Terraces and rood gardens are a growing trend especially if you're living in a city like London where space is limited. Apparently if all the flat roofs in London were joined up, the space gained would be 24 times the size of Richmond Park! The good news is you don't have to live in a swish mansion flat to get a green roof either as it may be possibly to grow a lawn even on your pitched roof.
I have a confession...I'm an amateur twitcher! I never leave home without my binoculars, and my garden is fast turning into a wild bird sanctuary.
I've experimented with lots of different bird foods, but have come to the conclusion that my birds definitely prefer Bill Oddie's Bird Food Recipes range. They go crazy for the Garden Friendly Combo, a delicious mix of sunflower hearts, peanut granules, oatmeal, maize and maize oil..yum! As you would expect, Bill has created a large range of quality foods and feeders which are specifically designed to attract different types of birds, depending on the recipe. The quality of the feed is reflected in the price, with the smallest (1kg) bag costing about £3.25. I find the bigger the bag, the better the value, and Bill's 'Big Bag's' are £12.95 for 13kg. Proceeds from certain varieties goes to the Woodland Trust.
Available in garden centres or online at Haith's
Related: Popoutz recycled plastic bird feeders in glam colours | Nest Box Challenge - who's sleeping in your garden?
I don't like gyms. I really can't see the point of spending hundreds of pounds on a membership you probably won't use, and if you do, why would you want to be stuck indoors on a static bike or treadmill when you can go outside and enjoy the real thing? The BTCV (British Trust for Conservation Volunteers obviously agree and have created the 'Green gym' scheme which is a way of improving your health and the environment at the same time.
During a weekly three hour session you will undertake some form of gardening or environmental conservation work, under the close supervision of a trained leader. It's a great opportunity to get fit while helping out with local projects, such as building community gardens, renewing overgrown railway paths or tree planting, and unlike your local health club, this is totally free! The scheme runs nationwide and you can find details of how to join in here.
Related: Campaign to save Manor Garden allotments | The Organic Gardening Catalogue
Beekeeping has a reputation as a rural pastime, something you can only do if you have fields and woodland to play with. In fact, according to North London Beekeepers, urban bees can make more honey than their rural counterparts, thanks to the large variety of plants available in towns and cities - a London beekeeper can expect to collect an average honey crop of 70 plus lbs of honey, compared with about 30 lbs per hive in the country.
While the professionals do stress that you shouldn’t just rush into beekeeping it is an increasingly popular pastime, and there is plenty of help out there for those of you who are tempted by the thought of making your own honey.
Now, I know a lot of you will be apprehensive at the prospect of inviting stinging-type flying things into your garden, but hear me out. Bees do an awful lot of good, and the bumbling ones will only attack when provoked. So no poking them with sticks. And if it weren't for bees busily cross-pollinating, we wouldn't have beautiful gardens to enjoy.
Which is why you should think about getting a Pollinating Bee Log. The £15.95 logs can be hung from walls or trees, and provide safe shelter for bees and other insects.
Product page
Related posts: Bee's beer | Ladybird mansion
Since we read that people in the UK throw away one-third of the food we buy, everyone in my house has been trying to cut down on our food waste. We already feed scraps to pets, but it looks like to really cut down on our waste we'll need to start composting.
In my search for a suitable composter today I discovered Smart Soil, whose sealed, rotating compost bin allows you to add meat and fish scraps along with the usual vegetable matter from your kitchen and turn it into usable compost in around eight weeks.
Personally, I'm taken with their Sun Frost Scrap Eater (pictured), as it allows you to grow plants off the compost you're making in the middle - and it looks much nicer too. Now all I have to do is convince my housemates to help me pay for it...
Related posts: Making recycling sexy | World's cutest composter?
On the 2nd of April, a group of allotment holders in London will be officially evicted to make way for the Olympic development.
The land was given to its tenants 100 years ago be used for gardening in perpetuity, but the London Development Agency wants to demolish them and use the land for a footpath during the Olympics, moving the allotment holders elsewhere. The gardeners are happy to give up their allotments while the Olympics take place, but claim that the plots could easily be incorporated into the development and do not need to be destroyed. They continue to fight to preserve their allotments, and have set up a website documenting their campaign.
Carbon offsetting is one thing, but what if you want to know exactly where any trees you buy are, and get a reminder of your tree without lopping off any branches?
With TreeTwist, you can buy a tree for £20. The tree will be planted in the Caledonian forest in the North West Highlands of Scotland, and you receive a TreeTwist – a unique, handmade piece of jewellery you can wear as a reminder of your tree. If £20 is a bit of a stretch, a tenner will get you a TreeClip and a seedling. The company acknowledge that planting trees isn't the solution to climate change, but it is a step in the right direction.
Any orders received before 3pm are sent out the same day, so you still have time to buy your mum a TreeTwist before the weekend too.
Related posts: Tree shop, for the person who has everything | Plant some trees, get climate book cheaper
Want to prove your hippy credentials by hugging a tree? How about buying a wood of your own so that you have a choice of trees to hug?
While the advantages of carbon offsetting by planting trees continues to be debated in the press, Woods for All point out that by buying a share in an existing wood you can safeguard it against development, protecting existing biodiversity.
Related posts: Do carbon-offset schemes work? | Trees for life
Instead of leaving the basement idle, or worse, a catch-all for junk best either recycled, given away or (worst case) tossed, consider turning it into a year-round garden. With a Hydrogarden Grow Tent (for example) you can get a hydroponic garden up and running in surprisingly short time without having to know much - according to HydroHobby, anyhow. Growing it yourself would be the ultimate in local-local-local produce, and with hydroponics you know exactly what's going into the food (and therefore into your body). This particular setup costs £175 for a 1.2m version, or £345 for a 2m box. [GT]
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Show her you love her thiiiis big - but are still green at heart - with the world's tallest roses from Organic Bouquet. (Not that you can get them in time for Valentine's Day; they're sold out until early March.) Grown at high altitude in Ecuador, the roses are nearly two meters tall, with blooms spanning ten centimeters across. (They recommend you also spring for the galvanized steel vase-cum-bucket to keep them in, at an additional modest charge.) $250 USD for one dozen; $450 USD for two dozen. (At that price they'd better be fair trade!)
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Providing a biodegradable (and lower-cost) alternative to landscaping fabric or Rosin paper, Rhimax felt paper adds nutrients to the soil and reduces erosion. It's also made from recycled paper materials which you can buy in 100cm or 50cm roll width or custom sizes for large-scale projects. It can also be used for drop sheets in painting projects, ground protection in garages, etc.
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Scientists in Japan, working with colleagues in Michigan, have figured out a way to genetically suppress growth in plants, resulting in miniature versions. If the growth hormone gibberellin, controlled by genes GAMT1 and GAMT2, is reintroduced, the offspring come out normal. The result's been dubbed instant bonsai, with potential results ranging from real live pine trees to hang from your car mirror as a natural air freshener, to grapevines tiny enough to grow next to the sprouts on your kitchen worktop. While genetic engineering is involved, it's quite different to splicing fish DNA into tomatoes: gibberellin is absent in dwarf plants that exist in nature already. [GT]
Instant bonsai [in Japanese]
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Quebec City's 400th anniversary occurs in 2008, and part of the celebration involves six Contemporary Ephemeral Gardens. Each garden will be designed by a living artist, to be established in the heart of the festivities, and to live only so long as the celebration does, from June 10 to September 28, 2008. Each garden should address the three major themes of the festival:
Where the river narrows;[GT]
Your history, my history, our history ;
and Sowing the seeds of culture.
A Call For Creation Of Contemporary Ephemeral Gardens [via Land+Living]
Related stories: Iota garden decor | Joan Baez braves bulldozers for LA organic garden | Barnet Garden Project provides chemical-free veg and a hand up
For those who still like to curl up with a (recycled newsprint) catalog and individually select each seed, herb and compost option over a myriad damp and dreary winter afternoons, the Organic Gardening Catalog has everything from biological pest controls to pear trees for your brand new partridge. All purchases go to support Garden Organic's charity work promoting organic farming. (Yes, of course you can just order stuff online instead; what year did you think this was, 1977?) [GT]
Related stories: Rogueland heirloom seeds | Ready to Grow rare and unusual seeds | 400 organic seeds from Tamar
From: BEST OF 2008: Eco-friendy and sustainable shoes