The Nicholsons Plants team were recently treated to a training session on composts and their composition. Not from any old Horticulturalist but from Neil Bragg the chairman of the Horticultural Development Company (HDC) and a director of Bullrush Horticulture LTD. It was a very enlightening session that helped a lot of our staff understand many of the issues surrounding the problem of peat, and the ways in which we can reduce our usage and encourage our customers to think of alternatives.
Our mixes for nursery stock have reduced their peat component over the last five years by using more bark introducing new wood fibre products and keeping a level of loam. We have had trials of peat free mixes for our tree and hedging crops but have found that water retention and some fertility is lost. There is also the danger for us as we pot by hand that currently there are poor restrictions on the quality of green waste material. There is an amount of broken glass for instance the is 'permissible' - not if you pot by hand!
The challenge for us is to keep the quality of our plants and keep reducing peat use - all of our bagged composts for gardeners are now peat free - gardeners accounting for 63% of UK peat use. As technologies and legislation improves so we hope to reduce our usage still further.
