Peatlands also act as natural flood barriers, as their spongy texture slows the passage of water during heavy rainfall events.īut perhaps the most striking feature of peatlands is the overwhelmingly large amounts of carbon they store. How to turn your garden into a carbon sink.The promise and danger of Scotland's peat.The hybrid tree that conquered the world.And once you dig it up, it becomes a barren wasteland, basically." "Quite a lot of the plants and insects and other animals that live don't live anywhere else," says Judith Conroy, a researcher at Coventry University's Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR). Peat extraction causes a whole array of environmental problems. While many different types of peat grow in different places in the world, sphagnum moss – the plant that creates the type of peat typically used in gardening and horticulture – grows in wetland bogs in cold northern climates. Peat is a natural substance formed of plants (often mosses) which have partially decomposed under waterlogged, anaerobic conditions but still retain their distinctive spongy structure. Peat-free compost has become increasingly available over the last decade, but historically it has been criticised for not being as good – with some replacements accused of being dry, inconsistent or low in nutrients.īut as awareness of the carbon impact of peat has grown, companies and researchers on both sides of the Atlantic are stepping up efforts to find alternative solutions in the quest to replace this extraordinary material. It's prized for its spongy texture, which allows it to hold onto both water and air – both of which are essential for developing roots. They use it for fertilising and improving the soil, and as a key ingredient in potting mixes for growing new plants. One group that's been particularly resistant to giving it up is gardeners.
There are finite reserves and peat takes thousands of years to form.
Natural peatlands store twice as much carbon as all the world's forests, but they are rapidly disappearing due to widespread extraction. But, sparked by environmental concerns over the use of peat in horticulture and a looming limit on this use in the UK, BeadaMoss is now investigating the best way to grow sphagnum moss as a replacement for the bags of peat-based growing media found widely in garden centres across the world. Wright's company, BeadaMoss, is growing sphagnum moss – the main component of natural peat extracted from northern peatlands for use in gardens across the US and Europe.īeadaMoss has been growing sphagnum for around 15 years, initially to plant this on degraded peatlands as a fast-track to peatland restoration. In a greenhouse in Nottinghamshire, Barbara Wright is growing peat.
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