Green gardening is good for biodiversity

ecological garden and orchard

Let's reflect for a moment on what what is ecological gardening, organic growing and where does this fit into the grand scheme of things, as a new movement in organic gardening has been going on since the 1920s and it's really about remembering how our ancestors did it, back then where everything that was eaten was free of chemicals, fertilizers, pesticides and preservatives.

But to this day, how can we solve soil degradation through a garden or an organic vegetable garden? You cannot think of private gardens as wildlife refuges, but growing scientific evidence suggests that these habitats may host a great variety of species and act as stepping stones through landscapes that are dominated by human structures.

To increase the effectiveness of gardens as wildlife refuges, many researchers have promoted a management technique also known as "Ecological gardening" and "naturalistic gardening".

What is ecological gardening?

This method involves avoid pesticides and chemicals, the use of organic fertilizers instead of industrial fertilizers, providing habitat structures, such as ponds or piles of wood, which provide food, water and places where animals can take refuge.

It has been recently investigated that gardeners or garden people try to avoid the ecological management techniques because they do not like the resulting look or even because they are worried that their neighbors may frown upon seeing a messy lawn, this being the main problem we face when having a organic garden or vegetable garden, since it is not as colorful or as beautiful as if we fixed it in a normal way.

The researchers carried out their study in a set of 36 focal gardens distributed in the canton of Zurich, where they asked the owners of the gardens questions such as the frequency of cutting and weeding, the use of artificial fertilizers and pesticides and the presence / absence of beneficial 'features'such as ponds, nesting structures, piles of wood, etc.

They were also asked how they considered themselves ecological and if they were concerned about what others thought of the appearance of their garden or orchard.

ecological gardens

People do not know how to create an ecological garden

The result was quite curious, because only 9 of the 36 owners were concerned about not using chemicals and in protecting the environment, but something good came out of these results, as many people felt that green gardening was really easier and it took less time than conventional gardening, although they would have liked more information on this practice.

These people also indicated that they would not mind the presence of a "wild" garden in their neighborhood, these results being encouraging, given that the scientists found significantly more species of wild life in gardens that scored higher in the ecological management index and in the presence of beneficial characteristics.

People who saw photographs of ecological gardens had a fairly positive response about their aesthetics, since there is a significant positive relationship between the degree of ecological management and appreciation in general aesthetics and the gardens that received the highest scores were described as “rich in species and natural color” gardens.

Maintaining an ecological garden

Friendly beneficial insects for your garden

Although there are a lot of insects, such as aphids, that can be harmful to plants, there are also very beneficial insects that can help reduce the population of harmful insects, such as ladybugs and ground beetles, since they feed on aphids such as the black fly.

So if you have an aphid infestation in your garden or vegetable garden, consider plant sunflowers and marigolds to attract these beneficial insects to our garden.

Birds to kill caterpillars and other pests

As for snails, slugs, caterpillars, worms, and other pests that can destroy your garden, birds can serve as exceptional and natural protectors. So you can install bird feeders and nests to encourage the birds to stay in your garden, in this way we will also be eliminating the need for synthetic insecticides, fungicides and herbicides that are toxic to the environment.


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