Environmental Friendly Gardening

September 18, 2008

One of the reasons gardening has started to become so popular in recent years is because people are becoming more aware of problems with our environment. And many are concerned with the overuse of harsh chemicals, pesticides, and other things which are harmful not only to the environment, but to human beings as well.

So not only is gardening becoming popular by itself, but “green” gardening - or environmentally friendly gardening - is one of the primary goals for most hobby and home gardeners.

Now of course the most obvious first step involved with environmentally friendly gardening is to stop using dangerous chemicals for controlling pests, reducing weeds, and fertilizing grass, trees, bushes, food, and flowers. Since many people have grown up with these methods for gardening though, they’re not quite sure how to go about doing these standard chores in a more natural, earth and people friendly way.

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So here we’ll look at several basics:

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Garden Tip...

It is a mistake to crowd too many plants into a basket, if they grow they will soon become root-bound, stunted, and look sickly. If the hanging basket be of the ordinary size, one large and choice plant placed in the centre with a few graceful vines to droop over the edges, will have a better effect when established and growing, than if it were crowded with plants at the time of filling. Hanging baskets being constantly suspended, they are exposed to draughts of air from all sides, and the soil is soon dried out, hence careful watching is necessary in order to prevent the contents from becoming too dry. If the moss appears to be dry, take the basket down and dip it once or twice in a pail of water, this is better than sprinkling from a watering-pot. In filling hanging baskets, or vases of any kind, we invariably cover the surface of the soil with the same green moss used for lining, which, while it adds materially to the pleasing appearance of the whole, at the same time prevents the soil from drying out or becoming baked on the surface.
~ James Sheehan
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1. Composting. Composting is an all natural way to get rich, fertile soil for your flowers, trees, bushes, vegetables and fruits, lawn grass, and anything else you might want to grow naturally. Compost is basically what nature makes on it’s own, when no human interferance is involved. Leaves fall to the ground and slowly decompose. Animal droppings are left where they fall and these decompose too. The wind, rain, heat, and cold all work to mix these decomposing natural items together, and this eventually creates a rich, fertile soil base for new plants to grow in.

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Garden Tip...

There are a great variety of opinions as regards the most effective way of planting flower-beds. Some prefer to mix plants of different colors and varieties, others prefer the ribbon-style of planting, now so generally in use in Europe. If the promiscuous style is adopted, care should be taken to dispose the plants in the beds, so that the tallest will be at the back of the bed; if the leader is against a wall or background of shrubbery, the others should graduate to the front, according to the hight. In open beds, on the lawn, the tallest plants should be in the centre, the others grading down to the front, on all sides, interspersing the colors so as to form the most effective contrast in shades.
~ James Vick
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People create compost themselves, by simply recycling any organic materials from their home. These include fruit and vegetable scraps from the kitchen, used tea and coffee grounds, shredded paper, wood chips and fireplace ash, grass clippings, dead leaves, and any other natural organic material that is regularly found around the house.

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2. Companion Planting. Companion planting is a natural way to control many diseases, pests and bugs in your yard and garden. There are natural combinations of plants which, when planted in close proximity to each other, will naturally help repel standard pests or other common problems. Sometimes companion plants are used to simply improve the flavors of one or both vegetables when they’re planted close together, but companion planting is quite useful as a natural pest control method too, so it’s well worth learning as much as you can about.

3. Gray Water. Using gray water is an environmentally friendly gardening method, because it allows you to conserve the amount of water you’re using for your gardens and yard areas, instead of simply wasting it. Gray water is a form of recycling: You simply reroute certain drainage areas of your home into the yard and garden areas, so each time you shower for instance, or wash a load of cloths, instead of the water going into the sewer system it will instead be routed to your plants.