Can we 'de-patio' our gardens?

The UK's gardens are slowly disappearing beneath concrete and paving. Jack Wallington asks what we can do to halt the trend

- HANNAH PONTIN

Some 42 per cent of the UK’s garden land area has been paved. That’s the shocking statistic from the recent RHS State of Gardening report. The state of gardens, then, is that they’re quietly disappearing. Land is a finite resource and gardens are reducing in size. Unless we all do something, that percentage will rise. First, we must understand why so many gardens are being paved. Let’s break it down. Gardens in the UK make up approximately 4.9 per cent of total land. It sounds like a small percentage, but as a proportion of an entire country, that is significant. More than 20 million residential front and/or back gardens make up just over half of the area (around 1.2 million acres). The rest is gardened parkland or managed green space.

Evidence suggests one culprit is the gradual transformation of front gardens into driveways. As far back as 2005, around two-thirds of London’s front gardens were already fully or partially paved, covering more than 7,900 acres – almost 23 times the size of Hyde Park. But the problem is not confined to urban areas.