Friends of the Earth campaigning on behalf of bees at a garden centre

Garden centres say no to pesticides after pressure from you

Following pressure from Friends of the Earth supporters, the country’s largest garden centre is saying no to bee-harming pesticides.
  Published:  22 Aug 2017    |      1 minute read

Earlier this year Wyevale was urged to act by supporters after tests revealed the garden centre was selling plants containing neonicotinoids. There is now overwhelming scientific evidence that these pesticides harm bees.

More than 18,000 of you contacted Wyevale via an online petition, urging it to act.

Wyevale now joins 8 of the country’s top 10 garden retailers who have told us they don’t want the flowering plants they sell to be grown with neonicotinoids, and have instructed their suppliers not to use them.

Homebase has yet to confirm it will follow suit.

Earlier in 2017 B&Q became the first retailer to announce it was banning suppliers from using all neonicotinoid pesticides in its flowering plant range from early 2018.

A Friends of the Earth YouGov poll in May 2017 found that over three quarters of the British public (78%) agree that garden centres and retailers should not sell plants grown with pesticides that are harmful to bees.

Leading bee expert Professor Dave Goulson – who carried out research published earlier this year into pesticides in garden plants – said:

"There is currently lots of interest in making our gardens into havens for bees and other wildlife, which is fantastic.

"Hence we were very sad to discover that most of the pretty flowers marketed as 'bee-friendly' by garden centres, and bought by well-meaning people, actually contain significant concentrations of highly potent insecticides.

”It is great to see many garden centres responding positively to our research by moving to ban neonicotinoids. Hopefully we can soon reach a point where 'bee-friendly' plants are completely free of insecticides."

Thanks to you we’re making tremendous progress in our bee campaign, but we still need to keep up the pressure on government.

Friends of the Earth recently handed in a petition from more than 33,000 people, urging the government to support ban on all bee-harming neonicotinoid pesticides.

Friends of the Earth bee campaigner Nick Rau said: “The UK government must also act on neonicotinoids by backing a full and permanent EU ban on these chemicals across Europe – and pledging to keep any restrictions post-Brexit.”