Have you heard about eco friendly gardening? We all want our garden and backyard to not just be beautiful but also want it to be environmentally friendly.
The notion of going green is a project that requires the effort of every person, not only of concerned associations and government. The thought of going green needs to always begin from home.
The design of eco friendly landscaping should provide homeowners with the opportunity to cut expenses, save money, time, and natural resources as well. Let's talk about eco friendly gardening and how to achieve an environmentally friendly lawn.
More...
Many people think that going green and trying to reduce our influence on the environment has several advantages, but there are still some debates about what exactly is needed for eco friendly gardening.
Most people think that it requires more effort and investment than regular gardening and they have to ditch their favourite flowers and plants. The solution to all these problems is no need for extra effort and money.
What is Eco Friendly Gardening?
An eco friendly garden is one in which the landscaper works with nature rather than continually battling against it. Creating and maintaining an environmentally friendly lawn or garden is not too difficult if you understand how your landscaping and gardening activities affect both our planet and the environment.
So, what you need to do is always choose the least harmful options for landscape. Regular grass and plants require a huge amount of water and maintenance to look beautiful and healthy.
But, with water being limited in several areas, you may want to look for more environmentally friendly landscape design ideas for your home. If you want a landscape with low maintenance and low water usage, you can opt for artificial turf.
With artificial grass, you will no longer have to mow the grass or water it. Also, the grass will not become brown. If artificial turf is not your preference, consider water connection by how you manage your plants.
Eco Friendly Landscape Ideas
For this, you need to keep those plants that require more water in one place and other desert-type plants that need less amount of water in another place.
Besides, you can consider the below-mentioned eco friendly landscape ideas for your place. Take a look:
1. Get to Know What is Xeriscaping
If you reside in a region where dehydration is more common than your preference, or maybe you want a fabulous looking garden, but without effort, such as regular watering and weeding, the xeriscape landscape program is ideal for you.
Xeriscaping is a design method that includes slow-growing and drought-tolerant plants to save water and build a more moisture suitable landscape.
Although xeriscaping may seem a little bit costly when you will start on it, once it is completed, your landscape design will require no work. This indicates your investment will remain for years to come.
To accurately xeriscape, you will have to first determine if you are in a suitable area for this type of garden.
2. Landscaping with Native Plants
There are several benefits to planning landscape design with native plants. Some of the more prominent reasons are that these plants usually need more limited watering than non-native varieties, pesticides are applied less often, and the quantity of wildlife is improved when plants that are native to an area are enabled to grow.
Due to such reasons, people can save money and the overall condition of the environment is improved by having more fresh and clean soil, water, and air.
Native varieties of plants need limited water due to the simple reason that for ages, they grew and adapted to an appropriate area and became familiar with their environment.
Because of this reason, native plants eventually help people to save money. Native plants are easy with the soil, the seasonal rainfall, and all these circumstances contribute right to the amount of water they require.
Native plants will further have more reliable root arrangements than non-native varieties, and in regions where flooding restriction is necessary, this built-in feature is valuable.
Moreover, native plants require less pesticide for several same reasons that they need less watering. Non-native insects will simply not endure the flavour or odour of regular plants belonging to a region.
If bugs cannot benefit from a plant or atmosphere, they will not be ready to place their eggs and prepare a completely new age of leaf-eating. With less pesticide to manage bugs, the soil will be more healthy, and drainage water will also be fresh.
Besides, the air will not be infected with undesirable chemicals, enabling you to have fresh natural fragrances from the plants. There are many experienced landscapers who can help you to choose the most suitable and eco friendly plants for your garden.
3. Installing a Water Sprinkler System
Installing a sprinkler system brings many advantages overwatering your lawn by hand or using a movable sprinkler attached to your garden line.
A sprinkler system is an effortless option for watering your garden or lawn. Here is our review on the best lawn sprinklers for 2023.
You simply need to fix a timer on your system to go off early in the morning and late at night to evade water waste because of evaporation. By simply installing a sprinkler system, you can avoid the trouble of having to wake up early to get your garden watered before the day becomes excessively hot.
Additionally, sprinkler systems allow you the convenience of not having to bother about watering your garden before you go to sleep. In many circumstances watering a lawn in the evening is something that is easily neglected or ignored by most people.
If you have installed a water sprinkler system, you would not worry about watering your lawn when you come home from the office. Installing a water sprinkler system is also useful because it enables you to set the times that they go off and how long they continue in each state.
If you notice that some parts of your lawn are getting extreme water, it is as simple as setting your timer for that state to decrease the volume of water. Installing a water sprinkler system also offers great value for money.
Because they utilize less water than manual watering or doing with a movable sprinkler, there are more possibilities to see a lower water bill every month.
The effectiveness of a water sprinkler system not only guarantees that your garden is sprinkled on a daily basis, but also you can modify sprinkler fixtures to water your flowers and bushes.
Using a sprinkler system to water your herbs and bushes ensures that they are getting enough water required to maintain their health.
4. Use of Artificial Grass
When you study the expense of maintaining a nice, healthy, and manicured lawn, you start to understand that the value of upkeep is expected to be rather expensive.
Maintaining a garden requires buying several types of gardening tools as well as pesticides and other chemicals that harm the environment.
Furthermore, you will be required to have enough money, time and effort to keep the garden looking healthy throughout the year. On the other hand, you could prefer to go the synthetic way preferably.
With synthetic grass, you can have that nice and green lawn all year round. This way you can also save money because you will not require to buy maintenance products that you would need to maintain a real grass lawn.
Nowadays, a synthetic lawn can receive cutting-edge technology. They are also eco-friendly and you have a clear supporter, as considerably as more people are concerned.
Depending on the landscape, it can be almost challenging to find the ideal real grass alternative that is also low-maintenance. Natural grass needs watering, harvesting, weeding, and more to be healthy, which means you will have to put in a lot of effort.
Artificial grass is a low-maintenance alternative that will look fabulous any time of the year. You will no longer require all your lawn material and you can have fun at the weekend instead of working on it.
Real grass lawns need toxic composts and chemicals which are not good for the environment. On the other hand, if you prefer an artificial lawn instead, you can have peace of mind knowing that you have not destroyed the environment through harmful chemicals.
Therefore, many experienced landscapers in landscaper Newbury suggest having artificial grass lawns.
5. Look for Reusable Landscaping Materials
Reusing stuff is not just good for our environment but also for your pocket. One of the common reusable landscaping materials is real stones, which looks excellent and is long-lasting at the same time.
Beautiful real stones can be used anywhere in your garden, depending on your preference. You can place them at the side of your pathway. Stones can also be placed to surround a flower garden or an elegant tree.
In simple words, landscaping does not indicate you have to harm the environment. Instead, looking for environmentally friendly alternatives can be as easy as having an effective watering system and reusing or recycling materials.
Furthermore, it aids in the benefit of geography. Creating a green cover or wall are good ideas that should be considered.
6. Going for Low Voltage Landscape Lighting
Because we all want to have beautiful surroundings and look at a beautiful landscape, nowadays, landscape lighting is an increasing trend for many homeowners desiring to decorate their houses and garden area at night time.
Landscape lighting is better defined as gardening with lighting and is about enhancing all that is real or man-made in a landscaped environment around the place. Landscape lighting is the most cost-effective and useful item when used in restricted and detailed ways.
If designed properly, landscape lighting can be an addition to your home decor, and it can improve the effectiveness of outdoor areas to the home while providing security, a better environment and space boundary.
It can be useful in covering undesired pieces such as garbage cans or fertilizer containers. Low-level lighting can be used to brighten pathways and stairs for safety and protection.
A smart idea to get lighting without paying more is to arrange a solar-powered alternative such as solar powered path and yard lights.
7. Natural Pest Control and Herbicides
Pesticides have long been known to be harmful to both the environment and our well-being. When we apply pesticides, we eliminate all the insects and even some birds.
Some insects and birds eat other insect bugs but do not harm plants. If you're facing a pest problem, there are eco-friendly pest control solutions to address it effectively.
Choice of native plants that are naturally immune, and using natural pesticides such as insecticidal cleansers and oil showers for bugs, aphids, and mealybugs.
Slugs can be detected by dropping yoghurt bowls filled with milk into the soil or by leaving hollowed-out grapefruit moieties around your plants.
2 Cs of Sustainable Gardening
Not all gardening is eco-friendly. As much as you might want to believe that growing anything benefits the environment, the truth is that gardening can require a whole host of unsustainable and even environmentally detrimental activities.
Seeming gardening essentials like fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides can poison the soil, and it isn’t always advisable to waste finite resources, like freshwater. Fortunately, just because some gardening practices aren’t eco-friendly doesn’t mean that you have to stop gardening to save the planet.
Here are a few smarter, more sustainable ways to keep your garden, so you can enjoy your outdoor space and benefit the Earth.
1. Cut Chemicals From Your Gardening
Modern gardening relies heavily on a bevy of chemicals to help plants grow and keep out unwanted pests. Unfortunately, the use of chemicals in gardening, while convenient, isn’t sustainable; all chemicals can have grave long-term effects on the environment.
In particular, gardeners tend to gravitate toward three deleterious chemical products: inorganic fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides.
Inorganic Fertilizer
Inorganic fertilizer is a combination of macronutrients that plants require — nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium — in high concentrations to promote growth. Improper use of fertilizer can lead to the buildup of salts in your soil, which will harm your plants.
However, the primary environmental hazard of inorganic fertilizer is runoff: Because plants cannot absorb those macronutrients quickly, groundwater and storms carry those nutrients away.
Unfortunately, inorganic fertilizer runoff tends to come together in bodies of fresh water, where it triggers an algae bloom that chokes any other nearby life.
Fortunately, inorganic fertilizer is easy to replace with organic fertilizer. You might consider composting your kitchen and yard waste to use as garden fertilizer, or you can pick up bags of healthy, organic fertilizer (which typically consists of bone and blood meal, manure and special types of rocks).
Herbicide
Though most herbicides tend to be non-toxic to humans and other animals, like inorganic fertilizer, herbicides can leach into your surrounding environment and interfere with the healthy growth of natural plants.
Plus, chemical herbicides must be administered expertly; otherwise, they will harm the plants you want to grow in your garden. There is a variety of organic herbicides you can try, some of which you can mix at home using household ingredients like vinegar and soap.
However, the greenest strategy is pulling out weeds and unwanted volunteers. You can buy a number of purpose-made tools to help with weed elimination without poisoning your garden.
Pesticide
Most gardeners know that pesticides are dangerous, to both the environment in general and any people or animals that make use of your garden.
Pesticides are indiscriminate in their destruction of life; studies have found that upwards of 95 percent of pesticides miss their target species and instead affect the health and wellness of surrounding creatures, to include beneficial bugs (like bees and mantises), birds and mammals.
Instead of using pesticides, you should use pest-repelling plants throughout your garden. Especially fragrant flowers and herbs tend to ward off pests that threaten more delicate plant species; the best pest repellants are lavender, marigolds, basil, mint and petunias.
You should also strive to foster an ecosystem that attracts helpful critter populations, which will out-compete with pests for resources and drive them off.
2. Conserve Water in Your Garden
In dryer areas of the country, more than 60 percent of a home’s water use can be devoted to maintaining landscaping. Fresh water is a finite resource, and pouring gallons upon gallons of it on your garden isn’t exactly sustainable — but your plants do need water to survive.
Here are a few ways to be water-wise in your garden:
Companion Planting
Before the modern age of agriculture, farmers would plant different types of crops in the same fields, not just to increase the productivity of their land but to offer their plants the benefits of symbiotic growth.
While planting pest-repelling flowers and herbs is a form of companion planting, plenty of companion plants help the soil retain moisture for longer periods. You can find guides to companion planting, which include when to plant different groups of crops and what advantages each element adds to the garden system.
Rain Harvesting
When it rains, your garden gets a free, sustainable drink — and what’s more, rainwater’s softness and neutral pH is healthier for plants than water from your tap.
You should try to trap as much rainwater as possible to disperse onto your garden instead of relying on more expensive and less sustainable city water. Rain barrels come in a range of sizes to suit your gardening space.
Using Gray Water
White water is clean from the tap; black water contains human waste, and gray water is lightly used water from sinks and appliances. Often, gray water contains traces of food, grease, dirt and cleaning products, making it unsuitable for you to drink, but your garden will gladly soak up gray water and make good use of it.
Typically, gray water goes into the sewer (or your septic tank) as waste, but if you can install a gray water system in your house, you can make twice as much use of your water, thereby conserving it.
There are several things you can do to reduce the environmental impact of your garden and make it a truly green space. By adhering to these two big Cs of sustainable gardening, you are taking major steps toward making your lifestyle fully eco-friendly.
Wrapping Up Our Eco Friendly Gardening Guide
Whether you are looking to install a swimming pool, a water room, a swim-up bar, or something different in your backyard, you can prepare it in such a way as to make it environmentally friendly.
You can plan your environmentally friendly landscaping design using ingredients that you may never have thought of when you want to design a plan for your backyard or garden.
Hopefully, the above-mentioned landscaping concepts will provide you with something useful to consider and get you started with your eco friendly gardening.
Add your first comment to this post