10 Ways I Can Help You To Green Your Yard
| Cardinal flower attracts hummingbirds. |
1. GROW YOUR OWN FOOD - By using fruits, vegetables, and herbs in your landscape, you reduce the need for long-distance transport to bring your food. Produce is fresher, tastier, and pays you back in reduced grocery bills. Many edible plants are ornamental. Plus, it's just plain satisfying to eat food you grew yourself!
2. AVOID CHEMICAL FERTILIZERS AND PESTICIDES - Many of these toxic chemicals wash into our local streams, and they can be dangerous to your family and your pets. By following several of these other actions, such as using native or non-invasive plants resistant to pests and disease and enriching your soil with compost, you can avoid the need for chemicals.
3. USE PLANTS NATIVE TO THE AREA - Plants that existed before Europeans arrived have evolved to be in balance with our climate and wildlife. Once established, appropriately sited native plants need little maintenance and are drought and pest tolerant.
4. REMOVE INVASIVE NON-NATIVE PLANTS - Many plants from Asia and other continents have become invasive in our area, causing habitat loss by out-competing the plants that belong in our local ecosystem.
5. REDUCE YOUR LAWN - Lawns encourage eco-unfriendly practices such as mowing, leaf blowing, fertilizing, and irrigation -- and they take a lot of time to maintain. If every U.S. household replaced just one square yard of lawn with alternative plantings, we could create 10,000 acres of wildlife habitat and eliminate 1.2 million hours of lawnmowing.
| Swamp milkweed is a beautiful raingarden plant that supports monarch butterflies. |
6. REDUCE WATERING - By using rainbarrels, soaker hoses, mulching, and drought-resistant native plants, you can drastically cut your water bill and conserve a precious resource.
7. CREATE A RAIN GARDEN - A significant portion of pollution in our waterways comes from water running down storm drains and crashing into rivers -- gouging the banks and dumping sediment, trash, and pollutants. By channelling water from your roof into raingardens supporting a beautiful array of native plants, you help improve water quality, and slowly recharge groundwater.
8. USE LOCAL, RECYCLED YARD WASTE FOR MULCH - Every year, your neighbors rake away mounds of leaves. Takoma Park collects them and makes them into a high-quality mulch available year-round. Leaf-based mulch not only looks good, but it improves your soil as it breaks down -- which is why Brookside Gardens uses it in most of their garden beds.
| Blueberries are tasty and attractive plants. |
9. COMPOST YARD AND KITCHEN WASTE - Composting both reduces waste and creates excellent soil conditioner. Try composting your own leaves and yard waste in the backyard before hauling it out to the curb -- you'll eliminate the energy use of hauling it away and before long you'll have rich, organic fertilizer for your yard.
10. CREATE WILDLIFE HABITAT - As sprawl replaces native habitat with lawns, buildings, and pavement, our local wildlife suffers. You can attract a variety of songbirds, butterflies, and other animals to your yard by planting a diversity of native plants that provide seeds, fruit, nectar, and shelter. Adding a birdbath or other water feature rounds out the habitat.
BONUS: GARDEN WITH KIDS - Better yet, give them their own plot to grow flowers or food. You'll connect the next generation to the earth and can enjoy their sense of wonder at the mystery of how things grow.