The eco-friendly lifestyle is growing out of the kitchen and the house and into the yard. If you go to the trouble of buying water-safe laundry detergent and reusable food storage containers, don’t resort to the usual environment damaging tactics for getting a beautiful landscape around your house. Too much refined fertilizer, overuse of pesticides, and destructive erosion control practices leave your lawn looking sad after a few decades too. Jump into the eco-focused trend in home landscaping to get an attractive yard without hurting the rest of the world.
Start with Safer Weed Control
Not only are herbicides hard on soil and water health, the residues can effect you and your family too. If you must resort to a chemical solution, try a pre-emergent treatment or selective formula that only damages the weeds instead of all types of plants. A better choice is a mixture based on citrus oils and liquid Castile soap, which breaks down the waxy coating on weeds and causes the plants to dry out and die. Of course, manual weeding by hand remains the most eco-friendly method.
Use Leftover Water
Tired of high water bills and watering restrictions leaving your landscape dry and dead? Try using water you already flush down the drain. Diverting a few pipes from your bathtub and washing machine let you spray that grey water all over your lawn, since a little soap residue or clothing lint won’t hurt your favorite plants. If plumbing changes are out of the budget or more complicated than you want to deal with, set up a rainwater catchment system instead. A tank that connects to your existing gutters allows you to collect hundreds of gallons of rain per month, which is likely enough to keep the entire landscape water when you choose plants suited to your area.
Swap High-Maintenance Plants for Tougher Ones
An environmentally sound landscape starts with the right plants. When you stick an exotic plant in the ground that needs three times as much water as you receive in annual rainfall, you’re making a commitment to unsustainable practices. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that all tough plants look barren and plain. Some of the showiest flowers, most shade producing trees, and best privacy hedges need surprisingly little help to grow well. Why struggle with a plant that is meant to grow in the opposite climate when you could replace it with an equally beautiful showpiece that needs practically no attention at all?
Drop the Lawn
When it comes to landscaping while considering the environment, yards full of turf grass simply don’t fit. Lawns need a lot of water, fertilizer, and herbicide to stay thick and healthy. Swapping the turf grasses for native ones let you cover bare dirt without the hard work of keeping a lawn alive through the hottest and driest days of summer. Native grasses are also perfect for erosion control, and they work on unusually steep or unstable hillsides where mulch and nets of natural material simply slide off after each rain.
Save Energy Inside the House
A well-designed landscape does more than just enhance how your property looks. You can make the inside of your home more environmentally friendly by improving your yard. Add a couple of quick growing shade trees that won’t drop fruit or dangerous branches, then spend less on cooling during the summer. Install a hedge of evergreen bushes around the exposed side of your house to stop cold winter winds from sapping away heat. Even careful planting around the foundation can prevent a damp basement by absorbing the extra moisture after rain.
Transitioning a traditional resource-draining landscape into a more eco-friendly vision takes a lot of hard work and expertise. Turn to the team at Blooming Desert to enjoy a custom design that fits your desires for both a beautiful and sustainable yard that requires less upkeep.