UK Ecology

Articles posted in 2007.

When deciding on the type of garden paving or flagstones to be used in a British garden why not cut down on your CO2 footprint by choosing a native British stone. Amongst the wide range of natural stones available, BGS likes Welsh slate or local sandstone flagstones such as Corncockle Red.

A nationwide survey has revealed that approximately nine out of ten Britons will spend over £10,000 on maintaining a garden in their lifetime, equating to some £200 every year.

The highest spend on gardening equipment was on lawnmowers with almost all respondents saying they had purchased at least one type of lawnmower, be it cylinder or powered, in the last ten years. Maybe those rumours of a Lawnmower Simulator video game are true!

A good ecological use of your lawnmower is to let leaves stay where they fall during the autumn, unless they are absolutely smothering your grass or any vulnerable plants, then mow the lot when you have a good amount and collect the cuttings. These cuttings provide an excellent compost material and help to speed up the rotting process in many cases.

A nice little article on making your garden shed a place to make a better garden was published by the Daily Telegraph website today. We particularly liked the sedum 'living roof' idea which can be supplied in carpet form for easy application.

"Dear British Garden Shed, I'd like to introduce you to a remarkable - and fully-patented - new, British-designed and built gardening tool, the Grab-o-Saurus..." It would be our pleasure Mr. Renny. Readers, here is a pic of aforementioned Grab-o-Saurus;

The Grab-O-Saurus works on the same principle as eagles' claws, with opposing paddles on long handles. One handle has a row of stub-ended teeth which target the waste matter for collection as the sister paddle clamps it into position. It can easily be lifted and released wherever the user wishes, in one easy movement - without having to bend. It's made from lightweight, durable polypropylene, which is easy to wipe clean. Smarter Products are the distributors for online sales and the company is looking to sell for retail horticultural and gardening markets.

New research has shown that UK local authorities are having to reduce the size of individual allotments in order to shorten waiting lists and fulfil their legal commitments to maintain communal plots. While waiting lists to manage an allotment are rising (some councils now have a queue of over 10 years) land is getting scarcer, so the committees that run the sites are having to divide and conquer.

The traditional size of an allotment is 10 rods (approx. 300 sq yards or a plot 30ft by 100ft) which was supposedly enough land to feed a family of four for a year. Mind you, judging by my grandad's old plot and that of his fellow allotmenteers, most of that land was used to build a shed big enough to hold a table for playing cards or dominoes and a camp-bed for having a nice kip in. Now, however, the average size is coming down and many authorities are now offering a maximum of five rods to new plot-holders, whilst one committee in London has reduced its entry-level allotments to one-and-a-half rods.

The popularity of allotment gardening, an intrinsic part of the British way of life, is said to have grown in the last decade, driven by an ageing demographic and the focus on 'green' issues combined with concerns about the quality of our food. The trendy 'Organic' movement has publicised the the role of chemicals and pesticides in our food change and now many people are encouraged to grow-their-own. If you are not yet on the runner bean ladder and are looking for more info about how to start we can recommend www.allotments-uk.com as a good place to start. It has info on where to apply and how to start plus lots of good gardening tips and some interesting news groups.

But be prepared. Unless you put in a good 4-6 hours minimum a week for your five rods your carrots will be mangy and your sweet peas sour. And even worse, your fellow allotmenteers will diss you down the local.

In 1997 farmer George Shields from Derbyshire built a garden shed car.

Fancy some fur on your roof? The popularity of the Green Roof (also known as a Living Roof or alternatively a Sedum Roof) continues to grow (grow... a roof that grows... geddit??!! oh never mind) although UK penetration remains low compared to countries like Switzerland and Denmark. Our friends at ECL Ecologists, joint authors of a CIRIA research report Building Greener have joined forces with livingroofs.org and EPG Clear to set up the Green Roof Consultancy in order to provide practical advice on the design, installation and management of sedum roofs and living walls.

The advantages of green roofs are many: They are pleasant to look at and in some cases can provide additional amenity space for building users. You can reduce building heat loss and maintain a more constant core temperature, with the additional benefit of reducing energy use within that building. They can reduce stormwater run off, filter pollutants, heavy metals and CO2 out of the air and of course help to increase wildlife habitats in general.

The main negatives are related to the initial set-up costs (you need a stronger than normal roof to support the earth and plants - a living roof can weigh around 85kg per square metre when fully saturated) and maintenance (for example, finding and repairing a leak under 4-12 inches of soil and vegetation can be a right pain).

A sedum roof can be installed wherever the structure is strong enough to take the weight and the where the pitch of the roof does not exceed 30 degrees. As the technology becomes better understood and more suppliers become present in the market costs should fall, so we are hoping that this will become a more common feature of the British urban environment, and we will of course keep posting news on any further developments in this area.

Some research published this month by British Gas claims that garden patio heaters damage the environment more than a gas-guzzling 4x4. According to their figures, a commercial gas-fired patio heater can emit almost 4 tonnes of CO2 a year (compared to six tonnes of CO2 emitted by an average UK household) and that the average heater emits more CO2 in a year than a Range Rover.

“ We're working hard to help homeowners reduce their carbon footprint by cutting down on wasted energy. There has been a real step change in people's concerns about reducing their impact on the environment and it's worrying to see these efforts cancelled out by a sudden boom in patio heater sales. ” - Jon Kimber - British Gas Energy Efficiency Manager.

That boom in sales he's talking about has come from two sources, individual families who have been encouraged to make more use of their gardens by TV shows and other media, and pubs trying to retain customers affected by the 'Nu Labour' puritans smoking ban.

In response, garden centre chain Wyevale announced it was to stop selling patio heaters and Notcutts said they will: "sell through current stocks of Gas and Electric Patio heaters and not stock in the future".

Here comes a big shake up in the UK gardening products retail sector. Tesco PLC announced today that it had agreed to buy Dobbies Garden Centers PLC for £155.6 million pounds. Most interestingly for our humble website is Tesco's stated reason for this move:

“ (We see) the increasing popularity of gardening and a trend toward "green" products like solar panels and compost bins. ”

As our report on garden centres in the UK shows, Dobbies is a chain of 21 garden centres mostly based in Scotland with some branches in the North of England.

You can bet that Tesco will attempt to make Dobbies a nationwide brand and Wyevale, the current market leader by a long way in a fragmented market, must be pooing in its pants. The long awaited market consolidation starts now. Let the games begin.

An interesting new book on wildlife gardening has been released. No Nettles Required, written by Ken Thompson, the focus is on avoiding poisons and weedkillers and instead letting your yard go a little wild. Mr Thompson is a plant ecologist and lecturer at Sheffield University who studies wildlife in urban gardens. His gardening philosophy is based around a desire to let nature take its course as much as possible with minimum interference. A natural ecological balance.

“ Maintaining soil carbon is easy. Make as much compost as you can, grow lots of plants and go easy on the digging. ”

Important steps he recommends include: Dig a Pond - Ponds encourage hoverflies, craneflies (whose larvae eat aphids) and frogs. Always use a Compost Heap - it helps different kinds of beetles. Make a Log Pile - solitary bees often make homes in the crevices. Grow Buddleia - Good for butterflies. Leave Some Grass Long - which encourages bumble bees. Don't Tidy Up - rotting vegetation is necessary for the larvae of many species.

 Although we highly recommend the book there are some worrying aspects. One wonders, for instance, about the effects of hundreds of hungry caterpillars on your baby shoots and there's no talk about counter-measures against slugs. However, we do like the emphasis on natural growth and the eco-friendly solutions he does provide. So, the name again is 'No Nettles Required' and it's published by Eden project Books.

A terrific website covering all aspects of shedworking and extolling the benefits of the 2 minute commute to work can be found at Alex's Shedworking and Homeworking blog

“ The only daily-updated guide to the lifestyles of homeworkers in sheds, garden offices, spare bedrooms, dining room tables, attics, cellars, coffee houses, laps and lean-tos. ”

Updated daily, covering all aspects of sheds and shedworking, and written sharply and humourously, we cannot praise this site enough. Indeed, we're slightly nervous about linking to it because you may not come back and read us, so good is it. Nonetheless, credit where credit is due; a big hat-tip to Alex for his sterling work promoting the benefits of eco-friendly commuting (no petrol used when you walk to your shed of a morning) and the use of environmentally sound materials when constructing your workplace.

We have been alerted to English Heritage Buildings, an oak frame building company based down in East Sussex, that uses traditional oak framing techniques to build beautiful wooden buildings. Absolutely perfect if you're looking to build a gazebo, summer house or, of course a nice luxury shed! and want to use environmentally sound products.

As well as using a most eco-friendly material, there is also the bonus that these wooden structures are long-lasting - with several examples in the UK of existing oak framed buildings dating from the 15th and 16th centuries. The company uses green oak for main structures but weatherboarding, studwork and roof rafters can be either oak or softwood depending on individual requirements. Another nice characteristic of green oak is that as it dries, it moves and twists across its width which strengthens and adds charm to the building.

BGS is now enquiring into an extension or re-build of his own shed but first has to clear it with the better-half. We'll let her see the brochures first and then see what she thinks.

Whilst doing some research for a client we came across this nice definition of 'Phase One Habitat Survey', viz:

“ This survey identifies the habitats that are contained within or make up a site, and the key plant species for each of those habitat types. It will also provide target notes on important aspects of the site, for example, the presence of a rare plants or animals, or a special habitat feature such as an ancient hedgerows. A Phase 1 survey can be carried out at any time of year but it is best done in spring or summer, when the vegetation types that characterise a certain habitat are more readily identifiable. Some consultants carry out what are called extended Phase 1 surveys that provide more information, particularly on vegetation of a site, than a Phase 1 survey.”

It came from an interesting site called the Business and Biodiversity Resource Centre and we encourage you to check it out if this subject interests you. The BBRC is hosted by Earthwatch Institute (Europe) and is supported by the Environmental Action Fund of DEFRA, English Nature and members of Earthwatch's Corporate Environmental Responsibility Group (CERG).

The Daily Telegraph Gardening section has revealed the UK's finest sheds. Judges considered a wide range of criteria: inventiveness of form or construction, historical interest, sprightliness of decoration and so on. Environmental awareness was a factor, but the judges were said to be

“ ...on the lookout for something a bit more profound than a propellor on the roof: something that spoke of the sacred bond between the Englishman and his garden - a deep understanding of what Martin Heidegger (not an Englishman, admittedly, but a shed-owner none the less) would have called the 'shedliness' of the shed.”

Click here for the full article + pictures of the winners!!