The environment is rightly so on everyone’s minds, if you have a garden, you might be brave enough to let natural regeneration take over and leave it alone! However, if you’re like us we like to potter about in the garden, grow veg and fruit, and use the garden for children to play or drink that glass of wine amongst the flowers as the sun goes down. We’re here to help you garden sustainably with our garden range! By making some simple swaps you can create an eco-garden.

Peat-free compost

Our first (and to me the most exciting) eco garden swap is from compost to our peat-free wool compost! The usual compost we buy in our garden centres contains peat, which was once seen as a cheap and plentiful material. However, peat harvesting releases huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, the committee on climate change estimate 39 tonnes of CO2 have been released from every hectare of lowland peat which has been drained and fertilized every year. We can not hit net zero whilst peatland is still being drained and extracted.

We have tried, tested, and love our alternative – wool compost!

Not only is it 100% peat-free and organic but it also packs a punch when it comes to nutrients due to the added comfrey, wool, and bracken. The wool aspect is not only locally produced in Cumbria but an excellent natural resource that otherwise would have gone to waste. Wool is a brilliant material to use in your garden as it helps water retention of the soil through its hygroscopic properties, it also slowly releases nitrogen which is important for plant growth.

Just like compost, it’s easy to use, just water the plants and leave your garden to bloom. There’s no need for any extra feed or lots of extra watering.

Mulch mat

Swap the labour-intensive de-weeding process of pulling out of every weed or spraying them with chemical weed killers for mulch mats.

The simple solution to protect your plants in an environmentally friendly way is to slot our jute mats around the chosen plant you want to protect, this will keep the weeds at bay allowing your plant to grow.

Mulch mats not only create a natural barrier from weeds but also help your plant grow by reducing water evaporation, reducing temperature fluctuations of the soil and roots, deterring slugs and snails, and providing nutrients to the plants as they compost down!

Mulch mats are an eco garden must-have. Made from recycled jute coffee sacks these mats are reducing waste and are biodegradable!

But what about on paved areas when mulching isn’t an option? Well, there is an even simpler solution. Your kettle! Boil your kettle, pour it over the weeds that are popping up in your paved area and they’ll die off. Simple as that!

Garden Fleece

Most traditional garden fleece products are made using polypropylene which isn’t a sustainable material or recyclable. Swap this for our Sheep Wool Garden fleece which is 100% wool: a natural biodegradable material!

On top of it being incredibly easy to use in the garden, fleece protects your plants against frost, and protects against pests. 

Garden Felt

Our garden felt is thicker than the garden fleece and an excellent source of nutrients to fuel your soil aiding plant growth. Customers often use our garden felt for no-dig beds, capillary matting when growing seedlings or add it to the bottom of plant pots instead of gravel, to hold water and provide nutrients! By now most of us have heard of this new idea of no-dig gardening, a new eco garden must.

To create a new bed, simply lay our Garden Felt onto your bed (or on an area of grass or weeds if you are wanting to start a new bed)

Add a good thick layer of our wool compost over the felt. It is as easy as that.

Add then start planting!

Charles Dowding uses our garden felt to create his no-dig beds, you can watch his video here!

Felt shillies

To protect your hard work from slug’s swap chemicals in the garden with our wool shillies!

The key to success when it comes to slugs is prevention rather than a cure. And by that, we don’t mean a load of pesticides or slug pellets that can be dangerous to other garden wildlife. There are simple, natural, and still, chemical-free gardening methods that can stop those pesky munchers from getting to your plants.

The main way is using wool. Slugs and snails HATE the texture as the coarse fibres are very uncomfortable for them to slither over. Using something ‘woolly’ in texture, such as our biodegradable felt shillies. They can be piled around delicate plants, in need of extra protection, or spread across the soil of flower or veg beds. The bonus of using wool is that as it is full of naturally occurring nitrogen, potassium and phosphate will help with strong, healthy plant growth as it composts down.

Our wool shillies are great as they can be added anywhere and everywhere! These pellet-like shillies allow you to mould them to any angle, landscape, and position of a plant. Pop them in your hanging basket, on the allotment, flower beds, window baskets, pots, the lot!

Deterrents

Resist the urge to use the bottle of round-up stashed away somewhere to keep the bugs and birds away. These synthetic products pose a serious threat to the environment and can get into the food chain.

When in dire need use our range of deterrents, which do exactly as the labels say they deter the bugs and birds from eating your plants with a natural and environmentally-friendly spray that makes the plant taste bitter, making the grazers leave it alone. Once sprayed it can last up to 6 weeks, the solution also enhances growth and strengthens the plant!

This deterrent doesn’t kill the pests, just puts them off eating the plants, keeping your garden bugs safe.

We’re not against bugs, we understand the crucial work they do in our eco garden to encourage biodiversity, maintain soil health, and are a part of the food chain. Alternatively, try companion planting or integrated pest management for the garden.