Is your garden costing the Earth? Just a few changes could reduce your impact.

• Compost your garden, kitchen and paper waste to reduce pollution ('tip miles') and land use for waste disposal.
• Use fertilisers correctly - don't overdose as it's a waste of money and materials. Plants can only use so much, and the excess contaminates surface and underground water.
• Use the phone and Internet to track down items rather than drive wasted miles.
• Conserve valuable resources - reduce, re-use, recycle. De-clutter by selling locally or giving away (via Freecycle) unwanted but useful stuff.
• Avoid materials that come from diminishing resources and habitats such as peat bogs, natural forests. Ask where raw materials come from.
• Avoid materials taken from places valuable for habitat or scenery or both. Ask where they have come from.
• Avoid materials imported over long distances if locally sourced alternatives are available. Ask where they have come from.
• Consider the carbon footprint of your garden machinery - could you switch to hand tools, or re-design your garden to reduce the work done by machines? We replaced our grass lawn with a pond, bog garden, flower beds and a non-grass lawn that requires no mowing. We also grubbed out our privet hedge that required trimming every few weeks, and replaced it with holly that only requires annual pruning. So now we can face using hand shears.