“Plastic-free Gardening” by Fiona Thackeray – The perfect Christmas Gift for green gardeners
Tackling the use of plastics in gardens is a thorny issue but now a new book plots a path through the confusion, highlighting progress, revealing where problems lie and giving gardeners guidance and a wealth of practical ideas on how to reduce reliance on un-recyclable materials.
‘Plastic-free Gardening’ is the first ever guide of its kind, showing gardeners a way to cut back on plastics.
Written by Fiona Thackeray, Head of Operations with Trellis, Scotland’s therapeutic gardening charity, it includes tips and techniques on how to reduce or eradicate plastics as well as giving lists of stockists and suppliers for containers and equipment made from alternative materials.
It also provides up-to-date information on which plastics can and can’t be recycled and how the gardening industry and local authorities, which handle kerb-side collections are responding to the challenge.
It’s a timely message for anyone who has ditched supermarket shopping bags and faithfully recycles drinks bottles and milk cartons, but who has been overwhelmed by the tide of containers, plant labels, tools and compost sacks that seem to be an inevitable part of gardening.
“These are changing times and progress is being made towards replacing and recycling the plastics involved in gardening, but there is no one, clear answer to the problem,” says Fiona. Plastics have invaded every corner of the garden, and it’s not just pots – from the linings of foil seed packets to outdoor clothing, packaging for plant foods and fertilisers and in crop-protection materials such as fleece, cloches and polytunnels – plastics proliferate.
So in order to find out what can be done to meet the problem head-on, Fiona talked with scientists and leading experts in the field about what’s being done to solve the issue and what new materials are coming on stream that will replace the plastics used in gardening.
“In writing the book I didn’t want to make gardeners feel guilty about their choices, but instead give them the best information possible on how they could find alternative ways of avoiding or reducing plastics,” says Fiona.
HOW TO BUY
Plastic-Free Gardening by Fiona Thackeray costs £11.99 plus p&p and all proceeds go to supporting the work of Trellis, the therapeutic gardening charity for Scotland.
Trellis supports therapeutic gardening groups, promotes gardening for wellbeing and helps people set up and develop programmes to share the powerful health benefits of gardening in hospitals, care homes, schools, prisons, hospices and community plots.
To order your copy visit: https://shop.trellisscotland.org.uk/index.php?route=product/category&path=59