As gardeners, it’s easy to think that by growing flowers, encouraging wildlife, and avoiding chemicals, we’re doing our bit to combat climate change. How to Garden the Low Carbon Way shows there’s a lot more that can be done.
Sally Nex is well known as an expert on sustainable gardening and is a prolific vegetable grower – I ‘road tested’ her course with Learning With Experts. For a long time, she’s campaigned against the use of plastic in gardens but this book takes it a stage further.
I was sent a copy of the book in return for a fair review.
Everything from what sort of lawn to have to how to sow seeds is covered in this exhaustive guide to turning your garden into “a tiny carbon sink”.
“As gardeners, we have a chance to make a direct, practical difference in combatting climate change,” Sally tells us.
How to Garden the Low Carbon Way opens with how to build your garden. There are suggestions of sustainable materials and design elements before moving on to what to grow and how to look after it.
Lawns can be costly when it comes to fighting climate change: “Even new petrol mowers spew out as much pollution in an hour as a car travelling 150km (93 miles).”
Sally suggests leaving grass long to encourage wildflowers, or growing a ‘lawn without grass’ with plants such as chamomile, thyme or Corsican mint as alternatives.
Perennials – both ornamental and vegetable – are better than annuals, digging should be kept to a minimum and everything in the garden can be reused or composted.
There’s advice on buying: try recycling sites; shop local; beware of even organic plant feeds as making them has a climate cost.
Even the book’s production follows green principles with only black-and-white illustrations and the use of Forestry Management Certification (FSC) paper.
I feel some of the advice is for the really committed only – using cardboard to insulate a greenhouse may be ‘greener’ than plastic but who has time to take it down every morning and put it back at night?
Likewise, a fedge – “a fence built with waste wood” – may be a low maintenance green boundary but it’s unlikely to be welcomed by neighbours in a suburban setting.
Sally admits “not everyone will be able, or indeed want to take on the ‘deep green’ approach outlined”.
That said, this book is ideal for finding those things you can incorporate into your garden.
As she urges us: “The important thing is that everyone does something.”
RHS How to Garden the Low Carbon Way by Sally Nex is published by Dorling Kindersley, in March 2021, priced at £12.99.
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