Sustainable gardening provides a safe refuge not just for you, but also for pollinators and songbirds.
Creating an outdoor retreat near the front porch or back patio is one of the more enjoyable landscaping tasks to do. Gardens and attractive shrubs offer visual appeal, while trees lower future energy expenditures by providing shade and cooling the home and yard.
When selecting plants, avoid exotics and pick what flourishes locally without the need for expensive and time-consuming watering, feeding, and care. Here are nine ways that designing a sustainable landscape helps the environment.
What Exactly is Green Landscaping?
Green landscaping, also known as sustainable or eco-landscaping, is a strategy to save time, money, and energy while designing, creating, and maintaining your landscape. Green landscapes support animals, minimize air, soil, and water pollution, and create safe recreational areas. Your yard may have an impact! You may have a good influence on the environment by taking tiny steps and making a few basic adjustments. Planting native plants and trees may aid wildlife by providing food and shelter while also reducing air pollution. Planting native plant and tree species can also help to prevent soil and water pollution.
Go Beyond the Grassy Lawn
More than a grass lawn and a few plants or driveway edging may do a lot for nature. Consider habitats such as ground cover rather than mulch, seasonal shrubs, flowers to attract pollinators, rain gardens to filter water, food to decrease shopping visits, and trees to cool and shelter humans and wildlife.
Prepare an Edible Landscape
Plant edible perennials, shrubs, and trees to feed your family while also creating an appealing edible landscape. With the right selection of plants, you can create a beautiful and bountiful garden that will provide you with a steady supply of fresh produce. Perennials such as asparagus, rhubarb, and artichokes can be planted once and will provide a continual harvest for years to come. Planting these vegetables in the spring will ensure a bountiful harvest throughout the summer and fall.
If you don't want to cultivate food for yourself, seek low-maintenance fruits, nuts, and seeds that might assist animals, especially during the winter when food is limited. Highbush cranberry, crabapple trees, elderberries, currants, hazelnuts, coneflowers, and coreopsis are a few examples. For regional recommendations, contact your local Extension Service.
Select Compost Over Chemicals
Increase the health and immunity of your plants and shrubs by providing them with nutrient-rich nutritious soil that can aid in the battle against pests and illnesses. Vermicompost, which is made by worms decomposing food leftovers, includes growth hormones that help plants grow stronger and more robust. Traditional compost keeps plants wet between rains and lightens the soil, allowing roots to spread more freely. It also helps to retain moisture in the soil, reducing the need for frequent watering. Compost also helps to improve soil structure and fertility, as it contains a variety of nutrients and minerals that are beneficial to plants. It can also help to reduce the amount of water needed for irrigation, as it helps to retain moisture in the soil.
Create a Pollinator Garden
Plant flowers that provide nectar and rest stations for migrating butterflies to help the diminishing numbers of bees, butterflies, and other pollinators recover. Whether you put out a zinnia planter or transform a wide corner into a prairie garden, adding favorites like butterfly weed, bee balm, lupine, blazing star, and asters may bring a colorful audience and vibrant life by planting native plants and flowers to your garden. Native plants provide a variety of food sources for pollinators, as well as shelter and nesting sites. Planting a variety of native species in your garden will also help to create more diverse and vibrant habitats for birds, insects, and other wildlife.
Make a Rain Garden
Create a rain garden in a low spot of your yard to reduce erosion and potentially toxic runoff from lawns. Installing water-tolerant plants like swamp milkweed, asters, and blazing stars in your rain garden will help to contain extra water after heavy rains while also filtering out pesticides and fertilizers to protect our water sources from becoming contaminated. They are designed to capture and absorb runoff from hard surfaces like rooftops, driveways, and sidewalks, and to reduce the amount of polluted water that enters our water systems that can pollute the water source. Rain gardens are a great way to help reduce the number of pollutants that enter our water systems.
Rain gardens are designed to capture and filter runoff from impervious surfaces such as rooftops and driveways. By capturing and filtering the runoff, the pollutants are removed before they can enter the water source.
Create a Wildlife-Friendly Landscape
A single bat may consume 1,000 mosquitos in one hour. Birds and toads also get their fair share, as do slugs and other plant pests. Encourage natural pest management by enhancing your yard with a DIY bat home, bird dwellings, or a DIY toad cave made by sinking half of a clay pot in a dark piece of soil. Clay pots are the perfect material for a toad cave because they are porous, allowing air to circulate, and they are also durable and long-lasting.
Keep Some Dead Wood
If a section of a tree has perished but isn't in danger of falling and injuring someone or anything, leave it alone. According to the National Wildlife Federation, dead trees, often known as snags, provide shelter and habitat for over 1,000 species. The shelter can also be provided by logs and tiny brush heaps. Logs are used to create a makeshift for small animals, such as squirrels, and other small mammals. These logs can also be used to provide a safe place for birds to nest and lay eggs. Tiny brush heaps, made from logs and branches, can be constructed in a variety of shapes and sizes to provide a safe haven for birds. The logs can be arranged in a variety of ways, from a simple pile of logs to a more elaborate structure with several
Install Solar Lighting
Solar lighting is an environmentally responsible approach to illuminating your landscape. It runs on solar energy and does not require any wiring or power. Solar landscape lighting is an attractive and cost-effective way to add beauty and security to your outdoor space. The energy-efficient lighting system is powered by the sun, so you don't have to worry about running wires or paying for electricity. With solar energy, you can enjoy the convenience of having a renewable, clean source of energy that is free and abundant. Solar energy is a great way to save money on your electricity bills, as it is a renewable energy source that does not require any additional fuel. Solar energy is a clean and efficient way to power your home.
Provide a Water Supply
Water is required for drinking and bathing by birds and other animals. Consider a modest bird bath if you don't have a rain garden, pond, or other nearby water supply. To keep it from becoming a mosquito breeding ground, empty it every day and scrub it clean once a week.
You may install de-icer devices in the winter and solar-powered pumps in the summer to keep the water circulating and attract birds.
Wildlife-Friendly Yard Certification
Apply to the National Wildlife Federation to be designated as a wildlife-friendly garden to inspire others to explore sustainable landscaping and gardening. It costs $20 to apply and comes with a sign recognizing locations that provide critical food, water, nesting spaces, and shelter.
So, to highlight some key points, here are some of the outlines of why creating a sustainable landscape is an important step in lowering our environmental impact and protecting natural resources. It not only benefits the planet's well-being, but it also contributes to the creation of a healthy and beautiful outdoor place. Here are some pointers to get you started if you want to develop a sustainable landscape:
- Native plants are suited to the local temperature and soil conditions and thus require less water and fertilizer. They also provide a source of food and refuge for local species. Consider employing native species that are appropriate for your location when selecting plants for your landscaping.
- Conserve Water: Water is a valuable resource that must be used responsibly. Water may be saved by employing efficient irrigation systems, such as drip irrigation or soaker hoses, and by selecting drought-tolerant plants.
- Consider employing sustainable materials while planning your landscaping, such as recycled plastic, composite decking, or reused wood. These materials are ecologically friendly and can aid in trash reduction.
- Reduce the size of your lawn: Lawns take a lot of water, fertilizer, and upkeep. Consider replacing your grass with native plants, trees, or shrubs to reduce the size of your yard.
- Make a Compost Bin: Composting is a great technique to decrease trash while also creating nutrient-rich soil for your garden. In your backyard, you may build a compost bin and recycle food scraps, yard debris, and other organic materials.
- Chemical fertilizers and pesticides may be harmful to the environment and wildlife. Use natural options instead, like compost, organic fertilizers, or natural insect control methods.
- Install Solar Lighting: Solar lighting is an environmentally responsible approach to illuminating your landscape. It runs on solar energy and does not require any wiring or power.
- Permeable pavers allow rainfall to percolate through them and into the ground, decreasing runoff and erosion. They also assist to replenish groundwater and lessen flooding danger.
Conclusion
Developing a sustainable landscape is a fantastic way to improve the health of the world while also creating a lovely outdoor place. You may build a sustainable landscape that is both attractive and ecologically beneficial by utilizing native plants, saving water, using sustainable materials, lowering the size of your lawn, composting, reducing chemical usage, adding solar lights, and using permeable pavers.
