As The Snow Flies Around You, Isn’t It Time To Plan An Earth-Friendly Yard For Summer 2024? – CleanTechnica

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If you’re in one of the northeast US states today, you’re shoveling out from an old-fashioned, major winter snowstorm. It’s easy to get discouraged by wet gloves with a slight doggy smell, the stitch in your back from lifting the heavy snow, or the swirling mud beneath the hard pack. It’s time to get back indoors, perk a hot cup of coffee, and pull out the seed catalogs. You can make a resolution: This year, as the spring’s first blooms emerge, you’ll design an earth-friendly yard.

In the US, more than 40 million acres of land are covered in grass, a monoculture that destroys terrestrial ecosystem health. Grass requires more labor, fuel, toxins, and equipment than industrial farming. Ecosystems need to function as an interactive whole in parks, preserves, and, yes, yards; however, people in the US have transformed 95% of the natural landscapes in the country.

Only about 13% of the US is protected to sustain wildlife. Around half the lower 48 states are now built structures: cities, streets, airports, shopping centers. Such habitats are silos, existing separate from the living world, and agriculture comprises the other half. Your control of the built environment is limited to your voting patterns, to a certain degree — your elected officials give nods to permits to build, or conserve, or compromise. But you can look outside your window and think transformation. Nowadays, more and more lawns are seen as being strictly nonfunctional and stylistic. They’re becoming an anachronism, something our grandchildren will tell their grandchildren about as a misty memory.

Growing an earth-friendly yard eliminates the need for chemical fertilizers, improves soil quality, and prevents erosion – all while creating a native habitat for the birds and the bees. You can take this soggy post-snowstorm day to envision your green space as an earth-friendly yard. It’s not as dramatic as it sounds, and you’ll be so proud of the end result. That’s because you’ll be restoring 4 ecological functions that healthy landscapes perform:

1. nourishing the food web;
2. supplying clean water;
3. pulling carbon out of the air; and,
4. feeding and sheltering native insects and pollinators.

Lawns, which are monocultures, perform none of these functions of a healthy landscape. Instead turn your green space into a native ecological sanctuary.

Why do We Need to Design Earth-Friendly Yards?

In this new era of climate consciousness, no longer is a lush lawn mandatory. You can convert that cultural status symbol into the best yard on the block — even without green grass. Your small plot is part of a food chain and has consequences for pollinators. Yet typical lawn seed in the US is non-native to North America. That means it doesn’t support the robust, varying life needed for a healthy ecosystem. Your green lawn kills the habitats of native plants and insects, extinguishing your yard’s biodiversity.

Insects evolved over millions of years to feast on hundreds of regional native plants, and some require a single endemic plant species. The turf and ornamental plants you’ll find in your outdoor space once the snow melts don’t provide any of the sustenance these insect-pollinators need. To make native landscapes acceptable, we need to combine human aesthetics with ecological imperatives.

Think of your lawn as a blank canvas. As an earth-friendly yard designer, you’ll build in maximum plant diversity. You’ll select individual plants that will grow in carefully designed partnerships, in new plant communities. You’ll create a savanna-like feel, with woody plants spaced farther apart than those in overstuffed foundation plantings. In fact, because a drought resistant yard is now quite relevant to today’s changing climate, your eco-friendly landscape will thrive in low water, fertilizer, and maintenance.

Hints for your Redesigned Earth-Friendly Yard

What would the US look like if lawns and yards were converted to homegrown national parks? They would range in size from tiny city plots to corporate campuses. A Washington Post article offers hints for creating an earth-friendly yard so that you prioritize natives and avoid invasives. Native trees and plants provide habitat for and attract birds, butterflies, and other beneficial local wildlife, and are acclimated to local rainfall amounts and climate. Once established, native plants require very little maintenance because they are naturally resistant to local pests and disease. Because they do not need fertilizers, pesticides, or supplemental watering, they are easy and inexpensive to maintain and are environmentally friendly.

These natives can be keystone species that feed the food web. As you design your earth-friendly yard, leave areas under trees and shrubs with leaves, logs, or small native seedlings as caterpillar habitat.

Ecowatch suggests infusing ground cover plants, which provide an alternative to turf but eliminate the need for mowing and still deliver that traditional rich green.

“Think clover, creeping jenny, barberry cotoneaster, Corsican mint, and creeping herbs like thyme and oregano require very little maintenance; clover especially needs little attention once it’s established, suppresses weeds, and has a deep root system that aerates the soil. Flowering perennial ground cover species – like sweet woodruff, liriope, and horned violets – bring a dash of color to your yard and often do well in shaded areas, as do many kinds of moss. Species of native ornamental grass thrive in different ranges of light, moisture, and soil, giving you plenty of options for your space.”

You can terrace a steep slope into sections of flat, planted areas. They allow rainwater to soak into the beds instead of allowing it to flow down the slope.

Harvest rainwater for your plant, flower, and vegetable gardens. Instead of using a hose all the time, you can capture stormwater runoff from roofs and gutters– that helps reroute pollution from entering the water supply. Choose among rain barrels, cisterns, or rain chains.

Delete “weed and feed,” quick-release fertilizers and herbicides — they strip the soil of its nutrients and promote lawn disease. Instead, opt for organic fertilizer yet, add compost and organic matter into your soil, aerate regularly, and incorporate moss and ground cover into your lawn. Compost reduces the amount of garbage you produce and also has the result of natural, free fertilizer.

Move into Integrated Pest Management (IPM) instead, which controls unwanted pests in a way that is both sustainable and safe. You’ll be removing weeds and insects by hand as often as possible. Utilize natural insecticides such as insecticidal soaps and oil sprays for mites, aphids, and mealybugs, and milky spore bacteria for grubs.

Once you reimagine your yard, the fume-spitting garden equipment you’ve used for years may no longer seem appropriate. Indeed, the movement to switch to zero emissions lawn equipment is strong. What were largely dependable lawnmowers and leafblowers you’ve cycled through over the years are polluting the environment. Options are available that will not only be sustainable but are also super cool and high tech, so you’ll feel like you’re gaining rather than losing out when you make the move to all-electric lawn gadgets.

Be a clandestine gardener by spreading seeds in an unloved space for an instant flower garden. Throw a few “seed bombs” on bare ground, water, and walk away. Blooms can emerge on sidewalk on back alleys.

Consider joining in Homegrown National Park, where you can see the states with the most earth-friendly yards — and add yours to it.