Eco Gardening

How to attract them? Don't be too tidy in the garden, feed birds, try to find space for a small pond or water feature, and grow a wide range of plants in your garden. You can even buy ladybird houses, feeds and the actual ladybirds as well as bumblebee nest boxes and lacewing chambers. And the rewards are great for the gardener too. Birdsong, butterflies and the buzz of bees in the garden at the end of the day are an ideal way to de-stress.

The lawn

If you only have a small lawn, use a hand mower rather than a petrol-powered or electric one. Don't waste water on the lawn. It may go brown in the summer but will soon go green again in autumn. If you have a small town garden, do you need a lawn at all? A gravel garden planted with drought-resistant plants could be a more attractive (and certainly a 'greener') alternative.

Go organic

For more help, Garden Organic, the organic charity, is a mine of information on gardening organically and the RHS is also fantastically useful. Biological controls are available from the Organic Gardening Catalogue

Use sustainable or recycled materials

Try to find local or recycled materials for your hard landscaping. Use stone rubble-filled gabions to create retaining walls and local stone for paving rather than sandstone imported from India. Find out whether your furniture is made from a sustainable source of wood. Use solar lights or a few romantic candles and a brazier rather than a patio heater (recently labelled the 'eco enemy') to keep you warm.

Avoid using peat-based compost. Do your bit to help preserve the increasingly endangered peat bogs by using soil-based John Innes mixes or peat-free composts, or even your own homemade compost.

Other ways to get greener in the garden:

Select plants suited to your local conditions. If you're gardening on chalk, don't expect acid-loving plants like rhododendrons and camellias to flourish. If you're in an area with low rainfall, use drought-tolerant plants
• Reduce the amount of rubbish you send to landfill by making your own compost
• Reduce the amount of packaging and food miles you use by growing some of your own food