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Small steps towards sustainable garden design

December 3, 2012 By Jill Anderson Leave a Comment

 

I had a bit of a wobbly moment when the delivery of materials arrived during the building of my first show garden at the Hampton Court Flower Show in back 2008.

 

www.andersonlandscapedesign.co.uk/blog

 

Everyone else had shiny, plastic wrapped palettes of bricks, paving etc deposited at their sites. Whilst I had a pile of timber that looked like the contents of a skip …. and that’s because it almost was. It was from a timber recycling project in Brighton which I discovered on one of my regular visits there. They supplied the scaffold boards that I used as decking and all the timber for the garden

 

 

I love the idea of using timber that would have otherwise gone to land-fill, it’s cheaper and generally has a lot more character.

A lot of people are deterred from using recycled materials imagining that it’ll look messy and jumbled. I wanted to demonstrate that you can use recycled products and have a garden that looks smart and stylish. 

Now this clearly isn’t a completely sustainable garden, I used shingle as groundcover, but I think if you take small, easy steps you can gradually garden in a more sustainable way, and every little step makes a difference.

 

 

And here’s the finished result, the R.H.S. liked the garden and awarded it a silver medal.

 

www.andersonlandscapedesign.co.uk/blog

 

At the end of the Show the garden was rebuilt at a local primary school.

I hope you’ll be inspired to garden sustainably, here’s my 5 top tips to help you on your way:

  • Re-use plants, trees and soil in your garden.
  • Try not to take anything to land-fill.
  • Advertise on freecycle to find new homes for things that you don’t want in your garden.
  • Re-use bricks and paving to make paths or use as hard-core.
  • Don’t buy plants that have been potted in peat.

The snappily named Brighton and Hove Wood Recycling Project are still going strong, you can find them here.

 Jill

all images: Jill Anderson

apologies that these photos aren’t up to my usual standard, theye were taken before I got my super-duper digital SLR camera!

 

 

Related posts:

Garden design ~ some stylish recycling ideas. The reinvention of a garden after it’s appearance at the Chelsea Flower Show The creative recycling of a garden after the Chelsea Flower Show Grass, shingle or stone for your garden floor?

Related posts:

Garden design ~ some stylish recycling ideas. The reinvention of a garden after it’s appearance at the Chelsea Flower Show The creative recycling of a garden after the Chelsea Flower Show Grass, shingle or stone for your garden floor?
Filed Under: Blog, Garden Design, Recycling & Sustainability Tagged With: garden design, recycling, RHS Hampton Court Flower Show, sustanability

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Hello, I’m Jill Anderson.
This is where you’ll find good, solid information about gardening, growing fruit & vegetables and how to keep it all looking good.
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