Down to Earth

A few years ago, the National Wildlife Federation published a great article called “How Green is Your Garden?“, encouraging gardeners to consider the carbon footprint of their gardens. (Did you know a garden could even have a negative effect on the environment?) She offered six tips for reducing your garden’s carbon footprint, and I was inspired to spend some time examining those tips and deciding if they were too difficult for an average gardener to implement.

Below, you’ll find the six tips along with a brief summary of my thoughts on implementing these tips in an average garden. For a detailed look at each tip, click the links to read my original posts from 2009. Happy Earth Day!

********************************************************************************


Tip #1:
Reduce the size of your lawn. Better yet, consider eliminating it entirely.

There's definitely an initial investment of time in changing your water-hungry lawn to a greener garden. However, down the line, your payoff is very rewarding indeed! Our lawn maintenance is almost zero during the winter months, and during the summer months, it takes only 10 - 15 minutes a week. Take the time to do some up-front work, and reap the benefits in the long run.

Tip #2:
Use hand tools instead of power equipment.

Although tools like a classic reel mower may take a little more exercise and cause some Beaver Cleaver remarks from neighbors, today’s models are easy to maintain and operate. If you’ve reduced the size of your lawn as suggested in tip #1, then this tip becomes pretty easy to implement. Plus, hand tools like rakes are a heckuva lot cheaper than leaf blowers.

Tip #3:
Choose materials with low-embodied energy.

The most difficult part of this tip is probably the research involved. Just remember to consider the total amount of energy involved in manufacturing the materials and transporting them to your yard. Choose materials like wood or crushed shell over concrete bricks or solid cement. Ask questions to find out where and how materials are made, and choose locally when possible.

Tips #4 and 5:
Emphasize woody plants that capture more carbon than fleshy herbaceous species. Plant trees and shrubs where they will block winter winds and provide shade in summer.

The key here is to remember that “woody plants” doesn’t have to mean trees. In a small lot, you may not want to plant many more tall trees than you already have. However, you can choose shrubs or woody plants that provide the same benefits. Plan your plantings to help your house conserve energy, sit back, and enjoy! (Don't forget - you can get 10 free trees with an Arbor Day Foundation membership!)

Tip #6:
Minimize, or better yet eliminate, the use of fertilizers and pesticides on your property.

Most Florida-Friendly plants will need minimal fertilization to thrive in our sandy soil, but when fertilizers are necessary, choose natural over synthetic. Depending on where you live, these may not be available locally, involving a little more work combing the internet. As for pesticides – many of the bugs in your garden are beneficial. Fire Ants? Don’t get me started on Fire Ants. Try a natural killer and spot treat only when you find them rather than putting down a broadcast killer on a regular basis.

I Wish It Would Rain

It's a rare gloomy day in March here in Tampa, and although we've been teased on and off with a few drip-drops, it doesn't appear that we'll be getting any real rain anytime soon. Although this is to be expected (we're in the middle of the dry season - November through April), I can't help looking hopefully at the clouds above.

The Tampa area is in a pretty severe drought right now. Our reservoir is running dry and the latest word is that the desalination plant is facing some problems too. We really can't expect any meaningful rains until the tropical storm season begins - probably not until June. And that doesn't mean relief is necessarily on the way - last season our daily rains stopped about six weeks early, and we didn't get any of that beneficial Tropical Storm Fay rain that everyone else in the state got (too much of in some places!). I'm certainly not wishing for any Category 4 hurricanes this year, but I wouldn't mind if some nice tropical storms gave us lots of rain this summer.

In the meantime, the water supply is in danger and of course must be reserved for drinking and bathing, so gardeners take a pretty hard hit in return. Hillsborough County has some fairly steep restrictions in place, and in My Florida Backyard we follow them to the letter, and then some. We don't have much grass, and we expect it to be brown this time of year, so we don't use our sprinkler system at all. We restrict hand-watering to plants in pots or newly-established plantings, and we water those as minimally as possible. Of course, our established plants were selected specifically to make it through droughts like this one. In a future post, I'll detail the plants that have done the best during these "drying times".

And, for those rare occasions when we get a bit of rain, we've installed a rain barrel*.

There are a lot of great sites out there that provide info on obtaining and installing a rain barrel, so I'm not going to go into detail here. Instead, check out these links:

• USF Botanical Gardens - Making a Rain Barrel
• Hillsborough County - Attend a workshop, get a free rain barrel!
• HGTV - How to Build a Rain Barrel (video)

If making your own rain barrel seems like a lot of work, or if you want something a little classier than a spray-painted food-grade plastic drum, check out the many rain barrels available for purchase. Clean Air Gardening has a great selection, and Gardener's Supply Company offers some really nice ones, including my personal favorite and the one I wish I could have afforded. There are plenty of suppliers available - just Google "rain barrel" and see what comes up!

Now, as Homer Simpson says, "Here we go with the add-ons!". There are lots of rain barrel "accessories" out there, such as kits to connect rain barrels and products to keep the mosquitoes away. The only one we've invested in is the Garden Watersaver Downspout Attachment. Because of the way our downspouts are situated, we didn't have a great place to put a rain barrel where the downspout could drain directly into it. This is definitely the easiest (and least expensive) method, and I wish it could have worked for us. However, the downspout attachment is a great solution, and I can recommend it.

Of course, since we got around to installing the rain barrel, we've had exactly 2 rainstorms, each lasting less than 30 minutes, so we haven't gathered any great amounts yet. But I look forward to gathering plenty of free water over the summer for watering potted plants, and even one good rain between now and June would set me up for weeks. I encourage anyone living in a drought-prone area to consider making the small investment in a rain barrel to reap the rewards in your own backyard.

*Water collected in a rain barrel is not suitable for drinking or other human consumption. It should only be used for watering plants, lawns, etc.