9 gardening lies you probably believe (but shouldn't)

Introduction

New research from Aviva has put a number on something many UK gardeners have suspected: 21 per cent of homeowners have already replaced their lawn with artificial grass, or plan to do so. The insurer's 2024 figures, picked up this week by Gardens Illustrated, sit at the centre of a wider round-up of gardening myths — and horticultural experts are queuing up to debunk them. From plastic turf to pot crocks, the science on what actually helps a garden is often quite different from the folklore.

What This Means for UK Gardeners

For British gardeners weighing up a low-maintenance lawn, the trade-off is less straightforward than the marketing suggests. Artificial turf still needs sweeping, degrades in a handful of years, and can trap heat badly enough to be unusable in a hot summer — exactly the sort of summer the Met Office now expects more often. A real lawn, a chamomile alternative, or even a mossy patch will outlast it and feed garden wildlife into the bargain. The same theme runs through the other "lies" in the round-up: pot crocks were never about drainage, copper tape and eggshells have no proven effect on slugs, and watering in sunshine does not scorch leaves — it just wastes water through evaporation. A rethink of inherited advice rarely costs anything, and often saves time.

Key Points

• The Aviva 2024 finding — 21 per cent of UK homeowners moving to artificial grass — has prompted horticulturists to restate the case for real lawns and wildlife-friendly alternatives.
• RHS advisors note that "astro-turf" still needs regular cleaning, degrades within a few years, and can grow moss and weeds once dust settles into the pile.
• Several long-standing tips — crocks for drainage, copper and eggshell slug deterrents, avoiding midday watering to prevent leaf scorch — lack scientific support, though none of the alternatives harm plants.
• Planting bigger, curved borders typically makes a small UK garden feel larger, not smaller; the narrow-strip-of-lawn approach is the one that flatters least.
• "Weeds" are increasingly viewed as part of a functioning garden ecosystem rather than enemies, with the obvious exception of invasive non-natives such as Japanese knotweed.

Further Reading

For more on this topic, see the GardenWizz guides on caring for UK lawns, slug control without chemicals, and choosing the right plants for small gardens. IMAGE_SCENE: a strip of bright green artificial grass in a small UK back garden being lifted to reveal patchy natural lawn and cracked soil beneath on a sunny afternoon

Source: https://www.gardensillustrated.com/garden-advice/gardening-lies-wrong-advice