There are so many wonderful plants to choose for your landscape. I know there are some amazing adaptable perennials too, but if you start with a base of natives, you will be rewarded year after year. Does your landscape add to the landfill? How much waste does it produce each year? Lawns are an important functional element in the landscape.
I need a space for my children and pets to roam. They can also generate large quantities of yard waste, especially if you collect grass clippings. Avoid and remove invasive plants. Invasive plants can quickly steal growing space from native ones. Lastly, remove plants in your landscape areas that require too much maintenance such as water, pesticide, or fertilizers.
Replace them with hardier native varieties. We can all make an effort to be more conscious of our water consumption, specifically for outdoor use. If you have irrigation, check the heads frequently for leaks and spout direction. Make sure that it is watering the area and not spraying the street or driveway. Consider installing a rain sensor that will shut off the irrigation when it rains.
Try to manage water on site. Create rain gardens, reduce impervious surfaces, and select drought resistant plants that do not require a lot of water. Reduce the use of fertilizers and switch to organic types. Use the specified amounts at the right time of year and do not over apply.
Sweep or blow any excess fertilizer from the driveway or street to the yard in order to prevent it from making its way to the aquifer. In your yard evaluation did you find that a smaller grass area was sufficient for your needs? Match your lawn to meet your requirements. If grass is not a priority for you, eliminate it.
Grass offers few environmental advantages for wildlife while requiring a substantial amount of time, money, and energy. Consider lawn substitutes such as synthetic turf. While it represents an initial upfront investment, the long- range return on time, money and environmental impact is worth it.
Did you know you should leave grass clipping on your lawn after you mow? As the clippings decay, they return nutrients back to the soil. Leaving your grass clippings in your lawn also.
Here are some quick tips for choosing the right foliage for your landscape:. Replace them with plants that will do better with your local weather patterns. They also have developed strong defenses against local pests and diseases. As an added bonus, they tend to attract helpful neighbors like butterflies and bees who keep your flowers alive and well. Beware of Invasive Species: While not all non-native plants are harmful, some can disrupt the natural balance of your landscape. These are called invasive species and they are nature's bullies.
They grow so aggressively that they can push out local plants and pollinators, upsetting an entire ecosystem. Create Layers to Reduce Pests: Layering is essential to creating sustainable landscaping. Invite them to stay by providing various shrubs, trees and other plants for them to call home. Pay Attention to Tree Sizes: Regular tree trimming is both costly and often requires power tools which use gas or electricity.
Choose trees and shrubs that will fit in at their tallest without extra pruning. Consider Lawn Substitutes: If you're tired of mowing the lawn, ditch grass altogether. Moss, ground cover, or even turf are great no-mow lawn solutions. These need mowing just once or twice a year, and give your landscape a beautiful, natural look. For the best results, be sure to use grass that is native to your local area. Another alternative to traditional lawns is a practice called xeriscaping, which urban gardening expert Kevin Espiritu says is often found in places like his southern California home.
It's critical in places like my home, San Diego. Lawns are simply wastes here, unfortunately. A lot of homeowners are doing gravel, stone, and succulent or cacti landscapes that actually have quite a beauty of their own. It's not as lush and green as a lawn and shrubbery, but it has its own appeal. Xeriscaping with succulents, cacti and gravel creates a low water landscape with a surreally beautiful desert vibe. In spring, the hills are covered with wildflowers. Although they are not necessarily the plants one would use in a local landscape, there are related cultivars that do well but are hardier in one's yard—especially considering that most yards don't have natural soils anymore.
Many local plants will not grow in soils that have been enriched with fertilizers. To prevent a sustainable landscape from being boring, pay attention to the different locations on your property that have their own micro-climates. You can design these sections to look and behave differently from the others yet still be sustainable.
In fact, planting in semi-independent sections that way provides variety in plant material and increases overall sustainability. Before you plant, either in a micro-climate section or your yard overall, you'll want to list all environmental factors on paper first to make sure everything is covered—like soil type, amount of sun and shade, water availability, seasonal temperatures.
Here are other reminders:. This wisteria is growing over a bus stop that provides a micro-climate for a local bakery. There's just a small piece of poor soil between the bus stop and parking lot, which heats up in full sun, and the wisteria loves it.
This microclimate is formed by the dense canopy of the conifer above it and the lower ground level. It allows for more moisture than normal, which helps daffodils, narcissus, and pansies grow in winter when sunlight is slanted. Planning and planting landscapes is a lot of work. Therefore, before encouraging it, I decided to make sure that the work was really worthwhile.
In Southern California, we go for drought-tolerant landscapes. I'd already noticed that some of the early landscapes grew up to look pretty ugly and that the nicer ones cost a lot to design and plant. So I did some research on the benefits. Landscapes and gardens that are NOT sustainable take a lot of extra nurturing—with water, fertilizers, pesticides, replacement plants, and grass seed—which costs extra money and unnecessary time and effort. On the other hand, sustainable landscapes are designed to require very little extra nurturing, which should keep the costs and effort of maintenance down.
But does it really? They planted, nurtured, and compared the costs of running a sustainable landscape versus the more traditional, semi-exotic landscape commonly seen in Southern California. They found that, although it did cost more to install the native garden than the traditional garden, those costs were recouped over time.
When they compared results in , this is what they discovered:. These charts show the comparison of the native and traditional gardens' use of water, production of green waste, and maintenance requirements. Public Domain, via City of Santa Monica.
A native yard reduces the cost of hiring a landscaper and requires no fertilizer, herbicide, or pesticide expenses. Native gardens in wetter country will likely grow their own local grasses, which will reseed themselves. In drier country, you can design the garden without grass, thereby also eliminating the cost of weekly mowing and seasonal reseeding, in addition to reducing the cost of water used.
These are substantial savings, especially when you consider them over a period of years. In addition to the financial cost of sustainability, your planning should include the social cost of whether or not your yard "fits" the neighborhood.
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