Common Sense Steps Toward Sustainable Landscaping

The mantra of reduce, reuse, and recycle does not apply only to the indoors. It applies to our outdoor areas as well! Our approach to how we care for our home landscapes has a significant impact on our overall environmental impact. Simple choices, from mowing and watering, to plant selection and pest control, all add up.

The easiest way to reduce your outdoor environmental impact is to reduce the size of your turf area. Adding or expanding planting beds, garden space, or patio areas all allow you to reduce the many inputs (water, fertilizer, fuel) and waste (clippings) involved in keeping a lawn.

For the lawn that remains, make wise choices regarding its care. A great first step is to grow one of the many lower maintenance turf grass varieties that require less water and fertilizer. When mowing, make sure your mower is operating efficiently, or better yet, use a zero emission reel mower. And instead of taking your clippings to the curb, either compost them or leave them on the lawn where they can return nutrients to the soil.

Since roughly half of residential water use goes to landscaping, this is a prime area to consider for reduction.

• Water your lawn wisely by using well-maintained, efficient equipment.
• Water early in the day to reduce evaporation losses.
• Water slow and deep for less runoff and healthier plants.

Further reductions can occur by:

• Mulching your flower beds.
• Selecting well-adapted, healthy plants and placing them appropriately.
• Collecting rainwater for later use.

Home energy use can be reduced by careful placement of landscape plants. Trees that shade the home can significantly reduce summer heat gain. Shading your air-conditioning units allows them to operate more efficiently. In the winter time, chilly winds and heat loss can be reduced by well-placed conifers.

Increased demand for organic products has led to many options for low-impact fertilizers and pest controls. Give them a try, and you may be surprised at how effective they are. Plus, by having a toxic free and biodiverse landscape, natural controls such as beneficial insects can thrive and help keep the pests in check. Earthworms will also work for you by aerating your soil and adding their fertile castings.

Re-use can be a creative adventure. Brainstorm a new way to use the stones from that old wall that finally collapsed, or the wood from that ancient cherry tree that sadly went down in the storm. Keep your neighbors in mind too. What may seem to you like a worthless pile of stones may be the perfect material for their dream project. Plus, they may be aching to get rid of something that you could use.

The most important example of recycling in the landscape is composting. Composting takes readily available materials from your landscape (leaves and clippings) and, instead of using energy to send them to overflowing landfills, turns them into a high quality product. Compost provides a wide array of essential minerals and nutrients, improves soil structure, improves drainage, and increases the soil’s water-holding capacity. All this with no cost, no packaging, and no trip to the store.

With a Green Home Makeover, your Green Irene consultant will be happy to give you more details on these and other tips to help us green the world, one home (and office) at a time.