Eco Design Standards and the Middle Road

22. June 2008 by admin.

At a recent conference, I was speaking with a friend in the lawncare industry (ancient enemy of all eco-friendly) who also has a PHD in agronomy. I had asked him how he got into the lawncare business with his PHD and farm background. He proceeded to tell me all about the merits of traditional composting, and how he had come across a technique that married the best of old world composting and crop rotation with the use of chemical fertilizers.

Now I happen to trust this fellow, I did mention I consider him a friend, and I dont have many of those nor do I use the term lightly. It was that relationship that preserved me from my standard knee jerk eco-friendly reaction which is the solid belief that anything chemical is evil, and that chemically produced nitrogen kills live topsoil.

So it was gently explained to me that a) only certain kinds of chemically produced nitrogen have this effect, b) how much nitrogen is applied makes a huge difference regardless of the type, and c) chemically produced nitrogen in the right quantities introduced at the right time in the composting process will actually jump start the composting process and biological agents will thrive under these conditions.

Now if you consider what happens when any organic material is laid down on top of live topsoil, we all agree, chemical advocates and organic advocates, that mulch for example, will actually pull nitrogen from the soil to begin its composting process. The mulch pulls available nitrogen, nitrogen already processed and absorbable, and does not care whether this nitrogen came from an organism, or a factory. This would prove the argument conceptually at least.

Regardless of whether you agree with the example or not, the point is, that we in the eco-friendly/sustainable landscape world have a tendency to believe all that is old school is good and that all western produced chemicals and techniques must be bad. Is it possible, that there is a middle road here? Could it be that there is use and strength in western science that we are ignoring?

We in the sustainable landscape movement need to get deeper into testing and proving what we claim, otherwise we are reduced to using home remedies vs. cutting edge. If you go to less developed nations, and someone has a toothache, they are walking around with a big rag wrapped around their head with some herb laden poultice against their face while their teeth are rotting out. Here in the United States, even the most eco-conscious individuals accept having cavities cleaned out and filled, being injected with novacaine, laughing gas, whatever. We blindly accept it because the prospect of having our teeth rotting out is not a pleasant one, and these techniques are proven.

What do we want in our landscape design and practices? home remedies that may work (or may not) or scientifically grounded technique? Do we want to practice mythology or fact?

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Whose Designing Your garden?

26. May 2008 by admin.

Getting Help With your Landscape
Richard Heller, CLP, CLTDuring a design consultation, I asked a client how they selected their landscape gardener. “He’s very honest” she told me, “ and he’s reliable, he comes every week and cuts the grass”. That sentiment is very common, and though honesty and reliability are important qualifications for any contractor, a little knowledge and expertise are helpful as well. This particular individual had been caring for a lawn that was all weeds and it was evident that despite his reliability and honesty, he was doing little to build the soil, and remove the weeds.When selecting landscape help, consider what your needs are first. The landscape industry is divided into three basic categories, and though there is often overlap between the areas of specialization, for the most part, quality landscapers operate within specialized niches. These are lawn care,  landscape maintenance, and landscape design and build. Often, landscape companies will perform well in two of these areas well, but rarely all three.Distinguishing between landscape contractors can be difficult. Price and location are often the motivators for many people’s choices, and this can be a mistake. First, you want to know what perspective landscapers do best. If they say “everything” doubt it immediately. There are very few landscape companies on the face of the earth, much less in

Westchester that do everything well. Do they have clients who recommend them? Pictures of their work? What is their training? Certification? Association affiliations? How long have they been in business? Are they insured? Registered  with the county? Do they soil test? 

Qualified landscapers will have positive answers to all these questions. Landscapers who are members of associations, have some landscape education,  and have attained some level of certification, are registered and insured, will also tend to be honest, reliable and knowledgeable. These are individuals and companies that have proven their commitment to the industry and have proven their integrity.

If your not sure where to find qualified individuals, contact the Plant Landacare Network or PLANET, which is the national association of landscape and lawncare professionals. They have thousands of landscapers listed on their web site along with information regarding their areas of specialization, certifications, and the PLANET website can be searched by city and state at www.landcarenetwork.org. Also  try the New York State Turf and Landscape Association at www.nystla.com. The NYSTLA will  have listings of companies that are certified organic lawncare specialists. 

 

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Sustainable?

18. May 2008 by admin.

One of the reasons we at Greener by Design have slowly wiped the word sustainable out of our vocabulary, is that this word takes on a completely different meaning in the garden. The word sustainable in association with technology implies technologies that are minimally damaging, if not supportive, of the environment. Landscapes, on the other hand, are of nature. Yes, there are invasive plants and non-natives etc. but left on its own, ecosystems adapt, while the damage done by technology is much harder to cope with. Because landscapes are “green” by definition, sustainable comes to imply something more. “Sustainable” landscapes would tend to themselves more or less, with minimal intervention by man if any.

 

Sidestepping the invasive plant issue, let’s focus for a moment on what a sustainable landscape would look like; a sustainable landscape, would be one that would support the local ecosystem, adapt to available light, water, and soil conditions, and whose plants reproduce and replace themselves. It would by definition be sustaining itself. In fact, every ecosystem in the world has or had sustainable landscapes before to much human interaction.

 

 Considered in that context, the gardens of man are sheer arrogance and waste. Our gardens require constant maintenance and care, regular interventions in the form of feeding the soil, providing water, pruning and cleaning. Many of the materials we use are not hardy and could never survive in the climates we plant them in without human intervention. Worse yet, the invasive plant issue, pesticides in the ecosystem, fertilizer in our waterways, these are all the result of our ignorant efforts to sustain our gardens and create spaces that are unique to who we are.

 

Given that perspective, in order to be a landscape professional, one by implication would have to be very arrogant. Though there may be some truth to that view point, most landscape professionals revere nature and the diversity of plant material within nature. Though are landscapes may not be sustainable, they can be environmental enhancements that not only beautify, but soften the impact people have on the environment. Greenroofs for example, are a fabrication of man, taking plants and growing them over rooftops as a living roof cover. Fabrication or no, they contribute to bio-diversity, save energy, reduce stormwater runoff. Basically, they mitigate a good deal of the problems created by removing all those trees and plants that were sustaining themselves, and slapping a building in their place.

 

Greenroofs, organic garden practices, utilizing natives, banning invasives, recycling rainwater, utilizing drip irrigation, these are eco-friendly, if not sustainable practices and so we toss out sustainable when talking about landscapes and focus on eco-friendly.

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How Do You Balance Budget & Vision?

11. May 2008 by admin.

The smaller the project, the harder it is to balance vision and budget. This is due to how difficult it is to make a small space work without spending a little more, the budget a client has in mind for this space, and the difficulty of bringing architectural elements in harmony with the taste of the client. Once you throw in environmental concerns, local materials, FSC certified woods, the little details that make a garden go from average to really interesting, the price per square foot can go way beyond what the client ever hoped for, and actually much higher per square foot than a larger space..

 In the end, it always comes down to the value the client feels they are getting. If the client buys into the design and falls in love with it, they will find ways to make a higher budget work. This always starts with prioritizing the structural elements of the garden; Deck/hardscape, Pergolas or Gazebos, planter boxes plant materials and furniture.

Starting from the ground up is the wisest choice, however, often clients lose sight of the fact that treating the “ground” with detail and interest before anything else is really vital to the process. Most folks want a garden now, not a finished patio/deck/groundcover area. Once the “ground” is handled, whether it be patio, decking, or plantings is established one has a firm base to build on.

 

Structural elements like pergolas, arbors, and trees would be next, Irrigation and the basis for lighting would be followed by shrubs, perennials, garden ornaments, water features and finally annuals and pots would fall on the end of the list.

Of course some of these elements can be interchangeable, but always think structure first, detail second. In breaking the basic elements of a garden down into pieces, the budget can be more manageable and spread over years.

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Grouping Plants by Need

27. April 2008 by admin.

One of the four legs of a healthy garden is the availability of water. In nature, ecosystems and plant life evolve around the availability of water and the ability of the soil to retain moisture. Trees shrubs and wildflowers actually assist in water retention by providing organic material (in the form of dead leaves and branches) to compost, nurture the soil, and the plants. Clearly a component of moisture retention is the presence of organic material, and another component is how much water actually lands on the ground. In nature, plants don’t survive that can’t live with what’s available. Most American gardens are not designed with available rainfall in mind and require supplemental water. It is the varied needs of the plants we yearn for, and our lack of awareness of these needs that lead to much of the disease and loss of plants in our garden spaces.

   Every plant evolves in a unique ecosystem comprised of, amongst other thing, specific soils, water availability, humidity, light, and air. Soils can vary tremendously from one location to the next in the ratio of sand, clay, stone, organic material, humus (topsoil), level of acidity, levels of phosphorous, nitrogen, potassium, and trace minerals and elements. The make up of the soil, and the topography of the land, severely impacts moisture retention, and where water goes when it lands. Knowing the needs of the plant material you are working with, and amending the soil to the needs of the plant are the first steps to making sure the plants needs are met. Grouping plants by soil preferences would be the next, for example, acid lovers with their own kind, wetland plants together, drought tolerant plants in another group, always with consideration for light needs of course.

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The Right Plant in the Right Place

21. April 2008 by admin.

    When selecting plants for a garden space, the conditions of the garden have priority over any other consideration. Though this may sound backwards in a culture based around “I want what I want when I want it”, it makes perfect sense when put in context. An extreme and perhaps obvious example:  I may want an orange grove, but if I live in New York City, unless I have the space and am willing to employ the tactics of Louis the Fourteenth, bringing the trees into an arboretum every winter, I just don’t have the weather conditions to make that happen. Therefore, most garden design will be predicated on existing conditions and whatever we can do to influence the so that the plants we select will thrive. If we want a chemical free garden, and save the expense of constantly replacing fading plant material, the plants must thrive.

   The basic conditions to be monitored to sustain plant material are water, soil, light and air. The two elements we have the most influence over are soil and water. Light and air not so much, though global warming may be evidence to the contrary on a wide scale. The primary test of any landscape designer, landscape architect or landscape maintenance company is whether they bother to soil test. Any designer who does not consider existing soil conditions and moisture is not worth their salt. For that matter any lawn care, or landscape maintenance company that does not soil test at least once a year should be replaced immediately. Amending soil without testing is like a nutritionist recommending a diet without exploring what a person eats and what their physical condition is.

  Once you have an assessment of soil and moisture conditions, you have the basis for plant consideration. The next priority is what do you want? Presumably, anyone reading this text will have environmental considerations near the top of the list. Minimal, water efficient plants or even xeriscaping may be next, and certainly the inclusion of native plants if not a completely designing with natives will be high on the list, as local ecosystems have been built on and are sustained by, the presence of native plants.

  If you must have a lawn, try to keep it simple and restricted to where it actually will be used by children and visitors. Large areas that had been dedicated to lawns in the past are better served by native wildflower collections from an aesthetic and environmental stance. The sheer energy it takes to care for lawns make them undesirable from an environmental stance

  The look of the garden to some extent will be determined by the architecture of the home, and whether the home is in an urban, suburban, or country setting-the surroundings will determine what kind of transitions the garden space will need to make to “belong” or look like it fits in. Again, there may be limits to what you can have versus what you want. If you live in a cold climate and want a tropical look, you will be working hard (like Louis the Fourteenth and his ilk) to get it, and the energy and effort the garden will need to be sustained.

  Soil can and should be amended organically to help sustain the plants, and irrigation and drainage adjusted to this end as well. Water can and should be recycled from rooftops, impermeable surfaces, and grey water either into the garden, back into the home, or both as water is and will be a more precious commodity.

 

 

   

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Why is it so Important to Have a Master Plan?

13. April 2008 by admin.

     As long as people have been creating, there has been a debate regarding whether spaces should be designed intuitively or with a master plan in mind.  The beauty of the intuitive, do what feels good kind of creating, is  you just do it and because it is a creative process, you the creator are mostly happy with it until you outgrow it. However, some of the most lasting creations architecturally and in landscaping, were not created with this approach as the basis. Almost all great gardens and spaces were at least structurally laid out with great forethought and planning.

    If a space is to take all the varying needs of the surrounding architecture, the preferences of the user(s), efficiency of execution (and therefore lower cost), the needs of the ecosystem and the need to have as minimal negative impact as possible, than balancing these varying needs will require a great deal of thought and planning.

    A real life example; a home that has an existing garden and layout that worked for the client for years needed to be redesigned.  The whole property needed to be more usable by creating a unique play space for a five year old, an enlarged outdoor living room in which to entertain, and a dog run with in ground composting for dog waste. On the eco-friendly side, the property needed rainwater recycling added to an existing irrigation system, a space for kitchen composting that won’t be vermin ridden, and the property needed to be made safer through the removal of some poorly rooted trees.  Of course, all this had to be done within a limited budget and without ripping up to much of what is already on site.

       Though it would be possible to execute this project piecemeal, without a long term plan, it could not be done efficiently and within budget. The trees were in tough locations that needed to be accessed with a cherry picker, the property was only a third of an acre. The need to locate the tanks for rainwater storage, deal with the dogs, and get the play area built before the child grew up all demanded at least an understanding of how the different “rooms” would relate to each other once completed if not taking care of the high priority work first.

    Very much like decorating the interior of a house, the place for intuitive creativity comes in the details of each room once the boundaries and priorities have been defined. As the spaces come together, this is where the designer (and the client) can really have some fun, and get out of their heads a little. Each room can be redesigned once the structure is in place as well, and the garden spaces will hold to the eco-sensitive and architecturally sensitive principles that were behind the original layout.

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Designing With Native Plants

8. April 2008 by admin.

    Every ecosystem is built around plants, animals, and insects that have been a part of that eco-system for centuries. Central to the ecosystem concept is the idea that living organisms are continually engaged in a set of relationships with every other element constituting the environment in which they exist. Enter man, shaping and changing his environment as he deems it best.

   Every ecosystem where man is “dominant”, is essentially out of balance and our gardens are no exception. We bring in exotic plants from similar climates but that have different ecosystems and displace the plants around which beneficial insects, birds, and animals have been dependent  since before western man came to  North America.

  Many environmentalists advocate for the complete restoration of the ecosystem by switching  almost exclusively to native plants, a strategy that conceptually has merit, but in practice is doomed. The truth is that with pollution, hi foot traffic, and  the presence of roads-impermeable surfaces- everywhere in urban and suburban environments, not every space is ideal for natives any more. For example, while native plants may thrive in a garden  or woodland environment, they wont necessarily do as well in busy, highly trafficked streets (though there will be exceptions)

   There is room for native plants in our gardens, and if we want healthy gardens with minimal chemical intervention, we will use them. They are the lifeblood of the animals and insects that are natural controls to the insects and diseases that feed on our imported plants of which we are so fond.

   One of the easiest ways to re-introduce natives is to replace lawn areas that are rarely walked on with native wildflower mixes. Removing  a few hundred, or even a few thousand square feet of lawn and replacing it with wildflowers will do wonders in restoring a habitat that is friendly to the local ecosystem. Other ways are to pepper natives into your perennial beds, to plant native fruit bearing trees and shrubs like Amelanchier , native winterberry, and sapphireberry, that  are tough and will feed local birds.

     To learn more about natives plants in New York, where to buy them and how to care for them, visit the native plant center at Westchester Community College or go   their site http://www.nativeplantcenter.org/

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What Size Should My Lawn Be?

30. March 2008 by admin.

Assuming you have had your soil tested already and have some idea of the content, early spring is the time to reconsider you garden layout and how you want to use it. Getting back to the top ten eco-friendly garden practices so popular on the internet and in garden magazines, there are a couple of simple suggestions that are the proverbial “no brainer”.  One is to reduce your lawn size wherever possible.

Lawns are the highest maintenance areas of any garden. Some environmentalists advocate for the complete removal of the lawn as it is completely a fabrication of man and very labor and water, and often chemical intensive. The truth is, the lawn is about as American as Apple pie. We all love lawns, we like to play on them, care for them, many folks take pride in them. The compromise is to reduce your lawn to a more manageable size. Do this by expanding, or adding perennial beds  and groundcover areas while  reducing your lawn to a size that still allows enjoyment but does not dominate your landscape maintenance budget.

Like most eco-friendly practices, the prime motivator for many of us is budget. So consider this. If you are spending $ 100.00 a month on a lawn care service, you are also spending approximately $ 75.00 a month from Mid April through Mid October (for between 1500-2000 square feet) that’s about a dollar a foot per six months of the year or over two thousand dollars a year. That does not cover lawn aeration, replacement of sod areas, or fertilization and pest treatment generally. That price is for cut and trim services only. You can cut this down to five hundred dollars a year (saving $ 1500.00) in maintenance and water or less depending on what you choose to replace some of your lawn areas with and get greater texture, color and interest for your money.

In my own garden, we have carved our lawn down to about five hundred square feet from one thousand. Our garden now uses forty percent less water (lawns get very thirsty) and I spend half the time caring for the lawn than I would were it larger. The first place to look to replace lawns are steeply sloped areas, and around trees and shrubs. Sloped areas are dangerous to maintain with a mower (and therefore costlier). Caring for the lawn around trees and shrubs often leads to mechanical damage to the plant material (which eventually kills them costing you money). Also eliminate lawns in areas seldom frequented around the house. It’s just not worth it to spend money caring for areas you don’t use, plus there are water savings to be had particularly if you are replacing low use lawn areas with draught tolerant natives.

Wasteful lawn areas are usually on the side of the house, the perimeter in front of hedges or fences, transitions from shrub areas to sod, and even the front of the house facing the street. Alternatives can be groundcovers and perennial beds which though they cost more to establish initially, are low or no maintenance over years. If you are working with a lawn care professional, they may not be to terribly helpful in this regard, as they make their money caring for your lawn and charge by the square foot. Depending on your garden knowledge, you may want to consult with a landscape designer or architect in terms of best plants to replace your non-essential lawn areas.

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What Is an Eco-Friendly Garden?

29. March 2008 by admin.

       Garden spaces are in and of themselves green and beneficial in the sense that a lawn is better than a parking lot  in terms of dealing with stormwater issues, sequestering carbon, creating a habitat for animals and insects, as well as a place for kids and their families to play. Green spaces and gardens lower the temperature versus impermeable surfaces like parking lot black top as well as just being prettier. However, critics of lawns and landscape maintenance will generally site the use of chemicals and the noise and air pollution created by mowers and leaf blowers. They will rightly point out that lawns and gardens often replace native plants that the members of the local ecosystem depend on to feed and reproduce. Logically then, a  more ecologically friendly (greener) landscape must address these issues at least in part.

  To look at someone with a chemically treated lawn and tell them they are environmental criminals is basically the pot calling the kettle black. If you live in 21^st century technological society, you participate in the daily desecration of the planet no matter how environmentally sound your at home practices may be. True, the chemical user can do better, but so can we all .   

    An eco-friendly garden not only has minimal negative impact on the local ecology and the environment, but even sustains and nurtures it. It is a garden that diminishes the impact of your homes architecture whether that  be a hobbit house or an apartment complex. It is a space the nurtures local flora and fauna as well as your soul. It is designed so that it has native plants in it, so that it uses water minimally, or even re-uses water that has runoff of impermeable surfaces like rooftops  and driveways. Maybe it re-uses grey water from your sinks, baths, dishwasher, etc. It might reduce or even eliminate lawn space depending on your needs and preferences. The maintenance and care of a greener garden will use electric, bio-diesel,  or some other form of low or no polluting equipment-maybe even hand tools. It will recycle organic waste as much as possible. It may have a kitchen garden, or a greenroof. It will be planted with the plants that can thrive in the conditions available so that the need to treat disease and insects will be reduced if not eliminated. It will use organically produced fertilizers over chemicals where ever possible. It will serve the needs of both people and the planet for they are in truth, one and the same.

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