How green your garden is depends on your sex, according to a new survey

I WAS recently hunted down by a couple from County Durham. They had spent a weekend driving over hill and dale trying to find me. They tracked me down to the correct North Yorkshire village, and everyone they asked told them they couldn't miss my spot, but they did.

I was completely oblivious to all this, until they took the clever tack of turning up at my place of work. They came armed with bundles of branches, some of them dripping with shrivelled plums and bruised apples, others gnarled and twisted. There were mouldy leaves, some peppered with holes and others crispy around the margins. There was lots of lichen everywhere.

Of course, they wanted to know what was wrong with their fruit trees. Last year they had baskets filled with plums and apples, but this year the bounty was pitiful.

I came up with "shothole", mildew, scab, scald and canker. I also blamed the weather. I think they wanted a simple diagnosis. As for coming up with a definite plan of action for making sure it wouldn't happen again next year, I couldn't, apart from the usual remedies: prune to open up, feed with well rotted manure and hope the weather is kinder next year.

The thing with gardening is that it is not an exact science. Nature is not one for round numbers, full stops and balanced predictive equations. You are not guaranteed a perfect outcome when you follow instructions by the letter and, conversely, ignored directions often result in faultless outcomes. Luckily though, a recent survey carried out for the RHS in accordance with the Market Research Society Code of Conduct has managed to come up with some statistical figures that make gardening sound almost scientific.

Nearly three quarters of gardeners think that climate change is their biggest gardening concern. Luckily, 70 per cent of that population are willing to try and do something in their own garden in order to help counterbalance the destruction being done to the planet.

Only 20 per cent are sceptical, believing that nothing sustainable they might do in the garden will have any impact at all on the bigger picture.

A huge 44 per cent of gardeners are continuing to use chemicals in their own gardens to combat weeds, pests and disease and I am afraid that much of this is down to men. Men and women have entirely different concepts of "environmentally friendly" gardening, so how green your garden is depends, according to the survey, on your sex.

Men are far more likely to reach for the weedkiller (58 per cent) than women (38 per cent) in order to keep the garden looking good. Women expressed far more concern for the environment, with 78 per cent saying that they would alter their style of gardening in order to be more environmentally friendly, compared with men (32 per cent) who were less likely to draw a link between what they did in the garden and the world around them.

Forty per cent of those questioned thought that you had to be rich to be a green gardener. Lack of knowledge and concern that their plants would suffer also seemed to be a major stumbling block to sustainable gardening.

On the positive side, 80 per cent of gardeners recognise that recycling green waste and putting valuable nutrients back into the soil by mulching beds and borders with homemade compost is one of the best ways to both save money and improve the health of your garden. It also keeps down the amount of degradable waste thrown into landfill as well as reducing the amount of carbon pumped into the atmosphere by burning.

Green energy is growing in popularity, with just over a third of gardeners having some sort of solar lighting in their gardens, and one in ten using some kind of natural source of power such as solar or wind-generated power.

Water shortages were a main concern, leading to an increase in water saving measures such as installing water butts and planting drought tolerant plants.

The majority of gardeners surveyed (71 per cent) had invested in one already with another 18 per cent planning to do so in the coming year.

If everybody takes small steps in the garden to minimise their impact and maximise the environmental benefits, it will add up to a huge national difference.

You can create and maintain a beautiful garden that is also good for the planet, attractive to wildlife, helps increase plant diversity and even saves you money.

JOBS THIS WEEK

* SCARIFY the lawn and apply an autumn feed. This will encourage the roots to grow and form a tough underground mat, strengthening the lawn ready for next year's spring growth.

* Prepare for next year by planting tulip bulbs in the ground and in pots.

Put them in the soil at least the same depth down as the length of the bulb.

To prevent squirrels digging them up, place a section of chicken wire over the top of the newly planted bulbs.

* Tender perennials such as dahlias can be lifted. Cut off all but six inches of stem and hang them upside down to dry. Pop them in a box of sawdust and store over winter in a place free from damp, frost and heat.

* Brigid presents the BBC Tees Gardening show every Sunday from 1-2pm. Questions can be answered on the show by e-mailing brigidpress@bbc.co.uk anytime during the week, or texting 07786- 200995 and phoning 01642-225511 during the show.