Here at Six Acre Nurseries we are committed to improving our working practices and product availability to ensure the long term sustainability and health of our natural environment.
What are we doing differently?
- We have reduced our pesticide use considerably over the last 4 years. In order to maintain plant health and control pests and disease we have employed various less destructive methods of nursery management. This includes improving air flow and plant spacing across the nursery to reduce the severity and chance of fungal attack, the use of nematodes and natural pesticides to control insect pests and a vigorous plant checking and assessment schedule to identify issues before they worsen.
- We have vastly increased our offer of peat free compost to include options for many situations including seed sowing, tree planting, perennial planting, houseplant planting and mulching. Our aim is to completely remove peat based composts from sale by the end of 2022. We are also currently experimenting with peat free compost for use in our custom compost used on the nursery. We have already had superb results with seed sowing and propagation.
- We have increased our level of pot recycling and only use old pots for potting new plants where possible. You may see plants in different colour and shaped pots on our nursery – this is often as sign we have reused our old pots! In addition to this we are looking at biodegradable options going forward.
- We are gradually reducing our reliance on single use plastic by reusing old compost bags as tree bags and using compostable bin liners where possible. We are also using wooden cutlery and boxes for our takeaway café service. A number of our suppliers are also working on developing reusable or biodegradable packaging.
We know there is a lot of work still to be done and we are continually working to improve the way we affect the natural environment within our local area and further afield...