A new survey has revealed the extent of RHS members’ gardening activities, with 350 football pitches of new plants grown last year.

22 million plants were planted, and within these at least 157,270 trees were introduced, creating the equivalent of 98 hectares of forest.

As a result, The RHS is expanding its ‘Greening Grey Britain' campaign to ‘Greening Great Britain’ to promote that growing more plants in any setting is vital for the environment and our health and wellbeing.

Sue Biggs, RHS Director General, said: “We know most of our members are active gardeners, but these figures are stunning and exceeded our expectations with the amount, and diversity, of plants they are adding each year.  

“This is immensely positive for wildlife, the environment and numerous other benefits, including cooling local areas in summer, flood protection, air quality improvement, noise reduction and wellbeing benefits”.

Some 77 percent of members chose plants for bees, with 44 percent also saying they selected plants for other pollinators.  Only 15 percent of members didn’t choose any plants with wildlife in mind.  

Sue added: “Without the plants our gardeners grow we would have fewer insects, wildlife, bees, beauty and benefits to the environment”.