How to make your Garden Eco-Friendly
In our nowadays society, almost everyone talks about how important it is to save our planet.
However, most people just talk and don’t actually do it!
Make sure you take action in order to protect our environment by making your garden more eco-friendly.
In this article, several tips and tricks on how you can make your garden greener are given.
20 simple ways to make your garden more eco-friendly
- Use biodegradable flower pots
- Environmentally-friendly umbrellas
- Lawnmower powered by solar energy
- Environmentally-friendly barbecue
- Furniture from recycled materials
- Home wind turbines
- Create a composting zone
- Grow your own vegetables and fruits
- Grow native plants
- Let it grow
- Plant trees
- Provide shelter for animals for the winter
- Use natural fertilizer
- Avoid chemical pesticides
- Create a natural swimming pond
- Use rainwater
- Reuse and recycle
- Use local materials
- Save water
- Think long-term
Use biodegradable flower pots
One way for more eco-friendly gardening is to use biodegradable flower pots instead of conventional ones that are often made out of synthetic materials.
Plastic waste is one of our biggest environmental problems, which we have to fight at all costs.
Conventional pots contribute to the production of plastic waste since once they are damaged, they have to be disposed of into the trash and are usually quite hard to recycle.
Contrary to that, compostable flower pots are mainly made out of natural materials, meaning that they can be decomposed quite quickly and do not contribute to the plastic pollution issue at all.
Thus, when it comes to buying new flower pots, make sure to buy biodegradable ones instead of conventional pots in order to improve your ecological footprint.
If you don’t want to buy your pots, you can even make those biodegradable pots by yourself.
Just go out in the woods and collect natural materials like wood and manufacture your own pot.
You will be surprised how much fun this could actually be!
Environmentally-friendly umbrellas
Most of the umbrellas we use are still made out of synthetic materials.
In order to reduce plastic waste, it is crucial that we as a society change that in the future.
The easiest way to change it is to simply avoid buying plastic umbrellas and instead to support companies that produce eco-friendly umbrellas instead.
By doing so, the pressure on other umbrella companies to go greener can be increased, which may force those companies to change their mind and to also produce eco-friendly umbrellas over the long run.
Lawnmower powered by solar energy
In order to further improve your ecological footprint, instead of using conventional mowers, try to use lawnmowers which are powered by solar energy.
By doing so, you could save plenty of energy and also money in the long run.
Moreover, those solar-powered movers are often less noisy compared to normal ones.
Making things even better, there are even autonomous solar mowers out there, meaning that you don’t even have to mow your lawn yourself but can relax and let the machine work for you by saving energy at the same time.
Wouldn’t that be great?!
Environmentally-friendly barbecue
We all love barbecues.
However, many people still use coal for their barbecue, which is quite bad for our environment since it implies the emission of harmful gases into the atmosphere.
Coal is also a fossil resource that may be depleted in the near future.
Thus, it is crucial that we look out for more environmentally-friendly alternatives.
A good but yet exotic alternative to conventional grills would be a solar cooker.
Although it is not actually a grill, you can cook meals solely with the energy of the sun without using any fossil fuels.
How cool would that be?!
Furniture from recycled materials
You should also make sure that all furniture you use in your garden is made of natural or even from recycled materials in order to improve your ecological footprint.
This includes garden chairs, tables and several other things.
If you want to buy furniture from recycled materials, make sure to buy furniture from natural and sustainable materials like bamboo.
Bamboo is a great material since it grows quite fast, is fully natural and also quite durable.
Perfect for your garden furniture I would say!
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Home wind turbines
An exotic but yet efficient way to produce additional energy would be the use of a home wind turbine.
Especially in windy regions, these wind turbines can produce significant amounts of energy, which can be used in several parts of your house or also for your garden lighting system.
If you have enough space to install a home wind turbine, this could be an easy but yet effective way to improve your ecological footprint.
Create a composting zone
In order to use our natural resources in the most efficient manner, it would also be beneficial for you to use a compost bin.
You can dispose of all your natural plant waste in these compost bins.
After a while, these natural waste items will be fully decomposed by microorganisms and can be used as planting material and fertilizer in your garden.
Grow your own vegetables and fruits
A well-known but still not widely spread way to go greener in your garden is simply to plant your own fruits and vegetables.
By doing so, you can be sure to harvest fully organic food.
Moreover, if you buy your food in conventional grocery stores, this kind of food is often shipped over quite long distances, which implies the emission of significant amounts of greenhouse gases which in turn contribute to global warming.
By growing your own plants, you can avoid those adverse effects on our environment.
Growing your own veggies can also be quite a lot of fun, just try it, you will be surprised!
Grow native plants
To support our local insects like bees, make sure to also grow native plants in your garden.
By doing so, you contribute to sustain our natural local flora and protect our insects from endangerment or even extinction.
Just inform yourself about your local natural flora and grow plants according to that in your garden.
Let it grow
In general, you should try to let your garden grow in a natural way.
Too many people just make sure that their garden has a nice look, however, this nice look often comes at the expense of many insects and other garden animals that lose their natural living conditions.
Thus, instead of mowing your garden daily, give it a try and let it grow for a while.
If you don’t want to let your whole garden grow, you can also have a corner where you let it grow while you mow the rest of your garden at a regular schedule.
By doing so, you can give animals, plants and insects a habitat in your garden.
Plant trees
If your garden is big enough, you can also plant trees.
Since trees are natural carbon dioxide storage spaces and also improve air quality, you can improve your ecological footprint by planting as many trees as possible.
However, make sure that this is compliant with your local laws and restrictions in order not to get fined.
Provide shelter for animals for the winter
Many small animals, including hedgehogs, are searching for a shelter for the winter months where they can spend their hibernation.
Thus, instead of cleaning up your garden for the winter months, make sure to leave some leaves and other plant materials in your garden in order to provide hedgehogs a habitat for the cold winter months.
Use natural fertilizer
Conventional fertilizer has many downsides, as it often contains plenty of harmful chemicals, which in turn contribute to soil and water pollution and can also lead to ozone layer depletion.
Instead of using conventional chemicals, make sure to use natural fertilizers instead.
An easy but yet effective fertilizer is an extract of stinging nettles. Just mix stinging nettles and water for a few days.
The end product will be full of nitrogen compounds which are pretty good for the growths of plants.
However, make sure that you don’t let the mix sit for too long, since it will develop an unpleasant smell after a while.
Thus, it is quite easy to produce your own natural fertilizer and to also save money at the same time.
Avoid chemical pesticides
You should also avoid using chemical pesticides.
Instead of using these pesticides, you can grow some plants that are known to protect other plants in a natural manner.
For instance, Chrysanthemum is known to contain ingredients that can serve as natural pesticides.
There are several other plants that have similar properties.
You can ask your local flower dealer for more information on this topic.
In addition, you could also use our stinging nettles extract and spray it on the leaves of your plants.
This extract will also protect your plants to a certain extent since many pests don’t like the smell of stinging nettles.
Create a natural swimming pond
Natural swimming ponds are a great way to combine fun from swimming with a contribution to protect our natural flora and fauna.
Natural swimming ponds are often made out of natural materials and many local plants are used for decoration purposes.
Thus, you can find inner peace and relax in your garden while at the same time, you give some small animals a habitat.
However, keep in mind that installing a natural swimming pond can be quite a lot of work and can also be quite costly.
Therefore, make sure that it is worth your time or effort before you start to create one.
Use rainwater
Instead of using tap water for your garden, try to collect rainwater.
Not only can you save water that will become a quite precious resource in the future due to global warming, rainwater is often also much better for your plants since it is more natural and often also contains more beneficial minerals that plants can use.
Reuse and recycle
The principle of reusing and recycling should be applied to all things in your garden.
If you have old things you don’t use anymore, ask your family or friends if they want to use them instead.
If no one wants to use your old stuff, at least make sure that you separate your waste properly so that it can be recycled in an efficient manner.
Use local materials
Everyone talks about saving our environment, however, many people still order products that have been manufactured in remote parts of our world.
However, this implies a significant level of greenhouse gas emissions which in turn contributes to global warming since those goods have to be shipped over quite long distances.
Instead of buying those goods, try to rely on natural local materials and woods in order to improve your eco-footprint even further.
Save water
Since our tap water is quite cheap, people often do not care about it too much.
However, water is a quite precious resource and is vital for all life on our planet.
In the future, water will become even more precious and also scarce due to global warming.
Millions of people will lose their livelihood due to water shortages in hot and dry regions.
Thus, it is crucial that you save water in your garden whenever possible.
Think long-term
Whatever you do, also thing in the long run.
This is especially true when it comes to buying decisions.
You should ask yourself what the long-term benefits and costs of the respective item is and if it makes sense to buy it from an ecological and also from a financial standpoint.
By doing so, you can avoid buying things you actually do not need.
Conclusion
There are many different ways of how you can make your garden greener.
Many of them are quite easy, while some of them take a little bit more effort.
However, always keep in mind how big our responsibility for saving our planet really is.
Do you really want to be a part of the generation that finally destroyed our planet and the future for the next generations?
I don’t think so!
Therefore, we all should have a big incentive to save our planet and take action to make our garden eco-friendlier.
About the author
My name is Andreas and my mission is to educate people of all ages about our environmental problems and how everyone can make a contribution to mitigate these issues.
As I went to university and got my Master’s degree in Economics, I did plenty of research in the field of Development Economics.
After finishing university, I traveled around the world. From this time on, I wanted to make a contribution to ensure a livable future for the next generations in every part of our beautiful planet.
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