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Recent Posts
- How to Make Seed-filled Bombs That Bloom Into Flowers for Bees, Insects and Other Wildlife
- It’s Time For Gardeners to Break Their Silence on Climate Breakdown. What we Do in Our Gardens and Allotments Does Affect the World Around us
- Add Water, Add Life: How to Make a Simple DIY Wildlife-attracting Pond in Your Garden, Allotment, Greenhouse or Polytunnel Using Free and Found Materials
- Make Your Own Easy, Cost-free Biodiversity-Boosting ‘Insect Hotels’ For Your Garden or Allotment and Encourage Wild Solitary Bees and Pest-eating Wasps to Live and Nest There
- Here’s Some Real Gardening News: Peat-free Composts – Fertile Fibre and SylvaGrow – Bag Two Out of Three Which? Gardening Best Buy 2017 Awards for Container Growing
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- John Walker on Here’s Some Real Gardening News: Peat-free Composts – Fertile Fibre and SylvaGrow – Bag Two Out of Three Which? Gardening Best Buy 2017 Awards for Container Growing
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Category Archives: nature & the natural world
How Gardeners and a Top Compost-maker are Teaming up to Bring Professional-quality SylvaGrow Peat-free Compost Into More Garden Centres, Plant Nurseries, Shops and Other Horticultural Suppliers
Why didn’t we think of it sooner? The makers of SylvaGrow professional-quality peat-free compost – which has bagged no less than three Which? Gardening Best Buy awards, and carries the endorsement of the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) – have just … Continue reading
Posted in blog, climate- & earth-friendly gardening, ecological sustainability, environment, ethics, garden centres & gardening industry, garden compost, garden compost & composting, media, nature & the natural world, organic gardening, peat & peat-free compost, tv gardening & celebrities
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Modern Peat-free Composts March on: RHS-Endorsed SylvaGrow Bags a Which? Gardening Best Buy Gong for Container Gardening – for the Second Year in a Row
Just when you thought modern and reliable peat-free composts couldn’t get any better – and there are a clutch of good ones out there – SylvaGrow, a professional grade (as used by professionals…) peat-free, environmentally sustainable, all-purpose compost, has has just been awarded another … Continue reading
Inclusive, Persuasive and Gently Powerful – How the #Peatfree Hashtag is Changing Gardening and Horticulture for Good
One symbol, the hash sign (that’s one of these #) grafted onto the words ‘peat’ and ‘free’ (as in ‘#peatfree’) is giving all gardeners confidence in forgoing peat use – by slaying tired old myths about whether our garden plants … Continue reading
Is Gardening Really ‘Green’?
Exploring the reality behind gardening’s widely touted but increasingly unconvincing claim that ‘gardening is green!’ By John Walker. First published in The Garden, magazine of the Royal Horticultural Society, December 2015 Writing about gardening is a solitary game. But using the pen to place gardening … Continue reading
How to Succeed in Your Garden With Modern, Reliable and Nature-friendly Peat-free Sowing and Potting Compost
Gardeners have never had it so good when it comes to nature-friendly, peat-free composts for sowing seeds, potting up plants, filling pots and containers, or for simply improving our garden or allotment soil. By John Walker. Published in The Telegraph, 11th October 2014. … Continue reading
Potting Up Dandelions
If you cultivate an enlightened attitude to wild plants instead of trying to constantly eradicate them, your garden can share in their success. By John Walker. Published on the Hartley Botanic website, 13th August 2014. Put ‘kill dandelions’ into a search … Continue reading
Sustainable Sowing
Instead of giving any more time to the myths about sowing in peat-free composts, put them to the test. You’ll find they do the job as well as peat – without the ecological price-tag. By John Walker. Published on the Hartley … Continue reading
Posted in carbon emissions, carbon footprint, climate- & earth-friendly gardening, eco gardening, ecological sustainability, environment, ethics, garden centres & gardening industry, garden compost, green gardening, greenwash, media, nature & the natural world, organic gardening, peat & peat-free compost, published articles, renewable gardening
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Added Values
The way we garden reveals a lot about our outlook on the world. It comes down to whether we feel gratitude to planet Earth – or think it owes us. By John Walker. Published on the Hartley Botanic website, 19th … Continue reading
Posted in allotments, climate- & earth-friendly gardening, eco gardening, environment, ethics, garden centres & gardening industry, garden compost & composting, green gardening, media, nature & the natural world, organic gardening, peat & peat-free compost, published articles, renewable gardening
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Snowball Effect
Some of the drivers behind the peat-free roll-out are surprising and not all are admirable – but that doesn’t detract from the benefits to the gardener and the natural world. By John Walker. Published on the Hartley Botanic website, 7th October 2013 There’s a … Continue reading
Posted in allotments, carbon footprint, climate change & global warming, climate- & earth-friendly gardening, eco gardening, environment, ethics, fossil fuels, garden centres & gardening industry, garden compost, green gardening, greenwash, media, nature & the natural world, organic gardening, peat & peat-free compost, published articles, renewable gardening
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Planet-friendly Pest Busting
Simple solutions guided and powered by nature lie at the heart of my eco-friendly approach to pest control. In this 4-page article republished courtesy of Grow It! magazine (July 2013), I explain how my lazy way of keeping plant pests in check is simple, … Continue reading
Posted in allotments, climate- & earth-friendly gardening, eco gardening, ecological footprints, ecological sustainability, environment, food & kitchen gardening, green gardening, nature & the natural world, organic gardening, pesticides in the garden, published articles, renewable gardening
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