Gardening for Biodiversity at Home

Scotland's gardens cover thousands of hectares, so you can make an invaluable contribution to our beautiful country's biodiversity by gardening with wildlife in mind. Together gardeners across Scotland can make a real impact, for everyone's benefit.

The related links will take you to a large number of sites that offer all the information you could need to make your garden a haven for you and for wildlife. As a taster, here are the answers to some frequently asked questions (FAQs) about bringing more biodiversity into your garden.

Do all the plants in my garden have to be native species to help improve biodiversity?

No. Having a mix of trees, shrubs, grassy areas, ponds etc can be more important than only growing native species. Many insects, birds and other animals will be able to feed and find shelter in a garden which has many non-native species. However, if you try to include some native species, and avoid hybrid flowers which have no pollen, you will increase your garden's biodiversity even more. For example, some butterfly species are very choosy about where they lay their eggs - so if you allow some nettles into your garden, you may get peacock butterflies breeding, as well as feeding, in your patch.

What is so bad about using peat?

Peat bogs in Scotland are one of the few ancient landscapes that still look almost exactly as they did thousands of years ago. They are a bridge with our past. Without bogs we would lose astonishing plants like sundews, sphagnum mosses and cotton grass, insects like marsh fritillary butterflies, and spectacular birds like short-eared owls and hen harriers. Bogs are also important carbon sinks, where carbon is stored as peat, preventing it escaping into the atmosphere, where it would increase climate change.

We have lost over 80% of our active raised bogs in Scotland. Peat extraction will reduce this even more. Amateur gardeners use around 70% of all peat used in horticulture. To extract the peat, the bog is drained and the surface stripped of vegetation. All the plants and animals that depend on that habitat are thus destroyed. Once the bog has been mined for peat it will never recover, and another valuable habitat is lost forever.

For further information see:

• Peatland Campaign 
• Gardening Without Peat
• Alternatives to Peat Compost 

I have tried peat-free composts but they just don't perform as well as peat. What do you suggest?

Peat-free composts are getting better all the time. Many well-known professional gardeners, such as Monty Don, Alan Titchmarsh and Joe Swift, refuse to use peat products in their own gardens. Asked about his attitude to peat, Joe Swift said: 'There are some gardeners who swear by peat and say that other growing mediums simply can't compete. I'm not as concerned about individual plant performance as I am about the environment. It boils down to a question of priorities.'

Commercially produced peat-free composts need slightly different treatment to peat, and some gardeners have had negative experiences because they have not realised this. It's important that the medium is not allowed to dry out, as it is sometimes hard to re-wet. It can also be beneficial to mix home-made compost with the peat-free medium, as this helps to keep it moist, and provides vital nutrients for the plants.

I don't have room for a compost bin, as I live in a flat. What are the alternatives?

Try a wormery. Some are incredibly small, and will fit into a tiny corner of your kitchen. They will provide you with great compost for window boxes or balcony planters, and can also provide liquid food for watering plants. WRAP  will be able to give more detailed information.

I have a compost bin provided by the Council, but it doesn't seem to be working very well. What should I do?

Plastic compost bins have the advantage of being neat and easy to install, but they can make it difficult to get enough air into the compost. They can also get too wet or too dry more easily. There are a plethora of leaflets about what mixes of 'green' and 'brown' ingredients to put in to get your compost working well. As a rule of thumb, if it looks wet and slimy put in more 'brown' ingredients, if it looks flaky and dry leave the lid off to allow the rain in and add more 'green ingredients such as grass cuttings or kitchen peelings. Try to give the compost a good stir to get the air into it as often as possible, and be patient - it may take longer to happen, but eventually you will have beautiful, friable compost to use on your garden. WRAP  will be able to give more detailed information.

Can I collect native species of plants from the wild?

The Wildlife and Countryside Act protects wild plants that could be threatened by removal from the wild. It is illegal to uproot any wild plant without permission of the landowner or occupier. In addition, there is an extensive list of endangered species that are protected against intentional picking, uprooting or destruction, unless under licence from SNH (in Scotland). This list contains plants such as bluebell, wild orchids, and yellow rattle. The best rule of thumb is to avoid picking any wild flowers. It is also illegal to pick, uproot or remove plants from nature reserves, MoD property, National Trust or National Trust for Scotland property, or Sites of Special Scientific Interest without a licence from SNH.

There are a good number of plant nurseries in Scotland that specialise in wild plants, many of them doing mail order (see our Gardening Resources page). These are a much better source of wildflowers.