The Organic Garden. Allan Shepherd
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insects. They are also resistant to attack from slugs and snails. Editing is a good way to learn about the differences between weeds and wildflowers if you’re just starting to garden.
But editing has obvious limitations. You can’t edit yourself a vegetable patch. Or an orchard. Or a perennial flower border full of your favourite plants. If you want to grow the plants you prefer, rather than those the soil throws up, you have to write your own story – not edit nature’s. This means working out what sort of planting schemes you want, what shape beds to make and how much room to give to each different element within the garden. You’ll also have to decide how to enclose your boundaries and where to put your paths. If your pencil skills are like mine – only fit for French caves – don’t feel you have to draw everything. Keep it in your head. For once it may be better in than out.
Hopefully as you read this book, you’ll get an idea of what sort of plants you might want to put in your garden. If you’re like my mum you’ve probably already overstocked it in your imagination to Kew Garden proportions. Remember to leave room for all the other things you need: paths, seating areas, hot tubs. The last one is optional, obviously, but unless you’re in possession of a Harry Potter broomstick you’ll need the first two. A balance has to be struck between plants and infrastructure. And if you’re starting with a clean sheet you need to plan both at the same time.
Pulling shapes: landscaping and other materials
Most of the hard landscaping materials in my garden were chosen by the previous owner. Luckily he landscaped the garden sensitively, creating terraces using walls made of slate, largely reclaimed from the part of the house he took down to make room for an extension. It must have been a huge job – one that I’m very glad I didn’t have to do. I can live with my hard landscaping, and I don’t intend to change it or add to it. If you’re starting from scratch or want a change, however, you’ll need some eco-options for paths, walls, fences, seating areas and any other random garden features like trellis, arbours, and so on. Perhaps, more than anything else in your garden, it is important to get your landscaping features right. If chosen badly they can make a big impact on your garden and the environment.
Soft landscaping vs. hard landscaping
It is possible to garden entirely with so-called soft landscapes. Soft landscapes are created using living materials and include lawns and grass paths, hedges made using trees, shrubs and other plants, as well as arbours and other living structures made out of trees such as willow. If it is managed sensitively, soft landscaping is mostly more environmentally benign than hard landscaping. Hedges need to be trimmed responsibly and regularly – preferably using power-free tools or power tools that use renewable energy – and can produce a number of useful by-products, such as fruit, poles for staking peas and beans, decorative material, and so on. Lawns and grass paths are lovely to walk on and fairly low maintenance, but be careful how you cut them. A study funded by the Swedish Environment Protection Agency found that using a four-horsepower lawn mower for an hour caused the same amount of pollution as driving a car 150 kilometres. In preference use an electric mower or, even better, a non-powered mower.
Hard landscaping is made from quarried materials or cut from timber and includes decking, walls, fencing and hard paths. Common materials include stone, cut timber, concrete, brick, plastic, metal and glass. Wood is the most environmentally benign material if it is cut from responsibly managed woodland (see information on FSC approval, pages 26–27) or, even better, if it is reclaimed waste wood. Avoid MDF (medium-density fibreboard). It is made using wood and a bonding agent called urea-formaldehyde, a dangerous material described by some as the ‘asbestos of the 90s’. In preference use untreated wood.
Quarried stone usually comes in its raw unprocessed form. Quarrying is hugely destructive of local environments so look for reclaimed materials if you can. If you can’t, use materials that are local and traditional to your area. Unprocessed materials are generally better for the environment because processing usually involves the use of more energy. A prime example is cement, a major component of concrete. Cement has to be burned at 1500°C (worldwide the cement industry creates 10 per cent of all CO2 emissions).
The range of reprocessed materials available to the gardener has increased over the past few years: look out for paving materials made out of reclaimed brick, chipped slate, recycled glass and reclaimed aggregates. A lot of energy is needed to produce glass, and likewise plastic, but both materials are used extensively by the gardener to capture heat and speed up the growth rates of plants. Old windows can be recycled into cloches and although polytunnel plastic wears out after a few years it can then be turned into mini cloches or laid on the soil to heat it up in early spring. Plastic is used extensively to make water butts, watering cans, compost bins, raised beds and other common garden objects. Look for products that are 100 per cent recycled.
Fencing, hedges and walls
Possibly the first thing you need to do in a garden, if it hasn’t been done already, is to fence, wall or hedge it off. A barrier between you and the rest of the world helps to keep out four-legged pests like rabbits, deer and sheep (although will rarely deter foxes and cats); gives shelter and privacy to a garden; and helps to screen out ugly noise and views. Fences and hedges also offer protection from wind, but a solid fence that stops the wind dead is less stable than one that slows the wind speed down. Fencing can cast shade on a garden so you need to strike a balance and plan your materials carefully.
Fencing options
If you’re buying a standard cut-wood fence, the sort of thing found in most garden centres, look for the FSC symbol, as before. A company called Forest Garden supply a huge range of DIY shops and garden centres with a massive range of wood products for the garden, including fencing, gates, sheds, storage boxes, trellis, and so on, using wood cut from FSC-approved UK forests owned by the Forestry Commission. Hurdles are a nice alternative to wire fencing and the more conventional garden fencing in most DIY stores and garden centres. They are made from untreated coppiced wood and can be bought or made at home using the same skills as for rustic furniture-making. The best website I found on the subject was www.allotmentforestry.com. Not only does this have a whole set of wonderful free fact sheets explaining how to make gates, fences, tables, arches, bird tables, hurdles, plant supports and a laptop table, there is also a directory of craftspeople working with coppiced material in England. For more information on fencing, see page 79.
Hedges
NEVER PLANT LEYLAND CYPRESS! Sorry, had to get that out of my system. Leyland cypress (Cupressus leylandii) is a fast-growing conifer that needs to be trimmed to maintain a good hedge, and rarely is. You usually see hedges brown, dying and ugly because the owner panics as they grow and grow and grow…and cuts the top off. Or else you see them more than 6 metres high, from which height they shade everything in sight. See www.hedgeline.org for some truly awful hedges gone wrong and try to avoid doing the same in your garden. I’ve picked out some good hedging trees on page 81: check them out before buying.
Hedging takes a few years to establish and will not keep out pests until it is thick with growth (and even then rabbits may still get through). In the interim use a wire fence as a temporary shield. The height and type of wire fence required varies from pest to pest (see page 216), as does the lengths of the stakes used to support it. For the
Ethical choice: natural finishes
Gone are the days when everyone covered their fences with creosote or white paint as a matter of course. The average can of paint contains fungicides, heavy metals such as cadmium, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Titanium dioxide, used in most shades but particularly in ‘brilliant white’, is a possible carcinogen and can cause respiratory problems and skin irritation. Paints also give off VOCs (volatile organic compounds) when drying. VOCs are known to induce eye, nose and throat irritation, headaches and dizziness; some are suspected or known to cause cancer in humans. There is now a range of environmentally sound alternatives for waxing,