Green your garden party
Planning an outdoor party for a crowd? Alice Harwood tells you how to entertain in your garden with a green twist
Depending on your mood gardens can be a retreat, workplace, larder or simply an outdoor dining room. When it comes to entertaining al fresco, there’s no single way to create an attractive social space.
From breakfast terraces to barbecue areas, there are lots of easy ways you can makeover your garden with the environment in mind.
Invest in eco-friendly garden accessories
Outdoor furniture in your garden is a quick and simple way to give your guests a warm welcome. Whether you have a sun terrace, extensive lawns or an overgrown 'jungle', a few chairs and a table can create an instant outdoor dining experience.
If you are buying wood, look for the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) logo. FSC certified forests are managed in a way that protects the environment and the lives of forest-dependent people.
It is also easy to marry modern tastes with eco-considerations. Check out these these bright blue recycled plastic benches from Marmax for example.
Sourcing second hand furniture would be an even greener alternative. And don't forget to check out your local Freecycle network to see if you can pick up any useful freebies to enhance your garden.
Get your grill on
Of course, the focal point of many gatherings in the garden is food and with the weather heating up barbecue season has officially begun. Even here, you can make choices that may help reduce your carbon footprint - just a few changes in your cooking style can make a difference.
Probably the single biggest consideration is how your barbecue is powered. Whether you opt for natural gas, propane, charcoal, or electricity
you're still consuming natural resources and releasing gases. But you can fire up and grill greener by choosing cleaner-burning propane or electric barbecue over charcoal, which gives off more health-harming carbon monoxide than other methods. If you do use charcoal look for UK brands from invasive tree species or harvested from sustainably managed forests.
Lighting the way
As evening falls, gentle lighting adds a magical touch to a garden. Over recent years, solar garden lights have become increasingly popular - while these are great as accents and markers, they often give out softer lights.
You might also want to consider the carbon footprint involved in manufacturing the lamps. If so, an interesting alternative to plastic and metal lights is soy wax candles. These are made from 100 per cent soybeans, which is a renewable and sustainable resource. Soy wax is non-toxic and the candles are completely natural and biodegradable.
The outdoor kitchen
If you are furnishing your patio with planters, why not use them to grow kitchen herbs? Grown from seed or plant, you can reduce your need for shop-bought herbs and avoid pesticides. Easy and useful ones to start with are basil, mint, thyme. You could also try growing chamomile, from which you can use the flowers to make a relaxing herbal tea.
Containers, tubs and planters
Instead of buying new, why not recycle old items as planters, or have fun charity shopping for quirky containers? Remember that tubs and planters dry out quickly and they will probably need daily watering in summer. For full eco-points, collect rain in a water butt, or use water from the washing up or bathtub.
A place to play
You can make that perennial favorite, the patio, a great place for entertaining outdoors, but obviously this is a much bigger task. It’s a worthwhile investment though - a patio is one of the most satisfying improvements you can make to your garden.
It is often the first change we make when planning major improvements to our gardens. No matter how large or small your plot, a patio or sun terrace will often make the most impact for the least effort.
From a simple wooden or slab deck to more elaborate designs, a patio gives definition and function to your garden, and will usually reduce the amount of time you need to spend making it look good.
Cement
Along with the other design decisions you make, choosing your materials and how you build it can make your garden more ecologically friendly. For example, paving with new concrete slabs made with standard Portland cement has a high carbon footprint. According to the Centre for Alternative Technology, the cement industry alone is responsible for 10 per cent of all global carbon dioxide emissions.
If you are using concrete, why not try second-hand or look for slabs made from a mix of recycled aggregates, or those which swap the traditional Portland cement for landfill salvage such as pulverised fuel ash.
Natural stone
Perhaps you prefer natural stone - when sourcing this, you may find that a lot of cheaper natural stone has been quarried overseas. Besides the emissions produced by importing long distance, there have also concerns raised over the working conditions of quarry workers in some developing world countries. To ensure you’re not supporting unethical business practices, look for a supplier which has signed up with the Ethical Trade Initiative or another accreditation body.
Alternatively, choose locally quarried stone. This reduces the carbon footprint in terms of transportation and you will be choosing a material that blends well with local scenery. From London clay bricks to Portland limestone, every area has its own native stone that looks good and performs well.
The way you build your patio will also have an ecological effect. Lay slabs on sand instead of concrete to allow rainfall to infiltrate through the gaps in the paving and reduce runoff, which contributes to flash flooding. It also makes the slabs easier to lift and reuse when a re-design is in order. Don’t worry about the patio not being secure using this method - many pavements in the busy streets of Amsterdam are laid in this way.
Solar energy collection
If you want to make a bigger investment, investigate installing a solar collection system as part of your patio. This is a system that will transfer and store heat energy from your deck. It can be used to heat a swimming pool or, for a really luxurious touch, use it to help heat a Finnish style hot tub.
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