Change is hard.  

You’ve learned one way of doing things: you’ve got used to it over the years. And it works pretty well for you. So it’s no wonder that when something different comes along and your usual ways of doing things don’t work any more, it’s a little dispiriting.  

Sixty years ago, gardeners went through exactly this difficult change – from techniques they’d used for generations, to a new way of gardening that required them to alter almost everything about they way they grew plants.  

Previous to the 1960s gardeners grew only in loam-based potting composts, mixed by hand using recipes handed down through the generations. You can still make your own peat-free potting mixes today.

Gardeners of that era knew how to garden in loam-based composts: in fact it was all they knew. And then along came this new-fangled ingredient called peat. They were told they had to learn how to use it; it was, after all, the material which made bagged compost, garden centres, mass produced plants and indeed modern day gardening possible.  

There was much grumbling. The new peat potting composts were too water retentive and soggy: then if you let them dry out they turned into rock-hard lumps which couldn’t be re-wetted again. They were lightweight and fluffy and handling them felt completely different after solid, heavy loam-based composts.  

But over time, everyone adjusted, and got used to the new way of doing things. And nowadays, for many gardeners, peat composts are all they know. 

A peat-free revolution is happening

We’re at much the same point again. The switch to peat-free is well under way. Go into any garden centre across the UK and four out of five bags are now fully peat-free. Big brands like Miraclegro and Levingtons have switched completely; and all major compost manufacturers now offer peat-free lines. There’s also a rising number of new, highly successful compost manufacturers like Rocketgro, Melcourt and Dalefoot which have never used peat at all.  

This is all good progress – though the job won’t be done until all compost is peat-free, and for that we need governments to step in and legislate so that gardeners know what they’re getting in the bag and don’t have to double-check ingredients labels all the time. 

It’s the biggest revolution in gardening in a generation, and it’s requiring many gardeners to change a lot of the way they’ve done things for years. Peat-free potting mixes are fully able to grow plants every bit as good as peat-based, but they’re very different products. This means you can’t just treat peat-free compost in the same way and expect to get the same results from the same gardening methods.  

Don’t worry: help is at hand. If you’re one of those who has learned to garden with peat and you find yourself having to re-learn a lot of what you’ve been doing for years, there’s now a handy little sheet you can turn to giving advice for peat-free gardeners. It outlines the main ways peat-free mixes behave differently from peat, and how you can adjust your gardening to flourish once more in this new peat-free world.

This new guide can help you switch

We were among 20 organisations alongside the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Garden Centre Association, growers and compost manufacturers who helped develop this bite-sized advice helping gardeners make the switch successfully. 

It gives you lots of useful tips on choosing the right compost for your needs, how to feed and water when growing in peat-free, and – just as crucial – how to store your peat-free compost. All these are common mistakes made by gardeners who expect peat-free to behave the same as peat.  

The good news is that the adjustments you need to make are really quite small: 

• Choose a good, proven brand (you’ll always get what you pay for with peat-free) 

• Never buy more than you can use up in a few months 

• Store it under cover somewhere dry 

• Water carefully, wetting compost without letting water run from the drainage hole.  

• Start feeding from two weeks after potting up. 

• Always test before watering: peat-free often looks dry on top even when it’s well watered, so stick a finger in the top to check first. 

The leaflets are backed by a free email advice service dedicated to growing peat-free, provided by the wonderful horticultural advisers at the Royal Horticultural Society. So if you have further questions just drop them a line at peatfree@rhs.org.uk!

Look out for the peat-free advice leaflets appearing at the tills in your local garden centre in the coming weeks or just click here to see the full text on the PfP website. We hope it will help gardeners everywhere to embrace the change and look forward to enjoying peat-free gardens every bit as beautiful, productive and flourishing as they ever were – while being kind to the planet, too!