Three top eco tips to save you time, money or effort in your garden from Sally Nex, author of RHS How to Garden the Low Carbon Way plus bonus eco-friendly garden design ideas. #sustainableliving
RHS How to Garden the Low Carbon Way is available from DK Books:https://www.dk.com/uk/book/9780241472972-rhs-how-to-garden-the-low-carbon-way/
The RHS: https://shop.rhs.org.uk/books/grow-your-own/organic/rhs-how-to-garden-the-low-carbon-way
And Amazon: https://amzn.to/3qo4WyK (affiliate link, see below)
0:00 Welcome
0:32 Doddington Place Gardens https://www.doddingtonplacegardens.co.uk/
0:39 Sally Nex https://sallynex.com/
0:41 How to Garden the Low Carbon Way
0:52 The Abbey Physic Community Garden in Faversham: https://www.abbeyphysic.org/
3:00 Mow less often – tip 1
5:13 Video with Jane Moore’s autumn gardening tips: https://youtu.be/Bk_kGaI2Yng
5:20 Planting for Butterflies by Jane Moore:
6:09 How to Make a Flower Border Look Amazing video: https://youtu.be/qxVxUDkiwWs
6:50 The Abbey Physic Garden: https://www.abbeyphysic.org/
7:05 Tip 2 – stopping digging!
9:12 No Dig For Flower Borders with Charles Dowding: https://youtu.be/MqfFOdup8Wc
10:13 Google maps
10:25 Tip 3 – keep your garden waste in your garden as much as possible
14:03 Eco friendly garden design tips
14:20 Garden inspiration from 2 private gardens video: https://youtu.be/6rPsidljeqk
15:13 Clever shady garden tips from a north-facing garden: https://youtu.be/-u6XUMJc6ME
15:29 Contemporary garden design ideas on a budget from Jane Beedle’s garden: https://youtu.be/p8cjOk2USWo
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28 Comments
Amazing
You forgot to mention to encourage and cultivate the most eco friendly plant of all time……MOSS!!!
I am a new gardener and I enjoyed watching your video. I live in south east England, UK (Gravesend, Kent). Please can you let me know when is the last frost date in Gravesend. I get a different dates in various websites so I am confused.
Suits my way of gardening. When in the UK I had always made gardens that look almost natural and blend in with the surrounding countryside. Even allowing local wild plants to seed here and there, many of which were edible or had medicinal properties that could use 🙂 As worked long hours this not only suited the local wildlife, but also my free time = win-win :-D. Also, people need to de-programme from the global warming non-sense of lowering CO2. The earth has the lowest CO2 levels in centuries, we need more CO2….is the gas of life!……and we are entering a grand solar minimum, it will become colder not warmer. The Earth has her cycles as do all the planets in our solar system and they are all having climate change at the moment, every single one of them…it is a natural cycle so stop absorbing the propaganda put out by those that have been controlling the planet, it is a political agenda they are about.
I'm
I love to see the dandelions, violets, and the clover shining their colors above the lawn.
Great tips! I so appreciate that you continue to offer eco friendly content. Off to order Sally Nex’s book!
Wonderful ideas! Great way to save time and have beautiful, healthy gardens! Thank you for this information!
Hi! I came over from your collaboration with Liz Zorab. Decided I would hang around.(AKA subscribe)
I encourage "Lawns" to be mown meadows instead. A diverse mix of low growing native plants. Then when the "lawn" is mowed, the clippings are a great source of "green manure" for the compost or compost in place mulch.
Really terrific ideas, some of which I can't wait to try. I do want to say, though, that those beautiful greenhouses and sheds require either real skill, or the ability to pay someone who has that skill. For me it'd (theoretically!) be paying someone, and that would end up costing as much as or more than buying new.
Also when trying to mow less or leave the grass longer , you could still go round the edges on a lower level and then raise the cut away from the edge . That way you still have a crisp edge
Adding beneficial insects to the garden will balance out the eco system. Establishing a native ant colony and a small bee colony, and all the supporting cast of insects is the best eco gardening you can do
I'm all for saving time, energy and money and love the tips about that, but the junk-theories about the climate are not for me! 🙂
Great ideas… thank you so much! 🦔
I’m still in a brain overload with your material. I’m doing my best to soak it up. I really hope I can get my first flower garden grow.
Clover is intentional in my garden. Unfortunately, most of it never germinated. But clover is very draught tolerant, feeds the bees, and stays green even when the grass dies.
My vegetable garden is now no dig after first putting it in… had buried twigs, yard waste, coffee grinds, etc., then filled it back over. The worms love it and it holds water better, plus all the activity under there. Now I just add compost each season.
I just started using grass clippings for mulch, but only from areas not gone to seed. Or if there is seed, I pluck it so I can sow it in bare spots.
I love the idea about putting a twig hedge at the end of my garden because I live on three acres of woods which has a constant supply of branches and twigs available. Now I can give shelter to the small animals that frequent my woods. All these tips are ones I can easily cooperate in my lawn care. Thank you for sharing.
I am too OCD for not cutting my lawn. Plus mowing your lawn or not mowing your lawn dose nothing to help the environment. When we have huge countries like India that don’t recycle and dump waste into oceans. Weeds are a problem for everyone that gardens and leaving them in my garden would start to choke out my flowers. I understand why people want to cut they waste down because we love our planet but as long as we have Countries that don’t care we will be fighting a losing battle.
I absolutely love your YouTube channel, Alexandra! I haven't done the research but I would think that both electric and battery powered lawn mowers would still have a carbon footprint. After all, the electricity or the charge for the battery has to come from somewhere. As a gardener, you are well aware that these things do not grow trees! Lol I think the only true carbon free solution would be a manual reel push mower. Not sure if they are available in Britain but we do have them on this side of the pond. Thank you for posting these wonderfully informative videos. 👏👏👏
I really enjoyed this video. I've watched it several times!
I 'shop' for all my hard landscaping materials from the local dump. Broken bricks juggled together, gaps filled with soil, make a resilient pathway that soon looks as if its been there for ever. Concrete shatter, dumped by people who have pulled up concrete slabs or removed thick plaster makes great 'crazy paving' and once a few small weeds and moss have grown, are as rustic looking as stone paving. Small bits of brick shatter or some contrasting colour can be wedged into the gaps here and there to add interest if you wish. I apologize for leaving a url here, but that is where I have pictures of what I'm talking about.
https://www.greenidiom.com/garden-paths.html
I've used the fedge technique mentioned here by the wonderful Sally Nex to create a raised bed. I lined them with waste carpet underfelt and old polythene drop sheets. The great thing about them is that the snails don't like crawling up through all those prickly twigs and so its the one bed where lettuce lasted longer than a week.
https://www.greenidiom.com/raised-bed.html
I love all your posts on the middle size garden, but this one was especially enjoyable as it combines wildlife gardening, soil care and using recycled materials. The wonderful thing is that so much can be done without it costing much. Having a beautiful garden or even a 'nature reserve' should never depend on a large budget. Thank you for your lovely channel Alexandra.
I have a long grass swathe but I'm frightened of mowing it if it's full of insects! They'll end up in the mower. I have started cutting it shorter with shears. It's quite hard work though.
Thank you for your informative videos, Alexandra, expecially lots to take on board in this one. I've skimmed through the comments and I was surprised no one else found it jarring that you were talking about eco-friendly gardening in front of a plastic grass background 🙂 (By the way, I'll add my compliments for your scarf)
Hello Alexander, as always such good advice. I take our veggie peeling and scatter them on open soil, just a small patch as I had marigolds growing there, so now the soil has become so enriched, robins come looking for bugs and earthworms have moved across and unfortunately our Hadeda birds with their long beaks pick them out and enjoy their findings. We can save ourselves so much hassles in our gardening and still have it looking great. I like to use fresh mulch scattered over as well as the lawn clippings. Had some clover growing on the lawn but I was told the neighbours will have a fit if they knew, well too bad, I am re-sowing on existing grass also leaving the dandelions to grow. my grandson picks them aged 4 and brings me a flower. It is the most beautiful yellow colour you can find, every garden should have a yellow flower :), there you go!! I bought two colours of Peruvian lilies, gold and light lilac, The lilac flourished and the yellow no flowers. I thought what a dud! Low and behold one day clusters of gold coloured lilies, what joy. So don't interfere with your plants, they look after themselves just give water and much love and fertilizer. As always, thank you so much for the informative talks, kind regards, Elize.
I made where I wanted my main path in the back leading to the pond into a white clover walkway. The other secondary paths I put down a 2-3' weed barrier cloth and covered it with free arborist wood chips. I'm glad you talked about the vegetable garden. I've got a lot of wood chips left over so I'll use your tip on mulching the dirt in between the veggie rows. 👍
My own tip is: to think a little longer… for instance I have a piece of black earth where I want to make a little terrace. I want to put some white earth under my pavings (stones that are already in the garden, leftover from the previous owner), so I had this black earth and on the side of the garden there was lay of concrete and some nice stones to make a border. With the black earth and the stones (edge like stones) I made a new border. After a day or so, I found that one of my clematis didn't look to good because a hortensia was in the way of it's light…so I moved the hortensia to the new border. I often feel that when I take a bit more time, in stead of running to the local greenery or diy-store I find a very good solution to re-use something that's already there. The best part of it is, that I feel like a clever hero ;-).
Fantastic!