How to Enhance Your Garden While Helping the Planet
How to Enhance Your Garden While Helping the Planet
If you love your garden, then the chances are you are also interested in taking better care of the planet. When you spend a lot of time working close to nature your appreciation of it grows. You end up fully realizing just how wonderful the natural world is.
So, it is understandable that you will want to do as much as you can to take care of the animals, plants, air and land. Something you can easily do by making just a few changes in your garden.
Plant Some Trees
Our first suggestion is that you visit somewhere like The Tree Center website and buy a tree or two. Urban trees are a very important part of the eco-system. They encourage biodiversity in urban areas, cleanse the air and play a role in cooling cities during daylight hours.
Grow More of Your Own Food
One of the biggest things you can do for the environment is to grow your own food. The more you grow the better. Every time you eat something you have grown in your own garden you are saving food miles.
Around 11% of the pollution created by food production and distribution comes from the act of transporting that food from the farm to your plate. Therefore, growing your own food and switching to buying locally produced food really does help.
You will also benefit from eating food that is fresher and likely ends up consuming more fruits and vegetables. Growing more fruit and vegetables has the added benefit of improving your health and potentially saving you a lot of money.
Create a Compost Heap
Whether you decide to grow your own food or not, creating a compost heap is a really good way to help the planet. It means that most of your food waste can be kept out of the landfill.
Once everything is rotted down, you can use it to feed your plants and help them to grow faster. If you are worried that it might smell or attract rats, there are ways to make sure that this does not happen.
Plant Environmentally-Friendly Hedging
Most people want their garden to be a private space. Usually, to achieve this they grow a hedge or screen off sections of the garden. When deciding which plants to use for this it is worth thinking about the environmental impact they will have. For example, if you plant holly instead of fast-growing conifers you will be providing food for the birds at the same time as creating a hedge.
Better still, plant a mixed hedge to create a habitat for a bigger range of insects, birds and small mammals. A mix of crabapple, hawthorn, hazel, bird cherry and wild privet is a great example of a bio-diverse combination you could use.
Generally speaking, the more diverse the plants you use for your hedge, the better it will be for the environment. There is the added advantage that you will have enhanced your garden and created a more attractive outdoor space in which to entertain friends and family.
Make your garden a better place for entertaining and transform your garden. On that page, you will also find suggestions about lighting, furniture, hard standing and much more besides.
Use Environmentally-Friendly Materials in Your Garden
If you can, stay away from buying gardening tools, furniture and other items that are made from man-made materials. Usually, manufacturing them will have generated high levels of pollution.
In addition, they are not likely to be bio-degradable.
You May Also Like:
- 5 Improvement Tips For A Greener Home
- PlanetBox Lunch Box: Packing Healthy Back to School Lunches
- 5 Tips for A Greener World & Learning Through Netflix
- Different Vegetable Juices You Can Enjoy
Whereas items made from natural materials like wood and bamboo usually are. Taking care of your plants using organic feeds and pest control products will also help.
Use Your Garden to Encourage Your Children to Take Care of the Planet
All of the above ideas are environmentally-friendly. Getting your children involved in putting some of these projects into action is a great way to teach them more about caring for the planet.
My kids loved this green-fingered project and I think a lot of your children will too.
If you care about the planet and love to contribute to its beauty, you’re all set! You’re armed with plenty of tips to make a difference and make the planet a more beautiful place.
How do you enhance your garden?
Let me know, til then–cheers m’deres!
PIN FOR LATER:
Nancy Polanco is a freelance journalist, lifestyle content creator, and editor of Whispered Inspirations. She is a proud Mom to Gabby and Michaela and partner and best friend to Darasak. Having worked as part of a health care team for almost a decade, Nancy is happy to be back to her passion. She is a contributor to the Huffington Post, TODAY’s Parents, and an Oprah Magazine Brand Ambassador.
