The journey towards peat-free horticulture has been one of stops and starts. Hannah Gardner offers a snapshot of the current state of play

It has been almost four years since the British government announced that it would ban the sale of peat for use in the amateur gardening sector. Legislation to enact the ban is hoped for during 2026, with a complete ban to be implemented on all uses of peat in the horticulture sector anticipated by 2030. 

Joan Edwards, Director of Policy and Public Affairs at The Wildlife Trusts, says: ‘The ban on selling peat to amateur gardeners is absurdly overdue; it’s been mooted for over thirty years and promised since 2022. The dither and delay over its implementation puts Britain’s climate and nature targets at risk and has entirely avoidable consequences for emissions, wildlife and water quality.’ 

Peat extraction does come at a high environmental cost as it is non-renewable on human timescales; peat bogs take thousands of years to form but can be destroyed by extraction in a matter of weeks. That process also releases large amounts of stored carbon dioxide and destroys rare wetland habitats. 

Global view
Peat use is a relatively high-profile issue in Britain, where awareness is raised by large organisations such as The Wildlife Trusts, the Peat-free Partnership and the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS). Some within the horticultural industry are relatively proactive in promoting peat-free alternatives: the Peat-free Partnership, for instance, is a broad coalition of horticultural businesses and environmental non-governmental organisations that is working to bring an end to the commercial trade in peat across Britain. 

There is contention regarding a timescale for the implementation of bans, though, and it is important to be aware of what is happening on the international stage as imports into Britain from countries still using peat will be affected by British legislation.

Ireland, a major source of peat extraction, is transitioning more slowly than Britain. Canada and Northern Europe have large peat resources and, historically, have relied heavily on peat as a fuel resource and growing medium; usage is increasingly being scrutinised, however, and peat-free alternatives are being researched, developed, and adopted on a commercial scale. Meanwhile, The Netherlands, one of the world’s largest peat processors and exporters, is promoting sustainability certification schemes. 

Responsible sourcing
For designers and contractors, responsible sourcing is crucial to minimise environmental impacts. What information, then, is available to support this? The industry has had to innovate and find sustainable alternatives but the path to success is not without its challenges, as research such as that led by the RHS’s five-year initiative, the Transition to Peat-free Fellowship (co-funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs [Defra] and backed by a network of leading growers, growing media manufacturers, trade associations, and scientists) has shown. 

The Responsible Sourcing Scheme (RSS) for growing media is an industry-led initiative, developed by the Growing Media Association in collaboration with Defra and NGOs, to measure the sustainability of growing media and its ingredients. 

It encourages informed choice by rating products on their environmental impact and it works by using an A to E traffic-light scoring system (A being the most responsible). Every significant raw material in a product is evaluated across seven key sustainability factors: energy use, resource use efficiency, renewability, pollution, habitat and biodiversity, social compliance, and water use. 

The role of the RSS is to ensure that every component of growing media is evaluated against rigorous criteria and improved so that growing media mixes will have a lower impact on the planet. RSS membership provides independent proof of responsible practices and helps producers to stand out in the market and meet emerging regulations.

Many retailers, including the RHS, and growers have already voluntarily committed to being peat-free. Wholesale nursery Arvensis Perennials, a garden designers’ favourite based in Wiltshire, offers helpful insight to production. The nursery’s propagation and potting compost has been 100 per cent peat-free since Gussy and Rob Macdougall established the nursery in 2015. 

THE RSS FOR GROWING MEDIA IS AN INDUSTRY-LED INITIATIVE TO MEASURE THE SUSTAINABILITY OF GROWING MEDIA AND ITS INGREDIENTS.

From the outset, the pair made a commitment to never use peat in their compost mixes. ‘A very small proportion of certain young plants, notably some fern plugs sourced from specialist propagators,’ they clarify, ‘are currently raised in peat-based plug media before they reach us, but this represents a small minority of our overall output.’ 

For that reason, and recognising that the wider supply chain is still in transition, the Macdougalls describe their nursery as being peat-free in production. They currently use a bespoke peat-free mix supplied by ICL and based on heat-treated wood fibre (rather than composted fibre), alongside other organic components. The fibre resembles fine wood shavings and is derived largely as a co-product of commercial forestry operations, making it certainly less environmentally destructive than peat extraction. 

The quality of peat-free compost, meanwhile, has improved dramatically in the last 10 to 20 years. The principal challenge remains nutrient and water management – peat-free media can be less forgiving in terms of nutrient storage and release, so consistent feeding regimes are more important. Irrigation also requires closer attention.

Operating as responsibly as possible is fundamental to many producers, garden and landscape designers, and gardeners, and, one hopes, clients too. Focusing on sourcing plants that establish strongly in the landscape using the lowest amounts of inputs possible is an important first consideration.

Reverting to the formerly traditional practice of planting a range of hedges, trees, roses, and herbaceous plants seasonally, and using bare-root plants to do this, is likely to result in better establishment and involves lower inputs to the nursery production process (less compost, pots, heat, transport costs, and packaging). Bare-root stock is increasingly available from British nurseries, and in Europe, and plants such as iris, peony, Hemerocallis, agapanthus, and Sanguisorba, and many more, are being grown in fields and lifted for sale while they are dormant.

For potted stock, plant size is a key part of the environmental equation. Try to source P9 plants, which, as they are younger, are more efficient, requiring less compost and heat, and more easily transported in small vans, using less fuel. Growers such as Arvensis encourage designers and clients to think about establishment rather than instant impact as an important part of reducing the environmental cost of planting schemes. ‘As with food, plant availability is inherently seasonal,’ says Rob, ‘and choice is naturally at its best in autumn, after a full growing season.’ 

The information is out there to choose responsibly.

USEFUL RESOURCES

• Enrich the Earth, enrichtheearth.co.uk: a collaborative partnership convened to support the transition away from peat use in horticulture
• Horticultural Trades Association, hta.org.uk/growing-media: includes a link to the report Transitioning towards peat-free horticulture in the UK
• Peat-free Partnership, peatfreepartnership.org.uk:
• includes Hort Shorts, interviews with horticulture professionals talking about their peat-free experiences
• Responsible Sourcing Scheme, responsiblesourcing.org.uk:
• includes access to the Responsible Sourcing Criteria, a library of different substrates, details of its members’ products, and a calculator to score individual growing media
• Royal Horticultural Society, rhs.org.uk/advice/peat/for-industry: includes list of peat-free nurseries, compost choices, and peat-free workshops.