7 Ways to Make Your Garden Greener

To mark the start of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show we wanted to highlight some ways you can make your garden a little bit greener.

1. Switch From Mains to Rains 🚰

Get a water butt to catch rainwater and save yourself turning on the tap. Then you're free to simply use a watering can instead of a hosepipe!

Catching rainfall like this can help reduce surface water flooding in wet areas, too.

2. Protect the Peat 🪴

Peatlands are the world's largest carbon store on land. Our planet's billions of acres of peat hold more carbon than all the world's forests combined!

They provide valuable ecosystems for plants and animals and act like sponges, reducing the risk of flooding. When we take peat for our gardens, carbon is released and habitats are damaged. Keeping peat in bogs – not bags – is a crucial part of the fight against climate change.

3. Create Compost 🪱

For every kg of compost you make at home you can save the equivalent to 1.85 miles driven in an average car vs buying bagged compost.

Every 1kg of homemade compost typically saves over 0.1kg fossil CO2 emissions, which could save more than 5.1 kg carbon, per gardener, every year.

4. Pull up a Paver 🌿

If 30 million gardeners pulled up a paver and planted 1m² of perennial plants (either herbaceous, shrubs or trees) in their community, school, workplace or garden and allowed it to develop to maturity, we could create a huge impact.

Depending on the plants grown this would be equivalent to heating between 86,000 to more than one million homes for a year!

5. Plant, don't Pesticide 🐝

Help slow and reverse the declines in bees, butterflies, moths, hoverflies and other pollinators by ditching the pesticides and growing a wide variety of plants including a mixture of native, near-native and exotic plants to support pollinator diversity.

You can also pick up or build your own insect hotel or bee house.

6. Plant a Tree 🌳

According to the RHS' calculations, if all 30 million UK gardeners planted a medium-sized tree in their community, school, workplace or garden and nurtured it to maturity, you could store enough carbon equivalent to drive you more than 11 million times around our planet!

7. No Garden? Go Guerilla 💣

Grab yourself a plastic-free, compostable 'seed bomb' from UK company Kabloom.

Derelict land, forgotten lots – they can all become little havens.

Kabloom offer seed mixes suited to different insects and animals, from birds to bees and butterflies.