELC has succeeded in securing further backing that has permitted deeper investigation into surfacing a more responsive type of community land trust that will saturate their key five driving points – ‘Speed’ ‘Bulk’ ‘Risk’ ‘Finance’ and ‘Experimentation’ – and overcome the hurdles that make new smallholding difficult for the landless to establish.

What there is to be sure of at this early stage is ELC will be run as a co-operative, which makes it an organisation accountable to its main stakeholders. This alone is a strong foot forward for what’s best for Britain, as this structure will empower the people who are actively engaged in managing the land, thus keeping these minds held at the forefront of the ecological business’s actions.

Posted under Environmental News, Gardening & Outdoors

‘The Sahara Forest’ project is an ambitious proposal to turn areas of the dry arid desert into real-life oases. A team of architects and engineers are aiming to combine huge seawater greenhouses with solar power plants in the desert to provide food, fresh water and clean energy. They will use mirrors to focus the sun’s rays and generate heat and electricity, and eradicate the need to dig for fresh water creating lush areas of vegetation.

The vast majority of plants cannot grow in the desert due to the extreme temperature and lack of water, the seawater greenhouse can make these arid environments vegetation friendly. Charlie Paton is part of the Sahara team and the inventor of these greenhouses.

“So we’ve got conditions in the greenhouse of high humidity and lower temperature,” said Paton. “The crops sitting in this slightly steamy, humid condition can grow fantastically well.”

Paton said that the greenhouse produces over five times required for watering the plants so after cleaning the mirrors, the excess can be released into the local environment, creating a local microclimate outside the greenhouses for hardier plants such as jatropha – an energy crop that can be turned into bio fuel. The ability to create these microclimates has been shown by Paton’s demonstration greenhouse.

To purifying the seawater and cool the air of the greenhouse, solar energy is used to power the evaporators and then pump the damp, cool air through the greenhouse, reducing the temperature to 15c less than outside. At the other end of the greenhouse from the evaporators, the water vapour is condensed. This fresh water can be used to water the crops and clean the solar mirrors.
Demonstration plants are already running successfully in Tenerife, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, producing lettuces, peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes. The designers are confident that virtually any vegetables can be grown in the greenhouses depending on the climate maintained in them. The nutrients to grow the plants can be taken from seaweed or the seawater itself.

Both the CSP (solar power) and seawater greenhouses are proven technologies so the cost of this project should be relatively low. The designers estimate that building 20 hectares of greenhouses combined with a 10MW CSP scheme would cost around £65m. Groups in countries across the Middle East, including UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait, have shown interest in funding demonstration projects.

These projects are useful due to the production of extra crops, but most importantly will benefit the environment. Hopefully these seawater greenhouses can be used instead of, or to counteract the environmental damage caused by greenhouses already built. In Algeria, southern Spain, more than 40,000 hectares of greenhouses have been built in this desert region over the past 20 years, taking water from the earth around five times faster than it comes in, so the water table drops and becomes more saline. To convert them all to the seawater greenhouses would make sustainable

“The beauty of the Sahara Forest scheme is that you can reverse that process and turn barren land into biologically-productive land.” Charlie Paton.

Posted under Articles, Environmental News, Gardening & Outdoors, Renewable Energy

The average person throws away 1,500 pounds of domestic rubbish every year, whilst the average compost user will curb only 375 pounds of rubbish; and during World War II, “victory gardens planted in homes, schools, farms, and municipal plots across the nation supplied over 40 percent of vegetables consumed by civilians. With this in mind, all that is left to ask is: how green is you garden? Here are some simply solutions to help you harness the best out of your backyard harvest… There was a time before pesticides, weed killers, and chemical fertilizers, and to return to this simpler way of gardening is one of the best ways of securing an eco-friendly backyard. A variety of animal and insect activity will bring you a lot of ups-and-downs, but it will do more than anything else to balance the micro-environment that would have begun.

Composting from leftover kitchen waste and vegetable off-cuts will enrich soil fertility by giving it a surge of high-powered, plant-friendly nutrients. Aside from stimulating healthy root growth, adding rich and earthy compost will invigorate and improve deep soil texture, earth aeration, and water retention – speed up the process by adding a handful of earth worms.

As well as saving pennies and the time spent on the ornamentation of the previous garden setup, you can enjoy fresh and cheap food sources that would avoid the chemical sprays and air-miles, as they come straight from the back-garden-plot.

By adding a rain barrel and harvesting the rainwater that falls every season, this inexpensive and effortless method of capturing mineral-rich and chlorine-free water will provide enough water for lawns, yards, and gardens, as well as washing cars or rinsing windows. By harnessing what’s falling in front of your eyes, a marked dip in water costs may be instigated. But remember to set up a debris filter to keep the water fresh, moving and aerated.

Grey water. Go those extra steps by saving clean waste water – also known as grey water – from sinks, faucets, and bathtubs to be recovered for irrigation.

Try to provide a pesticide-free sanctuary for pollinators, such as bees and butterflies, whilst growing a diverse variety of native flowers they’re particularly drawn to – wild lilac, goldenrod, and lemon balm as to name a few.

Reduce Recycle Reuse and Rebuy. It cant be simpler than remembering the four R’s: reduce your output of waste to ensure you’re using materials efficiently; reuse compost and tree clippings for mulch, and generate a more positive use of rainwater instead of that taken directly from utility services; recycle resources wherever possible, and look to rebuy – instead of typical electric-powered fixtures, consider installation of more environmentally friendly products such as solar outdoor and garden lighting.

These minor changes are enough to begin a significant output. So if we consider that the average UK citizens has access to some form of garden or another, then the national impact of such micro-activity could potentially be great for our country

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Posted under Articles, Gardening & Outdoors, How To's & Guides

Sometimes the simplest ideas can be the most useful – no matter what purpose it could be used for, collecting rainwater for the garden is a bright thought. Not only do plants respond more actively to rainwater (because it is naturally soft and free of chlorine and other chemicals), if there is a drought problem in the local area, it is a perfect solution for dealing with those watering restrictions. And if the house is tied to a municipal system, you could stand to save a considerable amount of money.

Having a rain barrel is a simple and handy alternative to using the garden hose, and under only a half inch of rain falling on a 1,000-square-foot roof will yield 300 gallons of water. For a modern sized house, typical of 30 x 36 ft., with a common 2 ft. roof overhang, a half inch of rain water would provide about 408 gallons of water. That is enough nature-given water to fill six standard-sized rain barrels.

Here are four steps to help explain what you need to set up your own rain harvesting system:

Gutters and a downspout’s are both rather commonplace domestic appliances, but if you don’t have guttering on your home, this will be a one time investment-but the biggest cost that you will face. However, whether you wish to install high quality gutters or the least expensive systems available, both will do the same job. These are both rather commonplace domestic appliances, but if you don’t have rain guttering on your home, this will be a one time investment – but the biggest cost you’ll face. However, whether you wish to install high quality gutters or the least-expensive systems available, both will suffice.
A storage tank in the more arid seasons, rainwater cisterns are being more and more utilised. Usually made of plastic or concrete, they can hold hundreds or even thousands of gallons of water. To start small and simple, consider a wood or plastic barrel, which will typically hold from 40 to 80 gallons of water. And if more water is required, several barrels can be set up in tandem. Prices vary, but most quality barrels will cost between £20 and £50.
Debris filters and lids before the water goes into the tank or rain barrel, it will help to use some kind of debris screen to filter out leaves, pine needles and other debris. Installing a filter will prevent any build-up or sever clogging that may occur. A removable wire mesh screen is all you really need, either mounted to the top of the rain barrel or attached to the end of the downspout.
Distribution valves for a rain barrel, a standard spigot or short length of hose installed in the lower regions (the lower the better) of the barrel, with an on/off valve. It is possible to stick with just a spigot for filling watering cans, but connections to longer hoses and even water pumps can be made to meet most user’s needs.

Across many parts of the globe, rainwater collection and containment systems supply a significant amount (sometimes all) of the water needs for both house and garden. So consider this – if there is 10 inches of rain over the entire course of the spring and summer, a common 1,360 square foot roof would garner 8,160 gallons of rain water – which will gladly keep each year’s flowerbeds fully quenched.

Posted under Articles, Gardening & Outdoors, How To's & Guides

The growing and varied ways to make your lifestyle a Greener one can sometimes be a little overwhelming. And trying to discern an approach to make your garden that bit more eco-friendly can also be puzzling, especially when the grass is green and the bees are buzzing. So here are five of the most practical gardening products that will help you get those green fingers back.

Drought plug Water Recycling Kit
this simple-to-use, energy-free, recyclable hose application can save you money, and pays for itself within days. Made in the UK, the Drought pug can be used during water restrictions and comes with two hose ends connectors; a hosepipe with an integral siphon pump; a strong shut-off valve; and a double ended hose connector.
The Drought plug is perfect for retrieving that ‘grey water’ most households waste. Simply lock the Drought plug into the bath plug hole by twisting it gently clockwise.
Attach the hose provided to the Drought plug using one of the end connectors with the shorter piece of pipe closest to the bath and attach the other end to your garden hose using the double-ended hose connector supplied in your kit.
Squeeze the siphon pump 16-18 times until the water in the pipe is below the level of the Drought plug and the water will then flow out of the bath.
The shut off valve can either be put at the end of the hose provided, or placed at the end of your garden hose and used to stop the flow of water when your container or watering can is full.
The speed at which the water flows out will depend on the difference in height between the ends of the hosepipe. The greater the height the faster the water will flow.
The Drought plug Water Recycling Kit retails for a very reasonable £18.99 from varied gardening and online stores.

Rotol 220 Litre Home Composter
this is another product that is made and sold in the UK (so there is less of a carbon footprint to worry about). The Rotol 220 Litre Home Composters are manufactured from 100% recycled materials and is a proud winner of gardening which? Best Buy. This sturdy and robust product features an easy access apex lid – so all of those kitchen scraps and garden mulch can be dropped in to help you compost your way to richer, happier flowerbeds.
The Rotol 220 costs £19.95 and can be found at www.greengardenshop.co.uk

Flat-Trap Slug Pub
this is a favourite amongst gardening centres across the UK and costs as little as £14.95. The simple and effective method for dealing with snails and slugs is proven and environmentally friendly too. These purpose-built ‘pubs’ provide many years of excellent service and can just be popped beside the flowerbeds, patios or pavements (one product unit contains 3 ‘pubs’) and do not require to be sunk into you lawn.
Instructions for use:
1 – Unclip the lid from the Trap.
2 – Fill the reservoirs with either Beer or Milk. (Please note lager will not work as it does not contain the correct natural ingredients that will attract the slugs).
3 – Position the slug trap near to the slug problem.
The Slug trap works by filling the internal reservoirs with beer or milk to within 5-10mm of the top giving a large area for catchments. Slugs or Snails are enticed into the slug trap by the smell of yeast in the beer. Once inside the slug pub, the slugs or snails drink from the reservoirs and become intoxicated to such an extent that the slug or snail drowns in the beer or is so drunk it can’t find its way back out of the trap. Brilliantly simple and very effective, catches loads of slugs and snails.

The Worm Works – Multi-Tray Worm Composter
This product is for the more serious gardener. The Worm Works is an easy, efficient tool and it operates quite simply. There are three trays. You place some worms in the bottom tray along with some food scraps which the worms eat. Once they have finished that food they move by themselves up to the next tray into which you have put food and the first tray is now ready to use as compost. You simply keep the system going and the liquid fertilizer gathers in a chamber at the bottom where there is a tap to drain it into your watering can.
The ideal environment for these working worms means they can churn through your kitchen waste quite happily, processing a strong, nutrient rich liquid feed. This organic compost – which you dilute with water prior to use – is an excellent plant food for house plants, garden flowers, shrubs, vegetables or as a lawn feed – and is the rich organic compost, commonly known by gardeners as “Black Gold”.
The Worm Works also retails at £79.99 and is sold by www.greengardenshop.co.uk

The down pipe Rainwater Collector Filter – T33

The T33 is designed for rain water collection in water butts. These filters are easily connected to all 63mm, 68mm, 80mm and 100mm round down pipes, and 61mm sq and 65mm Sq Square down pipes and can be left to automatically fill the water butt.
The 0.1mm stainless steel sieve ensures that only clean and filtered water arrives in the base. Best of all, when the water butt is full, the filter will automatically redirect water back down the down pipe, preventing any overspill.
The T33 comes fitted with a winter plug that (once fitted) will prevent filling during those freezing winter months. The filters are practically maintenance free, as they feature a self-cleaning characteristic which directs dirt straight down the drain.
The Down pipe Rainwater Collector Filter – T33 is sold by www.britisheco.com at £39.99.

Posted under Articles, Gardening & Outdoors, House & Home

The concept of modern recycling has been around for nearly four decades. For many people, recycling conjures up the green plastic bins and bottle drives; but recycling came into existence via a source of creativity and a principal of prosperity. That is why years later there is a growing number of ways to recycle just about anything. This guide is an overview of the basic groundwork as well as some of the advanced concepts that have emerged more recently.

The spirit of recycling is the cyclical movement of resources through their system – mitigating waste and the need to extract more materials. Recycling is reciprocal. Supporting the cause means supporting recycled products. The more demand there is for recycled products, the more available and affordable they’ll become. This has happened over recent years, but the cycle should be kept moving to help make a real impact.

Reduce Reuse Recycle. Reducing how much we consume is just as important as recycling all that we use. And ‘reuse’ can be understood by knowing that we can find a constructive use for any ‘waste’ material. Only then should you look to recycle – which is strange because for the majority of us, recycle seems like the most important step, when really it is the final alternative.

Recycle your water. If you’re a homeowner, consider altering your plumbing so that rainwater or wastewater from your shower and tub is used to flush your toilet. If you have a garden, water it with ‘grey’ bathwater or dishwashing water (as long as you use a biodegradable soap).

Electronics recycling is becoming more common in many urban areas, battery recycling can be found everywhere (rechargeable batteries are ecologically sounder, but even they wear out after a while), and there are a number of non-profit organizations that will take computer parts and turn them into working computers for others – the same goes for Mobile Phones, and other gismos alike.

Kitchen and Garden waste. Most things that have come from your kitchen or out of your back garden can be recycled, and can also be divided into two principal categories: technical or biological nutrients. Biological nutrients are those that can return to the soil safely, ready for decomposing – composting is one of the simplest and most effective methods for reusing biological nutrients. And if you are ever at all confused about ‘what can and what can not’ be composted, just think ‘is this bio-logical?’

By conducting a waste audit you’ll be able to get a better understanding of how much is going in and out – Set a span of time like a week or a month, and separate your waste categories. Weigh the different kinds of material flows that go out the door (landfill waste, organic compost, aluminium, recyclable plastic, reusable material, etc.). And then draw-up a ‘material recovery’ program that looks to minimize the amount going to the landfill. This is a great exercise to do with kids but can be very convincing to your more corporate type, too, especially since most companies pay to have their trash hauled away and can get money for recycled paper, containers, toner cartridges, corrugated cardboard, and the like.

Look to Art. A great way to involve more of the community with recycling programs is to find a ‘project’ that requires the materials that cannot be easily disposed of. One way this can be done is by reusing these resources via schools and art classes that are in need of supplies that will invigorate their creativity – like rubbish. After all, one man’s trash is another man’s art.

Posted under Articles, Gardening & Outdoors, House & Home, How To's & Guides

According to a Devonshire Cow farmer ‘The poo from four cows can produce enough energy to heat and light a house for a year’. He should know he’s planning to create energy from the stuff. The thirty-five year old farmer is aiming to build an energy centre on his farm, in a rural community on the outskirts of Tiverton, near Exeter. It will use manure from local farms and waste from local abattoirs and food processors to create enough electricity to light 6,000 local houses and £700,000 worth of heat for local industries. Tiverton’s population is only 20,000; it will go a long way to making the town self-sufficient in energy. It will not be the first energy centre like this in the UK. It is however a huge undertaking.

Many environmentalists concern themselves with the animals expelling large amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas 21 times more damaging than CO2, however unlike the methane that cows exhale as their stomachs convert grass into milk – which is believed to be responsible for up to a quarter of ‘manmade’ methane emissions worldwide – the gas in their manure, along with all the other organic waste that would otherwise take up space in landfill, can actually become productive.

Essentially this process will solve the issues of food and fuel security by making them more sustainable, at a time when both are in short supply.
The process is based around anaerobic digestion. Organic material is fermented in heated tanks and broken down into methane and carbon dioxide which are the same basic components of natural gas. This biogas can then be burned to generate electricity, or, as many countries in Europe do, upgraded so it could be fed into the gas grid or used in vehicles modified to run on compressed natural gas. The only by-product of the process is an organic fertiliser.

This process has been implemented for many years in some parts of Europe; Germany has 3,000 anaerobic digestion (AD) plants however the process is fairly uncommon in the UK excluding except in the sewage-treatment industry. However DEFRA want to increase the use of AD. This month, three Defra ministers met with representatives from agriculture, the supermarkets, waste and water and energy companies, as well as local government, to discuss how Britain can match the progress of Europe. The department sees the potential not only in terms of generating renewable energy but also in addressing the issue Gordon Brown highlighted at the G8 summit last month: the amount of food Britain wastes.

According to the Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap), UK households throw away almost a third of the food we buy. The CO2 generated in producing food that is wasted, and then the methane it gives off as it decomposes, is the equivalent of 18m tonnes of avoidable CO2 emissions a year. Essentially burning cow poo can provide a great environmentally friendly energy and solve the problem of food wastage; hopefully it will catch on to more farmers like Winston Reed very soon!

Posted under Articles, Environmental News, Gardening & Outdoors, Gas & Electricity, Renewable Energy

Much of current talk on climate control or global warming centres on ecosystems; an area of natural land where the plants and animals – plus little ol’ bacteria – work in unison to sustain a cycle of growth and regrowth. So the sea, coral reefs, grasslands, deserts and rainforests are all ecosystems.

And so is your garden.

Because – all be it on a much smaller scale – the plants we plant in gardens affect what birds, animals and insects go there, and these in turn have their effects on the plant life. So we’ve all got ecosystems going on right in front of us, and maintaining a healthy and ethical garden is one simple way to do our bit for the environment.

There are several ways to establish a healthy ecosystem in your garden, and they are easy and effective. Detailed here, then, are some of the best and most common procedures.

Composting:

This links an ethical garden to an ethical household, because most kitchen waste can be placed neatly in a compost bin and left to decompose. So rotten vegetables – or simply whatever veg you don’t use – can all be composted. So can dead plants, hedge trimmings and grass cuttings.

After the waste has all broken down into compost, it can be used as a good natural fertiliser, meaning strong, healthy soil. This leads to healthy plants and grass, too.

And – because your waste has gone into composting – you are preventing it going to landfills. So composting completes the cycle; a good household environment, to a good garden, right through to a good national environment, and back round.

Birds:

A good garden provides a good resting place for birds, and the birds will help your garden too. They will happily eat many of the insects that feed off plants, meaning that the ecosystem is maintained; insects moderated by the birds, moderate the growth of plant life. If one of the three elements is removed, the imbalance will mean – for example – overgrown plant life, or too many insects and lots of dead plants. A good bird population will curb that.

And it’s fairly easy to attract them. Bird baths or bird tables are fairly cheap, and tables can be made from home using old wood. If you want to house birds in the long term, bird boxes can provide nesting place for whole families.

Ponds:

A pond will attract new kinds of animals. They are common breeding places for frogs, which – like birds – will take it as a welcome home, and feed on the insects that in turn feed on the pond’s plant life.

It will also provide a bathing area for birds, linking the pond back to more prominent aspects of your garden.

So it’s easy to see, then, that making your garden eco-friendly is relatively simple and cheap, and makes for a more pleasant view. Not only that, it provides an effective way to remove household waste ethically, meaning that a healthy garden benefits any home that is interested in being environmentally friendly.

It seems there’s little reason not to go greener with your green garden.

Posted under Articles, Gardening & Outdoors, How To's & Guides