Sustainable Design In Landscaping
Sustainable Design in Landscaping
Sustainable design inlandscaping not only creates an attractive space on your property – it’s also goodfor the environment. Work with the features and characteristics of your land tocreate an outdoor space that reduces outside input, reuses natural resourcesand recycles items bound for the landfill. Designing your property with sustainablelandscaping in mind should give you an attractive piece of land that doesn’trequire as much maintenance as a traditional garden. Sustainable design in landscapingmeans your property will be in balance with the place you live. Since you’reworking with the land, you won’t need to input as much fertilizer, compost orother additives to your garden. The land will do most of it for you.
Sustainable design inlandscaping helps you conserve natural resources, reduce your carbon footprintand maintain your land with byproducts of the land itself. It combines manmadetools like lawn mowers and fertilizer with local soil and rainwater to create aspace that is easy to maintain and stands up to local conditions. Grassclippings, for example, can be left on the ground after mowing to help nourishyour lawn – and the landscaping is still sustainable when you use your gas-poweredmower. (Some mowers even have mulching settings.) It’snot about the total elimination of non-natural tools; it’s about reducing theneed for them.
Sustainable designoffers many benefits to homeowners. Since you can incorporate compost, stormwater and found items into your garden, you spend less on its maintenance. Byreducing the size of your lawn and replacing grass with local shrubs andplants, less time is spent mowing a large expanse of grass. Your landscape willthrive when non-sustainable pieces of land wither under harsh conditionsbecause the native plants you choose grow naturally in the soil on yourproperty. When others are scrambling to water plants and fend off pests, yourlandscape will still be attractive and functional.
In addition to thebenefits, sustainable landscaping is important for the planet. People whocreate large gardens that aren’t sustainable use many natural resources thataren’t so easy to replace. Large lawns need lots of water to thrive and mowingthem pollutes the air and ground. Many items that end up in landfills can bereused on your property: leftovers can be composted to feed plants and oldpieces of wood can be built into garden planters. When plants are put into soiland a landscape that isn’t meant to support them, extra fertilizer and watermust be used; with native plants, less of both is required from outside yourproperty.
Make a few smallchanges to create a sustainable design for landscaping on your property. Insteadof using harsh chemicals and non-native plants, bring earth-friendlyalternatives and native foliage. Instead of purchasing new walkways, trycrushing stone from a recent construction project and laying it down to createa path. Gather water that has fallen from your rain chains to a collectionbarrel and use that to hydrate your plants instead of water from the hose. Buildretaining walls to reduce erosion using natural or recycled stone. Chooseplants that thrive in the soil you have so you don’t have to add chemicals tohelp them grow. Your landscape – and the planet – will thank you.