Sustainable Garden Landscaping: 9 Ideas
As well as creating unique and inspiring outdoor spaces to match the garden of your dreams, landscape designers are starting to prioritise sustainable gardening and landscaping designs in order to help combat climate change and reduce our carbon footprint.
87% of British homes have a garden – which equals around 23 million outdoor spaces. Naturally, those outdoor spaces will account for a large amount of water use, especially in the drier months, which is where sustainable design comes into play.
As it makes use of recycled materials and fewer natural resources, sustainable gardening and garden landscaping can help you do your bit to protect the environment while still creating a visually stunning garden space.
Whatever the size of your garden project, you can still contribute efforts to making your yard a thriving, sustainable retreat. All you need is the right guidance.
Wondering where to start? Try some of the stylish, simple, and sustainable garden ideas covered in this guide to create a stunning garden landscape design that also serves as a safe haven for the natural world.
What are sustainable outdoor spaces?
Sustainable spaces attempt to safeguard the natural surroundings of development sites, including trees, grassland, hedgerows, and other significant ecological and scenic habitats.
These spaces can be found on a small or large scale, from the design of a small office garden or home garden to adopting sustainable landscape design over an entire housing development or large commercial garden space.
Sustainable spaces are created by being mindful of the resources we use. We can do this in a variety of ways, from using sustainable building materials to making sure that we minimise our water consumption and create habitats for wildlife.
We also need to be aware of potential pollutants and be careful not to introduce anything harmful to the natural environment – like pesticides or fertilisers. With a little thought and the right advice, you can create an outdoor space that is both beautiful and sustainable.
Why is sustainable landscaping important?
Sustainable landscaping allows us to effectively build sustainable outdoor spaces by embodying the three pillars of sustainable development—economic prosperity, social equality, and environmental preservation.
By meeting the objectives of these pillars (which include lowering carbon emissions, improving energy effectiveness, restoring habitats, safeguarding species, and developing peaceful surroundings) sustainable landscaping can help fight climate change and create green spaces that everyone in the community can enjoy.
Moreover, by reducing water use and using fewer chemicals on plants and lawns, sustainably-designed landscapes are friendlier to the environment, making them a smart choice for homeowners and landscapers looking to reduce their carbon footprint.
And, of course, they also look phenomenal!
Remember, you don’t have to sacrifice luxury to achieve sustainability. By simply starting with green landscaping in mind, you can make sure that your garden design is both stylish and eco-friendly – and that’s great for the environment as well as your own enjoyment of it.
9 ideas for a sustainable garden landscape
To help you make your backyard a little bit greener, we've collated 9 of the most simple and stylish sustainable gardening ideas below.
Permeable surfaces
Reducing rainwater runoff is one of the greenest things a garden can do. If you're working on a hardscaping project, think about using a permeable surface, and utilising the rainfall you collect in the garden.
It is becoming more popular to use landscaping techniques to create surfaces that let water seep into the ground so that it can be filtered and flow into drains and rivers more slowly. Permeable surfaces, from a design standpoint, provide a softer touch to hard surfaces while introducing the delightful crunch of gravel underfoot.
Install a water source
Any type of water feature, including fountains, birdbaths, and garden ponds, can draw wild animals for drinking and bathing. This is especially crucial in urban areas and suburban regions, where natural water supplies are all but nonexistent.
A rain harvesting station is a wonderful addition to your landscape design that can help you preserve water. Purchase a rain barrel that complements the design of your environment, or cover your rain barrel station with attractive rocks and plants.
So how does rainwater collection help to create a sustainable landscape? The main benefit of a rain barrel is that it encourages water conservation by catching and holding rainfall that falls from the sky. Later, you can use this rainwater to water your gardens and grass.
Solar powered landscape lighting
Why allow your new environmentally friendly landscape to go unnoticed as the sun sets at night? With the right placement, outdoor lighting will enhance your home's architecture and your landscape will appear completely different.
Consider installing solar-powered landscape lighting rather than connecting it to a power source. The lights use the energy from the sun's rays during the day to create electricity at night, which lowers your energy costs.
Native plant species
The use of regionally native plants, which are adapted to local soils and temperatures, ties your landscape to broader ecosystems, encourages wildlife, and reduces the need for additional water and fertiliser. Additionally, these garden plants can create stunning, lively gardens for users.
Native plants such as box (Buxus sempervirens), English yew (Taxus baccata), holly (Ilex aquifolium), hornbeam (Carpinus betulus), beech (Fagus sylvatica), Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris), and silver birch (Betula pendula) have unquestionably a place in UK gardens.
Pollinator friendly plants
Include some plants that are welcoming to birds, butterflies, and bees in your garden even if it doesn't totally consist of native species to encourage the local wildlife and beneficial insects such as bees, ladybirds and spiders. Plant pollinator-friendly flowers in groups or bands so they can be seen from a distance. This will make them easier to locate.
Peat free compost
Going peat-free is beneficial for the environment and the climate, and your plants will be happy too because there are so many top-notch, easily accessible peat-free composts on the market right now.
For the sake of the larger ecology as well as the sustainable plants they support, it is crucial to preserve our uncommon and priceless peat bogs. Draining them for peat extraction releases carbon dioxide, which contributes to climate change. They are significant carbon storage. Additionally, they can be essential in soaking up extra rain, which helps stop floods.
Use reclaimed materials
The use of recycled and recovered materials is an excellent method to add extra environmental landscaping ideas to your property for a more sustainable garden, as well as reducing landscape design costs.
Ask your tree surgeon to cut it into log portions, for instance, if you recently had one or more trees from your garden cut down. You could create a quirky stepping stone path that both children and adults will love.
With recycled bricks, you can build borders or trails. If you've recently created a new flowerbed or pond and removed some pebbles and stones in the process, why not use those materials to line your walks to give them a rustic edge?
Avoid using chemicals
By pledging to stop using pesticides, you can improve the health of your garden and the environment as a whole. The use of pesticides in the landscape affects not only damaging insects but beneficial insects as well, such as bees and butterflies that we rely on for pollination.
You can gain more holistic gardening experience by using organic methods. Even the most inexperienced gardeners can develop a lush and healthy vegetable patch with the help of a variety of incredible products that are currently available.
You must have a thorough awareness of your soil, the insects in your garden, and how each plant in your garden behaves in order to practise organic gardening and use natural pesticides. This isn't a chore for committed gardeners; in fact, for many, it serves as a major advantage.
Put your garden waste to good use
Garden biodiversity benefits greatly from composting, which attracts a variety of fungus and soil microorganisms as well as worms, woodlice, slugs, and other invertebrates that consume the decomposing waste. Birds, hedgehogs, toads, and other valuable species eat these in turn as food.
Composting material comes in two primary categories:
Green waste is typically soft, leafy debris like grass clippings, sappy green plants (such annual weeds), crop waste, rotting fruit and vegetables, and kitchen peelings. These substances contain a lot of nitrogen.
Brown: primarily dry woody waste, including pruning and hedge trimmings (shredded, chipped, or chopped up), as well as other dried materials like dead stems and straw, torn-up or shredded paper and cardboard, as well as other dried materials. These contain a lot of carbon.
A new compost bin can be started at any time of the year, but it's best to start when your garden is producing a lot of appropriate material, typically in the spring. Although an open heap will eventually compost, making compost in a bin is typically quicker, cleaner, and simpler. A successful bin should keep out rain, hold some heat, provide drainage, and allow air to enter.
Looking for sustainable landscaping and garden design?
Nilufer Danis is an multi-award winning garden designer and landscape architect with many contemporary, minimalist and sustainable garden designs across London and beyond.
We design luxury sustainable gardens to suit all different types of homes, including townhouses and larger, rural regions. We actively search out strategies to promote harmony between our gardens and the natural environment as part of our sustainable design philosophy.
Get in touch with us to talk through your garden design project and take a look at some of our past projects for inspiration!
Sustainable Garden FAQs
What is the concept of sustainable landscape design?
In order to minimise your negative environmental impact, sustainable design considers every part of the landscape and incorporates both attractive and useful natural characteristics.
Reusability is prioritised in truly sustainable designs. In order to make a physical product more sustainable, it may be made from recycled materials or in a facility that doesn't burn fossil fuels. The product ought to be functional for a very long period after it is produced.
What are the principles of sustainable landscape architecture?
The art of creating an outdoor area that complies with a set of guidelines that makes it a useful, prospering, and environmentally friendly yard is known as sustainable landscape design. Reducing waste, soil erosion, and water use are three key components of eco-friendly landscape design.