With January now wrapped up, we can just about cast our minds ahead to the fruitful, sunnier months unravelling new hope and ideas for our garden. With this guide to sustainable gardening trends for the year, we’ll discuss how eco-gardening can become your new invaluable skillset to restore some local nature and gain some envy from the neighbours.
Whether you’re a newbie in the garden or a seasoned veteran, the growing demand for eco-gardening has left us realising the power can quite literally be in our hands, not only to green up our outdoor space, but create a peaceful environment to destress and escape life’s daily demands to harmonise our mental wellbeing. The following five tips will trigger some ideas for your 2022 eco-gardening and invigorate some life back into your own personal ecosystem, all with minimum pull on the purse strings too.
1. Prioritise Organic
Fortunately, modern trends in gardening have come to realise the traditional usage of chemical fertilisers and compounds over previous decades has come with a price to pay for plant disease, damage to soil through increased acidity killing beneficial microbes, and the harmful greenhouses gases released into the atmosphere from the excess nitrogen used in crop fertilisation. More recently, the use of natural materials from local, sustainable and ethical sources has taken priority. Gone are the days of shipping commercially produced chemical fertilisers from all corners of the world, and here’s to the modern organic movement putting sustainability and holistic care first to foster your eco-gardening expertise.
Tom Massey, expert and leading designer from ‘Your Garden Made Perfect’, states, “organic principles include nurturing soil health, encouraging biodiversity, using resources such as water responsibly, and avoiding the use of chemicals.” Have a look at how you can use our Bokashi bin to convert food waste into usable organic compost from the comfort of your own kitchen, savings costs, waste, and chemicals in your soil.
At EvenGreener, we sell Bokashi bins in a twin pack. This allows you to continuously compost from the comfort of your own home, leaving one bin to ferment whilst you fill up the other. The twin pack includes a free 3-4 month supply of Bokashi bran to get you kickstarted too!
2. The Zero Waste Movement
We couldn’t not bring up zero waste, and rightly so. Upcycling and reusing are increasingly hot topics and are set to become more mainstream pillars of the gardening society, as consumers shift towards a more beneficial realisation of the wonders of reclaimed materials over buying new. This new year, we encourage you to express your creative side, whether it’s using food packing to start seeds or upcycling your castaway pots and containers to make quirky garden beds and planters. Just know, your originality is not only putting your admirable eco-gardening on a pedestal, but contributing to the broader necessity of minimising waste and strain on the recycling ability of materials in the fight against climate change.
While recent attention seems mainly cast around plastic waste, the importance of water waste is equally as prominent for not only saving costs on your water meter, but minimising environmental damage through forcing suppliers to meet demands via sourcing from groundwater, lakes, and other finite natural resources.
At EvenGreener, we stock exclusive supplies of water butts to enable you to recycle rainwater for your home and garden. Whether your demands call for large, wall-mounted, decorative, or space saving water butts, we can help you become part of the solution, not the problem. Shop the full range here.
3. Grow Your Own
Not a brand-new phenomenon, but the ‘grow your own’ movement is one to certainly be carried on through the coming year as more individuals are conscious of reducing their carbon footprint and honing a more organic and sustainable method to their growing. With a boom in home gardening last year resultant of the pandemic, the trend is expected to continue upon the warmer months as the sentiment of the word biophilia heightens – the human desire to interact with nature.
“Adopt the pace of nature. Her secret is patience.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
People are reaping the joys from achieving the ‘patch to plate’ cycle as vegetable and herb patches are taking a proud centre stage in contemporary gardens, intertwined as part of the whole garden ecosystem after previously being shunned away in corners. Personalisation is key, enabling you to mix and match your home grown veg stock to your likening, whether you’ve got room to accommodate for big, plump pumpkins and squashes, or having to squeeze in the more space conscious delicacies of runner beans and peas, the choice is yours.
4. Plant Trees and Hedges
Of course, this is space dependent, but if you are lucky enough to have room to plant your very own air-cleaning machine, why not? Trees are the perfect way to attract more wildlife into your ecosystem and trap and store carbon from the atmosphere. Considerations need to be made, and it’s important to pick the right tree in terms of size and space required, but native species are bound to deliver the greatest benefits as they are naturally more resistant to pests than non-natives. Hedges can be equally as beneficial to your garden environment and can be a fun and rewarding project if you’re looking to replace fences and walls – another great idea for improving air quality and nurturing more wildlife into your garden.
“Time spent amongst trees is never time wasted.” – Katrina Mayer
Here at EvenGreener, we planted 2,000 trees in November, one for every order as part of our commitment to the planet. This will offset roughly 42,000 miles of carbon emissions! Sustainable living is important for everybody to abide by as we strive towards a more carbon free future, so whether you’re planting trees, starting your own compost or running a tight ship with your water recycling methods at home, keep it up.
5. Blur the Lines
Blurring the lines between the house and garden can be your new expressive way to bring the indoors outdoors. We’ve learnt throughout the pandemic to make the home a happy place, nurturing our work, rest, learn and play. Integrating the in with the out can be your new mantra for creating the idyllic green oasis to laze around this year, as shifts in trends start to prioritise yoga and escaping to your personal rugged sanctuary to harmonise the human-nature connection and retreat from the (often) miseries of current affairs. Who knows what this year’s travel restrictions may be, so extending your home to enhance your outdoor living can be the next best thing after your dream holiday to the South of Italy. Keep enhancing your eco-gardening to attract the wildlife and nurture the exotic greenery you’d find in the Med!
Similarly, merging the out with the in has seen a rise in the number of houseplants decorating homes these past few years, as more people are spurred by the physical and mental health benefits that houseplants and the general connection to nature can offer. Research by NASA concludes indoor plants can reduce stress, control humidity, clean the air, and lower sound pollution.
So there’s our five eco-gardening trends for the year, all of which align with our climate positive company values in empowering a green and sustainable lifestyle, forever appreciating the wonders nature can bring us. Shop our exclusive range of water and waste saving products to harmonise with your thriving eco-garden to contribute towards a more fruitful and everlasting future for us all.