Please note:

The Go Wild Festival ran at Kew and Wakehurst place for the summer of 2003. As such many of the festival features can no longer be seen in the gardens, but this website has been kept to give visitors access to wealth of information developed to support the festival.

Don't forget to check out the latest events in the gardens. Find out more......

Greener gardening at home

Gardening for wildlife

Cultivation activities not only affect the garden itself and its immediate surroundings but they can also have an impact on the environment and wildlife much further away. Careful choice of activities and materials can reduce this impact.

Avoiding harmful chemicals

Pesticides, weedkillers and fertilisers may contain chemicals that are poisonous to wildlife, damage the structure of the soil and pollute nearby water sources. Various horticultural techniques can reduce the need to apply chemicals.

• use home-made compost rather than liquid fertilisers

• hand weed or hoe regularly to prevent a build-up of weeds

• use mulches to reduce weed seed germination and improve soil fertility

• dilute solutions of washing-up liquid are effective against greenfly and blackfly but are harmless to the environment

• try trapping pests; for example, sink shallow containers filled with beer into the ground to attract slugs or use sticky traps, baited with attractant chemicals, to catch tortrix moths

• various plants will repel pests; nasturtiums and French marigolds deter whitefly and greenfly, basil repels ants

• barriers around plants may protect them against pests; a layer of sharp grit will deter slugs, whilst a collar placed around cabbage stems at ground level stops cabbage root fly

•encourage or introduce the natural enemies of garden pests

What is biodiversity?
What is a native plant?
Links