Confessions of an IMBY

You know what NIMBY stands for? Not In My Back Yard. It's a very handy expression used to describe people who are all enthusiastic and excited about, say, wind power, but turn against it when someone suggests building a wind turbine up the road from their house. There are lots of Nimbys in the world.

But for today I'm an IMBY, and I have a sort of confession. Our back garden is tiny. It's miniscule. In fact it wouldn't look out of place if you unpeeled it and stuck it on an envelope in place of a stamp. It's the kind of garden you have when you live in an old terraced house on the side of a hill and most of it is hidden by an enormous tree. Whereas all our neighbours have nice little flowering cherry trees or funny shrubs covered in red dangly things, someone sometime decided to plant the world's hugest apple tree in our back garden. Left to its own devices it would probably be ten metres tall and just as wide. It's like an oak.

You can see where generations of desperate homeowners have hacked branches off this monster. I pruned it pretty severely a couple of winters ago and in the meantime it has grown and grown. Last summer the tree's dense foliage shaded the whole garden, more or less all day. On the plus side, though, it was a happy hang-out for our small local population of streetwise bluetits and blackbirds.

So I was torn. I venerate the tree - we've even wassailed it - but having written a book about orchards (Man-made Eden, published by Redcliffe Press) I know you shouldn't be sentimental about such things. I thought about having it cut down, then hit on a compromise, and instead gave it a really good pruning, I mean more or less a pollarding. It's about quarter the size now, but still alive, and the garden is light again.

The only losers are the bluetits and blackbirds. Of course I could say, well, it's just one tree, there's plenty of other places for them to go, and it could be true. But then I think of my neighbour who hacked down and burned every green thing in his back garden and turned it into a sort of box, with decking that stretches its length and breadth and a patio heater for decoration. And I think of all the other people in the city, and the county, and in England and over in Amazonia, people who need or want to tame their bit of nature to make their lives better.

But at least I didn't cut the tree down completely. It will grow back. The bugs are still there for the bluetits. Perhaps I've stumbled on a happy medium between the needs of nature and the desires of people. In My Back Yard.

Patio Heaters and Smoking Groans

Do you understand Europe? I mean the government-type thing, not the continent. Europe has a parliament and it has elected members of parliament (MEPs), who are a bit like ordinary MPs - except that nobody knows who they are. Most MPs and most governments are super-Groanish. They bend over backwards to do things they think people will like, such as building new roads and airports or putting more people in prison. The European parliament, on the other hand, doesn't care two hoots whether people like what it does. And the European parliament is surprisingly Green.

The only reason we recycle in this country is because Europe makes us pay fines if we don't. Groans love to grumble about Europe and now it looks like they're going to have something new to gripe about, because Europe is planning to ban patio heaters.

I have to say I'm not too keen on banning things. When you stop people doing something they like it makes them resentful, and it's hard to be Green when you're petulant or cross. So do we need to ban patio heaters? How does the amount of energy a patio heater wastes compare with, say, the amount used to keep imported fruit cool for months in a giant warehouse?

Groans are very attached to their patio heaters because it feels special to be outside at night or when it's cold. People do it in other countries which aren't so cold and damp, so Groans think we should be able to do it here. Especially Smoking Groans, since they're not allowed to smoulder indoors anymore. Once upon a time Smoking Groans hid away in pubs and cafes, but now they're all outside, on the patio, enjoying the 'en plein air' experience and the warmth of a patio heater. They're under the stars, like cowboys round a campfire...

The real problem isn't so much the patio heater as the typical Groanish attitude: I feel good and that's what matters. Will banning patio heaters change this? Probably not.

So here's the real question. Should Green mean laws, bans, restrictions and fines? Or should it mean something more positive? How about:

Colourful ponchos for Smoking Groans!
Geothermal under-patio heating systems!
Pedal-powered patio heaters!

Let's have more freedom, not less. Let's have some vision.

Viva Greenpeace!

It's hard to be positive when you come across stories like Goodbye Froggie. That doesn't mean you shouldn't read them. You just have to read them, think a bit and then do something. No one's expecting you to go charging around the Southern Ocean like the rainbow warriors of Greenpeace are doing right now. There is, as they say, more than one way to save a whale. Or a frog, come to think of it. This is what 'How to Turn Your Parents Green' is all about: direct action you can do at home.

Take the poor frog. In this green, wet country of ours there used to be lots of frogs, toads and newts. Witches didn't have to look far when they needed a bit of amphibian for a spell, they just looked in the nearest patch of weeds. There were ponds and streams everywhere, full of green, slippery creatures.

The modern witch has to look much harder, because there are less amphibians, and there are less amphibians because there are fewer places for them to live. Our growing towns and cities cover land with tarmac and bricks and concrete. We use strimmers and weedkillers to get rid of vegetation. Even in the countryside you have to look quite hard for a pond because people have filled them in.

So what can you do? Here's a clue: in our tiny city garden we have anything between five and ten frogs. They live in the flowerbeds around the world's smallest pond, feasting on the thousands of slugs that live in the garden. They're protected from local cats by the thick, messy foliage that we never cut back. We don't use any poisons. In fact a lot of the time we don't do much. It's a bit of a jungle, but paradise if you're a snail, a slug or an urban frog.

The gardening chapter of 'How to Turn Your Parents Green' has lots of tips for the greener gardener, so why not check it out?