Sustainable Garden

Projects, insights and advice for the eco-conscious gardener

Marian Boswall

• Publisher: Frances Lincoln
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780711267886
• eBook ISBN: 9780711267893
• Topic: Biowissenschaften
• Subtopic: Stadtplanung & Landschaftsgestaltung

A stylish, inspirational and practical guidebook to maintaining a more environmentally friendly outdoor space, now shortlisted for the GMG GARDEN BOOK OF THE YEAR award!

Sustainable gardener Marian Boswall walks us through the process of creating and maintaining a sustainable outdoor space, offering tips, guidance and step-by-step projects designed to help you lead a more low-impact lifestyle. Whether it’s by harnessing natural energy, converting to peat-free compost, reducing your consumption of plastic, saving seeds or creating garden areas from reclaimed materials, there are numerous ways – both big and small – to make a difference. 

Entries cover every aspect of the garden, from how to create a space and draw up a plan for your sustainable garden from scratch, to advice on boundaries and fences, and guidance on how to ethically source materials to make sure your garden is as environmentally friendly as it is beautiful. This book also contains several projects with easy-to-follow instructions that you can replicate at home, such as creating a frame for succulents to grow in out of recycled materials.

Projects include:

• Plant an edible hedge - This berry-laden boundary brings joy into your garden and offers a great way to connect to and notice the seasons for both children and adults, 
• Make a lawn spiral - This innovative approach to lawns will reduce mowing time by half (thereby saving energy) and will create a beautiful, textured swirl of flowering grass which is good for pollinators,
• Make your own frame for succulents - Using recycled and found materials, create your own vertical planter for a host of succulents, perfect for balconies or other small spaces,
• Saving your seeds - Collecting seeds from your garden is the perfect way to start planning ahead for your garden next year, all while reducing waste.
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Sustainable Garden will guide anyone hoping to take informed and intelligent decisions to make a difference, but who perhaps don’t know where to begin.

Creating space

Creating a space can be the most magical part of designing a garden. When you look at a blank canvas the potential is limitless. What you do with it comes back to how you want to live, how much you want to look after it and how much time and money you have to invest. To create a sustainable garden, you need to plan for the long term and at the same time consider how much you want to spend today.

If you are renting or intending to move on in a few years’ time, it is still worth investing in plants, but you may be able to make do and make over the existing paving or gravel areas. Old mortar can be removed and plants such as thyme sown in the cracks to give uninspiring paving slabs a lift, while adding to your garden’s biodiversity and attracting pollinators. By creating gaps between the slabs, you also allow water to permeate and reduce run-off, which helps to protect the soil elsewhere in the garden and also helps to prevent flooding in built-up areas. Gravel is a relatively cheap way to keep feet dry and create areas that can be for both people and plants. Find ways to plant in gravel on this page.

The way a garden looks and feels is a direct result of your intention for the space, so it is worth deciding at the start if it is primarily a garden for entertaining, meditating or being alone, growing food or allowing children space to play. Of course, with a bit of careful planning it can be all of these things in turn, to all of its users.

These clay pavers and oak benches will outlive the owners but gradually meld back into the land from which they came.

Planning the site

The first step when planning your site is to take time to observe. Watch where the sun’s first rays find the garden in the morning and note where the last rays linger at sunset. These will be your ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Contents
• Introduction
• Living
• Creating space
• Gathering
• Cultivating place
• Conclusion
• Index
• Further reading
• About the Author
• Acknowledgments
• Copyright