Spending time gardening or enjoying others’ gardens opens our eyes to the environment around us and the realities of climate change. But can individuals make a difference by gardening more sustainably, when the problems (and solutions) seem so huge?
In the second series of Growing Greener, Arit delves deeper into key subjects including rewilding, peat-free gardening, making your own compost, and the rich range of habitats created by poor soils, ex-industrial areas, and derelict buildings.
She also speaks to experts challenging claims that some areas of horticulture (e.g. lawns and cut flowers) can never be environmentally sound. You can have green swards and wedding bouquets, they argue, that do not cost the earth. Full of surprising stories and practical tips, this series will inspire everyone to grow greener.
Host Arit Anderson, garden designer and BBC Gardeners’ World programme presenter, is insatiably curious about exploring ways to garden whilst also protecting and preserving our environment.
Listen to Growing Greener – series one
Listen to the trailer for series two.
More advice for growing sustainably:
- Gardening in a changing climate
- How to save water in the garden
- Gardening with less plastic
- How to reduce your carbon footprint in the garden
Episode one – Great Dixter: A Sustainability Success Story, with Fergus Garret
Fergus Garret, Head Gardener of Great Dixter, launches the series with a discussion of how you can garden for good, how you can use both environmentally sound gardening techniques and have a stunning garden. You don’t have to choose one or the other.
The Dixter team have created a beautiful oasis of biodiversity with a low carbon footprint. Great Dixter is a garden that not only respects the nature that surrounds it, but, in an unexpected reversal, actually preserves and replenishes plants and insects that have died out in the natural areas of Sussex that surround it.
