I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that it will become increasingly fashionable, practical and accepted to do away with your perfectly coiffed green velvet, water-sucking, chemically dependent lawn…and replace it with…a vegetable garden!

I’m not saying the neighbors will rush into your newly composted, tomato and potato plot with tambourines or anything, just that they might not file a homeowner’s association complaint.

There are just too many trendsetters in this arena for the concept of literally laying down roots to not take hold.

Remember the Eat the View campaign? A modest kitchen gardener in Maine and his like-minded buddies pushed through a petition with some 100,000 signers convincing the Obamas to convert some turf to veggie gardening at the White House. The presidential garden, although still surrounded by fields of grass, has been warmly watched by veggie gardeners and struck just the right note in this year of economic hardship.

Even before that eco-event, artist and free-thinker Fritz Haeg, author of Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn was lapping the country, setting up demonstration projects and appealing to everyone to consider growing food instead of ornamental grasses that drink up valuable water.

Haeg is putting out a new edition of his book, by the way, and is seeking food-growing pioneers in Zones 3,4,5, and 9. Contact him and your garden may be featured in the 2010 edition of “Edible Estates.” Contact his assistant, Claire Zitzow, in Los Angeles (323-255-5998 or go through his website.)

For more on Haeg, who’s an artist who advocates “confrontations” with the status quo via gardening (as opposed to a gardener who sees artistry in plants), see our story about him during an appearance in Austin last year.

The lawn-seizing movement isn’t all about food. Many front yards, such as those with hot Western exposures or those with Northern orientations that lack the light for growing veggies, are better appointed with native shrubs and flowers. Native gardens not only conserve water, they lure pollinators, provide shelter for wildlife and can be sustained without chemicals.

The majority of landscapers are still wedded to installing ornamental non-native grasses and exotic blooming shrubs. (And no wonder, many homeowner’s associations require certain types of turf; not to mention our own entrenchment). But some designers are stepping out of the mold.

California landscaper Rama Nayeri, who has a degree in landscape architecture from California Polytechnic State University at Pomona, has been blogging about how to kill the grass. It ain’t easy. The blog features pictures of a project in Irvine by Nayeri’s Creations Landscape Design that shows less can be more when it comes to sacking the green carpet and going native. The result (see right) is lovely. No mowing required.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

New green homes can be awe-inspiring, both for their groundbreaking designs and their show of techno-muscle. Those tubular daylights, state-of-the-art solar panels, sleek recycled flooring, dehumidifying HVAC systems, complex gray water reclamation systems, louvered light “shelves” and heat-reflecting metal roofs can leave the common homeowner gaping — and wishing.

The truth is most of us won’t be building a brand new green castle, at least not anytime soon — and perhaps there’s something to be said for the alternative; let’s call it “greening in place”.

Almost any home can become more energy friendly, and this “in fill” project can occupy a very important spot in the urban landscape: your own lot!

We asked Anna Rosemann, owner of Eco/Consulting US in Los Angeles, to give us her list of things to consider when retrofitting your own precious casa.

First on Anna’s list is the Home Performance Test, which is where she and many other consultants start when asked to evaluate a property.  (This is similar to the energy audit conducted by HERS (Home Energy Rating Systems) experts, commonly used in the building industry.)

To Anna, who started Eco/Consulting US in 2006 after working several years in real estate development, this initial assessment is the equivalent of considering one’s location when buying a home. Her mantra, “Home Performance Test, Home Performance Test, Home Performance Test”, is a take on the Realtor’s maxim “Location, Location, Location”.

The test looks at a home’s energy systems, the insulation and the building envelope to identify potential leaks and inefficiencies. Most likely the house is not performing nearly as well as it could, says Rosemann, because “for a long time we were building houses as fast as we could and no one was really paying attention to how they were being built.”

In about 90 percent of the existing homes she’s evaluated, the house is insufficiently insulated. Using infrared equipment to check the walls, Eco/Consulting contractors typically find a wall cavity devoid of insulation. “It’s insane and crazy how many walls we see with zero insulation,” Rosemann says. In these cases, the fix might be a relatively affordable injection of eco-friendly cellulose insulation. But there are many other nips and tucks to consider within any given home.

Here is Rosemann’s list of factors to consider when contemplating a retrofit:

• Use recycled material whenever available. Increasingly there are companies that reclaim excess or used building materials that have wide reuse potential, such as doors and windows.

• The caulking gun. Rosemann calls it “the most high tech tool of this century” – meaning it can do powerful work.

• An on-demand tank-less water heater can serve as a backup to the solar hot water system in the coldest months.

• Recycled jean insulation. (For more info on insulation get advice from the Department of Energy.)
  

• Switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs. The savings is real: CFLs have a much longer life than other bulbs, use less energy and produce less heat. Changing five of the most frequently used bulbs in your home can save you $100 per year on electric bills.

• Program your thermostat and when you are at home, keep the thermostat at 78 F or higher in the summer and 62 F or lower in the winter. Programmable thermostats allow you to program the systems to reduce output when they are not needed, like when no one is home during the day or at night when everyone is sleeping.

• Plug air leaks. This simple step can go a long way toward keeping your home at the temperature you desire, saving money on heating and air conditioning bills and more. Common leaks occur around windows, doors and other wall penetrations. Plugging those leaks with weather stripping and caulk can be a simple task for anyone.

• Tune up your heating and cooling (HVAC) system. Have a checkup for your HVAC system every two years to make sure it is running efficiently. Be sure to clean the filter monthly during times of peak usage; a dirty filter can significantly reduce the system’s efficiency.

• Choose ENERGY STAR® appliances. ENERGY STAR®-qualified products meet a high level of energy efficiency, which can translate into savings on electric bills. So when it’s time to replace that old refrigerator, microwave, clothes washer or other appliance, remember that even if an ENERGY STAR appliance costs more, you could reduce your energy bill by $50 yearly for each appliance. Also, check with your electric utility – some offer incentives for replacing old appliances with more efficient ones.

• Explore solar. Photovoltaics – solar power technology that uses solar cells or solar photovoltaic arrays to convert light from the sun directly into electricity or heat – are increasingly available for residential use. Solar power can be harnessed to create electricity for your home, to heat water, and to improve indoor lighting.

• Reduce water use. Inside, install faucet aerators – available for a few dollars at your local home supply store – and change to low-flow showerheads. Outside, landscape with native plants and minimize high-maintenance landscaping such as turf grass.

• Use low-VOC products. Switch to products that don’t give off volatile organic compounds, or VOCs. Low- or no-VOC products greatly improve your indoor air quality and protect your health. Look for low-VOC paints and cleaning products, or you can make your own cleaning products using simple household materials like baking soda, vinegar and borax.

Many clients call wanting to look into solar panels, says Roseman. These callers envision glittering arrays on the roof that will help them cool down their energy costs. But she asks them to tick through a list of ground-level, and often more affordable changes, first. “People are quick to say, I want to be green, I want to put solar panels on my house, and that’s not the first thing I advise people to look at,” she says.

Rosemann, who’s taken green building courses offered by the US Green Building Council and is certified by California’s Build It Green, suggests many other solutions, from planting trees to shade a home to adding a water filtration system to remove the need for plastic water bottles or water services. Her Brentwood-based company handles commercial as well as residential projects from assessment to recommendations through project execution.

Hiring a consultant is sort of a luxury, she says, like hiring a designer. “But if you don’t have the time to research it all. We already have the knowledge and can tell you where you need to go.”

(Photo credits: Eco/Consulting, new home at 1309 Main St., Venice, Calif.; Anna Rosemann.)

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Bonnie Plants, which recently removed more than $1 million in tomato plants from retail nurseries in the Northeast, reported in a statement this week that the move was preventative and aimed at curtailing the spread of Late Blight.

The recall should not be taken as an indication that its plants were responsible for the blight that is threatening tomatoes and potatoes in the region, the company said.

The first reports of tomato blight in the Northeast came in late June, yet even two weeks later on July 7 government inspectors had not detected any blight among plants being cultivated by any of Bonnie’s 61 growers, Bonnie reported.

However, on that same day, five Bonnie tomato plants in a New Berlin NY greenhouse tested positive for the disease, eventually triggering Bonnie to recall tomato seedlings from stores in several states. Bonnie also took steps to spare that facility any further spread, according to the company news release.

The timing of the recall — coming just as the public was becoming aware of the blight — made it appear that Bonnie plants were somehow to blame. But, the well-known garden supplier maintains that its infected plants were more likely the victims of the blight, which had already been found in commercial fields.

Even though Bonnie could not be “justifiably targeted as the source for the recent Northeastern occurrence of Late Blight” it has “proactively, aggressively and responsibly” continued to monitor greenhouses, the release emphasized.

The recall of Bonnie plants has been reported in numerous news reports because the blight is so much worse this year than typically. It threatens the food supply of tomatoes, the livelihood of commercial growers and the success of home gardens, which are becoming more popular.

Dennis Thomas, general manager of Alabama-based Bonnie notes in the news release that Late Blight arises when the weather is cool and wet and there are host plants (tomatoes, potatoes and petunias) available.

Late Blight jumps from plants easily. Experts advise home growers to bag and dispose of any plants showing signs of Late Blight to rid the garden of the contagion.

For more information, see our story, Tomato plants going South up North, which includes links to websites that can help tomato cultivators identify blight and other diseases.

We’ve been looking at the parched parts of the yard and garden, and thinking about water, that precious commodity that’s been elusive in parts of the Southwest and over-abundant in the Northeast this year. You just can’t control rainfall. But you can capture it; direct it and supplement it with conservative watering strategies.

Here are some new (or newly revised) water-saving products for eco-minded veggie and flower gardeners.

• The Weed -Free Garden Watering Blanket by Evo Organic. This product performs as promised by providing a “blanket” that prevents weeds from overtaking your vegetable garden. We tried it out this spring and found that is was, indeed, a delight to not have to yank weeds. More importantly, an embedded drip irrigation hose sewn into the blanket served as a built-in watering system that kept watering to a minimum and helped prevent water loss to evaporation. This was the ingenious part, major water savings. Now for the downside: Rainfall hit the plants but ran off the blanket or remained on the surface of the blanket. So nature’s watering system was not as effective. The plants got a drink when it rained, via wet leaves, but the ground could not get a good soaking. Did some of the rain get through the blanket? We think so, but not to the degree we would have liked. The organic fertilizer that came with blanket kit ($69.95 MSRP) seemed to work just fine. The blanket and hose seemed durable enough for a few seasons. Still, those considering this product will have to decide how much relief they want from weed-pulling versus how much they want or need  their region’s natural rainfall.

• Here’s another drip line device, the generically named Green Vegetable Watering Kit as its called on the Home Depot website. You fill this device ahead of time and it releases the water very slowly, drip-watering a row of vegetables or herbs. It’s a neat idea, perfect for people on vacation or so busy they only want to think about watering the garden periodically. We’re not sure how this would hold up in a garden visited by aggressive little creatures or baked by a hot summer sun, and no one has reviewed it yet. It does look a little like something you could almost make yourself (except then it would certainly leak.) The price is reasonable enough ($19.99) to persuade some people to give it a try, people who’d rather come home to a garden salad than a garden demanding attention.

• We got pretty excited about this Waterstone Rain Barrel when we realized it could be used in places where neighbors might quibble with a big black plastic rain barrel (like the one we bought because its a recycled food container but had to hide behind a bush). Here is a device that exists to blend in. A spokesman for Emsco, the company that makes it, says sales are growing daily. Emsco offers other faux rock rain barrels as part of its “Rain Rescue” line, some in bigger sizes, as well as rocks for various garden uses. We like this one because it has a clear purpose, comes equipped with a diverter and hose, is made with 25 percent recycled resins and holds 40 gallons of rainwater — not bad for a rock. It’s also available at Home Depot ($99).

• We also were happy to find Algreen’s 81002 Agua Rain Water Collection and Storage System (who names these things?) This rain barrel looks like a large, nicely designed clay pot, something you might actually put out on the patio as decor. But it’s made of plastic, so it can hold rainwater. This one removes any aesthetic arguments against using a rain barrel that cranky neighbors might level at you. Now we’re past blending in, into standing out; but the functionality remains. This one also holds 50 gallons of rainwater and comes reasonably priced at Amazon (where it was $123 today). Amazon buyers give this this pot/barrel good reviews and vouch for it’s clay look “especially from a distance.” Some buyers did not like the “cheap hose” that came attached, and it doesn’t boast any recycled plastic (we’re also not sure how you get flowers to grow on top — maybe those are plastic too?). Still when you’ve got good looks…

• Even with the market bursting with all these innovative rain barrel reconfigurations, it’s nice to know you can still get a traditional-looking barrel. This Rain Wizard Rain Barrel (see, the names don’t seem to match the products at all) mimics a whiskey barrel and might look quite good with certain rustic architecture. It comes in four colors including a black that’s made from recycled plastic or a neighbor-pleasing oak or terra cotta. Sold by eco-retailer Abundant Earth, it holds 50 gallons, shimmies up against the foundation and has a screened top where the rain gutter is attached. (Letting the water get a little air can be a good thing.)

If it happens that a faux whiskey barrel doesn’t meld well with your modern suburban stucco home, there are a gazillion other new looks in rain barrels, as well as specially designed water collectors (collapsible, made to fit in a corner, flat-backed, brightly colored, not brightly colored). You can see a full range by The Find shopping search engine.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Las Vegas is hot and dry, as it should be, since it’s in the desert. Years of droughts in southern Nevada have emphasized the point.

The area usually only gets about 4″ of rain a year, anyway.

Despite that, the allure of Vegas has drawn an estimated 400,000 new residents since 2002. And then all those thousands of newcomers planted pretty lawns and lush landscaping.

Green lawns don’t belong in the desert. Keeping them green means a constant drain on southern Nevada’s precious and limited amount of water.

Today, even though the recession has halted Las Vegas’ population growth, the city still has more than 1.8 million residents, and 40 million visitors a year.

The source of all water in southern Nevada is Lake Mead, fed by the Colorado River. The lake’s water level has dropped dramatically in the last decade. In 2008, one report said, the water level of the 250-square-mile lake was 102 feet below its old waterline.

Fear that a large, heavily populated region of the United States could be without adequate water in the not-too-distant future has prompted swift and creative responses from the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

Ten years ago, they started the Water Smart Landscapes Rebate program, providing cash back to home and business owners who yank out their turf and replace it with native plants and water-saving landscaping.

Since it started , the authority says 130 million square feet of grass has been removed, and billions of gallons of water saved. An estimated $138 million in turf rebates have been paid out. One report said that between 2002 and 2007, even as Las Vegas’ population boomed, water use dropped by 15 billion gallons – an 18 percent decrease.

In that region, turning landscapes into low-water-use xeriscapes can save about 75 percent on the annual water bill, another report said.

The water authority pays $1.50 for every square foot of grass removed and replaced with native landscaping — up to the first 5,000 square feet. Hit the 5,000-square-foot mark and they’ll still keep paying, $1 a square foot up to a maximum of $300,000 a year.

Other cities in the dry southwest have implemented similar programs. Los Angeles’ Department of Water and Power started a program last month to pay single-family homeowners $1 for every square foot of grass they pull up and replace with drought-tolerant plants and permeable ground cover. The department will pay up to $2,000.

Twenty-nine cities within California’s East Bay Municipal Utility District (including Alameda, Berkeley and Oakland) can get 50 cents for every square foot of grass they replace, up to $1,000 to single-family residences.

Cities in Arizona, Mesa and Chandler, for example, also give cash back to those who replace grass with low-water plants.

Even though cash for grass programs are popping up in drought-ridden states across the country, they have a long way to go to match Las Vegas.

In addition to the grass payback, Southern Nevada’s water authority instituted a water-saving car wash program, providing coupons to car washes that either recycle their own water or send it to a treatment facility for recycling. Residents can get money back for buying a swimming pool cover (without it, the authority says, 10,000 to 15,000 gallons of water can evaporate from a pool). There are other programs, as well.

Other useful information from the water authority includes a step-by-step how-to video to go from grass to low-water landscaping.  There is a chart to show how much water can be saved by making the change, and a before-and-after photo gallery of beautiful landscape conversions.

Photos from Southern Nevada Water Authority, before and after photo gallery

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

If you are looking for native plants for your garden – truly native plants that belong by heritage in your region and state – we have found a bouquet of information.

Novices and master gardeners alike will find a bounty of advice at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center website, where they’ve cultivated the Native Plant Information Network, a listing of some 7,200-plus native plants that spans the United States.

Using the NPIN online map you can select your state and up pops a list of commercially available native plant species that are suitable for your area. This is so helpful because planting natives is a wonderful way to support not only a diversity of plant life, but in turn, a diversity of insect and wildlife and helps keep our local ecosystems robust. Native plants also are naturally adjusted to the local rainfall levels, so they help cut down on needless plant irrigation.

“It’s a bit of a niche,” says Damon Waitt, senior botanist at the Lady Bird Center. “But we’re pretty convinced that native plants are your best choice for the landscape in the garden. They don’t cost as much in water and maintenance, and they have ecological benefits, you don’t need to use copious fertilizers.”

And they help restore of a “sense of place” that provides a “human benefit,” too, he said.

Which is what the former first lady had in mind. Lady Bird, as you may know, was big on natural landscapes, and advocated letting wildflowers grow along highways instead of turning public byways into cultivated gardens. In the 1960s, she was ahead of her time. She and actress Helen Hayes formed the National Wildflower Research Center, later called The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, in 1982, to promote sustainable landscapes.

Knowing the Lady Bird Center, located in Austin and supported by the University of Texas, would be strong on Texas natives (155 results just for Central Texas), we hopped around the map to make sure it really is a national resource.

For California, we found 158 recommended plants for the Northern part of the state and 208 results for Southern California. In New York, 112 results, and similar long lists spanning the nation — from North Carolina (135 results) to Illinois (177 results) to Washington (218 results).

That seems like a pretty good selection for homeowners looking to diversity their home gardenscapes, so many of which are pre-stocked with non-native ornamentals and lack native variety, which means they don’t contribute to the local ecosystem the way natives can. (Birds eat native berries; butterflies seek specific blooms.)

Natives, which include dozens of prairie flowers and wild flowers from every corner of the U.S., have faced some resistance from home gardeners who fret that native gardens must be “messy” by nature, says Waitt. But native gardens can be neat, as home gardeners will discover once they realize the full palette available.

Commerical nurseries typically haven’t stocked a wide range of natives, but that is changing, he says, as more people convert their yards or portions of their garden to native flowers and plants.

Interest has been extremely high in the Native Plant Information Network, which began in the 1980s as a mailing clearinghouse operation. But since  launching online, it has a large following; thousands of viewers daily from around the globe. A companion information service, Ask Mr. Smarty Pants, receives thousands of questions daily, which are read and sorted by volunteers with selected queries being answered online by Wildflower Center experts.

“Usually once a person’s is converted,” Waitt said. “They’re converted for life.”

(Photos courtesy of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, credit for building photo: Bob Daemmrich.)

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

You want to go for it, but after paying for the Iraq War, the bank bailout and the stimulus packages you’re just plain tapped out. A new greener lifestyle with its eco-gadgets, shiny solar panels and breezy wind turbines sounds fun – and costly.

But wait. You don’t have to wait. Sure a lot of the new green foo-fahs are fashionable budget-busters.  But green can also be, well, cheap. In fact, it has its roots in cheap, having been born back when people in caftans tried living together in packs called communes while eating hummus because it was economical and efficient. That was back when lots of people got next to nature, without gadgetry, because, man, it was a beautiful thing. This was before “tree hugger” become a term of derision and students openly doodled rainbows and ecology symbols on their notebooks. Back then in the pre-iStuff period many people also eschewed excessive consumerism (and sometimes clothes, too, but let’s not go there today).

So green, the color of the American dollar notwithstanding, can be cheap, cheap, cheap. And as we re-new our green vows this Earth Day week, let’s count the ways we can penny-pinch a green path.

Let’s go green, for under $100.

The recent storms haven’t done enough to replenish the water supply in Santa Clara County, so the county is asking for more voluntary conservation. Now some businesses are taking the extra step of installing new technology to save water.

>> Read more

After nine years, Mary Bakatsa’s garden is bearing fruit…and vegetables…and flowers…and herbs. It is a chorus of life, and supports more activity than even Mary imagined when she started gardening nearly 20 years ago with a few potted herbs.

Along with her flowers and veggies, which grow side by side, she has intentionally and unintentionally created leafy havens for ladybugs, warm oases for garden snakes and food depots for butterflies and birds.

Her large Austin garden is a life force, a mini-ecosystem; a profusion of natural patter in the suburbs. It feeds her and her family with plenty leftover for neighbors and friends and looks and functions much like the cottage gardens of bygone times when people planted everything from potatoes to pansies in their kitchen yard. Today, we call it “companion planting”, and more and more people are coming to recognize the benefits of diverse, intermixed gardens as an effective method for producing quality food and flowers, organically.

MIX IT UP AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS

What Bakatsa discovered is that planting flowers in your vegetable garden – or vegetables in your flower garden – makes it stronger than the sum of its parts. For instance, some flowers like bluebonnets and cow peas, add nitrogen to the soil, which some vegetables, like corn or tomatoes, need in good supply. Other flowers bring in “beneficial,” insects like ladybugs or lacewings that eat aphids and other predator bugs.

It’s also a beautiful way to garden, and to achieve a natural balance that frees you from having to spray for bugs or use any synthetic pesticides or fertilizers, says Bakatsa, who remembers natural gardens fondly from her childhood in her native Greece.

‘I don’t just inter-mix flowers with vegetables. I inter-mix the vegetables together. “I grow beets with carrots. And every time it’s a little different. Underneath my blackberries right now I have beets and carrots. I never think ‘That is my row of carrots.’ My soil is either covered with plants or mulch.”
The plants enrich each other and the soil; the mulch feeds the soil and the garden thrives, with careful planning and oversight, but without chemical assistance.
People in Austin will get to see Bakatsa’s garden, among others, during the upcoming tour of gardens April 19 set up by the Travis County Master Gardeners.

But for those of you not in Austin, picture it like this: A large suburban lot with no turf (Bakatsa and her husband Clark had that removed over time). The small front yard is planted mainly with herbs and flowers and also hosts a prolific grapefruit tree that gave up some 300 fruit last year.

The backyard consists of a 80 x 30 foot raised dry stack limestone-edged garden bordered by perennial native plants and filled to bursting with vegetables and flowers year round. (Psst, if you’ve imagined those veggies in rows, re-configure it this way: Flowers, vegetables and trees are planted in groups and clusters. Broccoli peeks out from the partial shade of peach and plum trees, and in the summer, snow peas will hover under the corn and sunflowers will waft over some of the dozens of varieties of tomatoes, offering them a partial shade break. Along the south side, a wall of apple trees trained into the single-plane espalier style, provide privacy. Elsewhere is a grouping of citrus trees. Over there, a towering Eucalyptus that was supposed to be a shrub. Connecting all these mini-projects are paths covered red clover or vetch or leaves that mellow into compost over time.

“I used my pathways as a way to compost, it serves a dual purpose. I can make compost and I can walk on it because it’s not something I’m worried about (getting compacted),” Bakatsa says. This time of the year, she collects shedding Live Oak leaves from neighbors and hauls in bags for composting, in and outside the garden, where a compost pile produces leaf mold for fertilizer. She uses compost tea, a liquid derived from her aged compost, and occasional applications of seaweed (the only thing she uses that’s not local) to fertilize.

Mary Bakatsa is “organic all the way” in her sprawling Austin garden. But that doesn’t mean she simply avoids pesticides and blithely sits back to watch. Organic gardening is more proactive and veteran gardener Bakatsa runs dozens of schemes to nudge nature in the right direction. She places certain plants near others so they can exercise their natural symbiotic relationship. She leaves some “weeds” alone until the butterfly larvae have eaten their fill and removes others before they seed and choke out vegetables nearby.

Her overarching guideline is that she listens and learns from nature. Here are Mary’s six tips for successful organic gardening:

1. Buy local or regionally targeted garden books. She follows the advice of Howard Garrett, an organic gardening expert known as the “Dirt Doctor” in his native Texas, who’s written The Organic Manual and several other books. However, Mary says, if you’re in Idaho, “find a book by someone in Idaho” because the timing for planting and the varieties that work will be unique to that area. Other books she recommends: The Art of French Vegetable Gardening by Louisa Jones; Feast Your Eyes: The Unexpected Beauty of Vegetable Gardens by Susan J. Pennington; Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway and John Todd.
2. Pay attention to the soil. “If you don’t have good soil, go get some,” from a reputable nursery that makes their own and amend it with native soil, she says. Bakatsa filled her raised beds with soil from the “Natural Gardener” (John Dromgoole) near her home and was satisfied that it was rich, organic and alive with micro-organisms. She’s known other gardeners who would up with sterile soil that had been treated or was not organic, which affected the germination of their seeds. “Before you buy a plant or seed or anything, your investment should be in your soil. I can’t stress that enough. I’ve heard way too many sad stories.”
3. Plan Your Water System. Decide if you are going to use soaker hoses or an installed water system. She uses a water-conserving two-zone drip line irrigation system that has resulted in a water bill of just $25 a month, compared to about $200 a month nine years ago when they moved into their house, which was surrounded by turf requiring 14 watering zones. She recommends putting a timer on the water system as another way to control water usage. Hers is set to water early in the morning when less evaporation occurs.
4. Interplant. Experiment, read and let nature guide you and you will discover how to help the plants protect each other. Once you’ve achieved “what feels like a balance,” you won’t have to work as hard in the garden because so much of the garden will be cruising harmoniously forward. Weeds? “I love them actually they are the first things to flower and attract beneficials.”
5. Be Patient with Bugs – “People go, “What do you do about the insects?’ Well I encourage them…If you see an insect and think it’s bothersome, give it a week and see if you really need to do something or not…Some bugs come in to finish off a decaying plant,’’ Bakatsa says. “I let the insects tell me or the plants tell me, it’s time to do this,’’ she says. “And if I don’t do it, all hell will not break loose either…If you want the beneficial predators (insects that eat insects that eat your plants) you have to have that balance…” As for critters, she has found natural ways, such as spreading citrus peels, to repel incursions by skunks, raccoons and cats, though her garden has been designated a Wildlife Habitat property.
6. Let Some Accidents Happen – Following this rule of thumb has yielded some big rewards, like a large Eucalyptus tree and a hyper-productive grapefruit tree at the Bakatsa mini-farm, though Mary says she tries to be sensitive to her neighbors, who don’t want to see an “untamed wilderness” in the suburbs. So she watches her front yard closely and keeps plants that show well, like herbs and artichokes in prime visual areas. Happy accidents-in-the -making work best in the backyard.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Ah, the smell of freshly mown grass. It’s the smell of childhood, of school vacations and picnics and lying in the backyard, finding faces in clouds. No one will deny that plush turf is a big part of modern Americana. But the imported, “exotic” grasses of our childhoods, nostalgic and fragrant as they may be, are becoming a thing of the past for anyone who is concerned with water or soil conservation.

Non-natives create all sorts of nastiness for their environment. They guzzle water, they invade flower beds, they often demand a chemical diet and they discourage indigenous wildlife, sometimes driving them from their home turf. So there’s no reason not to go native, experts say – especially considering that a few naturally occurring grasses have low profiles (5-8 inches, un-mown), comparable to pugnacious imports like Bermuda grass and St. Augustine, which were transplanted from Africa as early as the late 1700’s

In fact, as the habitat-restoration and water conservation movements gain footing among everyday Americans, more people are supplanting those foreign interlopers with native species such as Buffalo grass (see picture, right, courtesy Native American Seed) and Blue Grama.

“We’re on our 94,568th customer,” says specialist Bill Neiman, owner of the two-decade old Native American Seed, an online purveyor of native grass and wildflower seeds, with residential and commercial clients around the country. The company has always done well, but in the past year, he says, things have really taken off.

“Now we’re getting a couple hundred new customers about every 10 days. There is what I like to call the 100th monkey effect. Well, the 100th monkey has shown up, so this is starting to reach a sort of critical mass, where it’s not a strange or radical thing to eradicate your Bermuda and replace it with something that should have been there all along. In fact, it’s become the paradigm, and everybody’s getting the drift.”

In other words, the movement to go native – especially among urban dwellers, where the average residential lot is about 5,000 square feet – is growing like a weed. Even a famous Houston golf course designed by Greg Norman has gone quasi-native, using a special seed blend in non-fairway/putting green areas of the course.

And when golf courses start considering their grassy options, clearly the urban “turf wars” have begun. Will the home team of native grasses prevail, or will the imported army win out? Neiman and others say that if the latter continues to claim victory, the real loser is the earth itself, and all life that it supports.

For the golf course designers, going native wasn’t so much a matter of pure ecologic concern as a combination of factors.

“Native grass has been used (a blend of Buffalograss and Bue Grama) in areas where we’re not supposed to hit a golf ball. It helps give the course definition,”says Layne Ricks, general manager of Meadowbrook Farms Golf Club, outside Houston. “And since the native areas require less maintenance, long term, you don’t have to mow as frequently — so there’s some cost savings there. And it doesn’t require irrigation…

“Water’s getting tougher and tougher to (access) around the country. In places like Las Vegas, they only can irrigate at certain times. And water hasn’t been that much of an issue for us yet – but it could become one.”

Ricks, who wasn’t at Meadowbrook when the re-plantation took place in 1999, says he knows that club members have enjoyed the more laid-back substitutions. “It’s nice aesthetically. When the wind blows, the native areas look like waves on an ocean. It’s beautiful — better than having mown grass from property line to property line.”

WHEN TO START/WHAT TO DO:

Whether you want to replant a front yard or an entire office park’s common areas, the time for lawn prep is between now and early May, says Bill Neiman, who is based in West Texas but whose clients hail from around the country.

“If the soil temperatures are about 65 degrees (Fahrenheit) or higher, you can start,” he says. “Or if you’ve had nighttime temperatures of 55 or so (for the low temp) for at least 10 nights in a row, you’re ready.”

But the real crux of changing from “exotics” to natives lies in ridding your lawn of the existing turf – be it Bermuda, Johnson grass, Augustine or some other hard-to-kill menace. The key is making sure it’s fully eradicated. It’s not easy — and it’s rare that merely planting natives in with the much more invasive imports works. Neiman suspects that, with long term plantation, natives might overtake the foreigners, but he’s never known it to happen.

In fact, the opposite is true.

“This doesn’t get spoken enough, but the biggest challenge that people are going to have is the control of or the eradication of the introduced, exotic species they have now. A lot of people think Bermuda grass is native, but it’s been introduced from Africa by the USDA” over the years.

“And even if you wanted to use one, there’s no herbicide that does a full job of killing it. That’s pretty freaky. Bermuda grass, in particular, is pervasive. In a small-scale process, such as a residence, you could use solarization (see Native American Seed’s “Planting Tips”) and seal it off with plastic and let it cook in the hot sun. That will cause it to die out and takes about three to four weeks, but if you leave one little last living thing, it’ll spring back,” Neiman says.

Another option is to rent a sod cutter, which slices beneath the old grass’s root systems.
“You can cut the sod and remove it in squares, the same way it got put down. … Or what we did is rent a little Bobcat (light construction equipment) and scoop it out. Then all of the sudden, your lawn is dirt again. You might have to haul off the top layer of soil, but that’s not a bad thing, because some of that dirt is” tapped out anyway. “Besides, native species aren’t that concerned with fertility.”

Next is the seeding process, which isn’t difficult, just detailed.

“Seeds have to touch the earth,” Neiman says. “They can’t be thrown out on top of a bunch of thatch or weeds or grass and take root. To plant them, do a very light tilling or raking to loosen the top of the soil first — a half inch deep is all you need. Some of these native seeds are rather small, so you don’t want them to get much deeper than ¼ inch.

“Next, broadcast the seeds, then press them in. But be careful not to get them too covered up. If they’re on loose, tilled dirt, they can (settle in) but you can also use lawn rollers or sod rollers, which you can rent, and that’ll press them down enough. Then you just sit back” and let nature take it’s course.

Generally speaking, Neiman recommends the hearty blend of Blue Grama and Buffalograss. “The Native Sun Turfgrass is something that could be much more widely used (geographically) than it currently is. It could replace this whole Bermuda and St. Augustine thing that’s been pushed on us for so long. … People think native is sticklier or looks messier, but it’s not. And it’s not nearly as invasive as the exotics.”

But the reason the turfgrass can sustain deep droughts and doesn’t require water is that it’s roots go down at least eight feet. Some natives’ root systems reach as far as 20 feet into the soil! But Neiman’s blend doesn’t grow taller than eight inches. Most people who are unfamiliar with native grasses are surprised to hear that, he says.

“I’ve seen St. Augustine and Bermuda growing up to two and three feet tall, if you never mow it. What a trip, huh – if more people replaced it with native grasses? If you could get up on a Sat morning and the whole neighborhood was quiet and there were birds and butterflies around, instead of weed-eaters and Chem-lawn.”

Websites:

Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

NativeGrasses.com

Western Native Seed

To sort out which grasses to use and where, we consulted native grass expert Bill Neiman, head of operations and farming for Native American Seed in Junction, Texas. For much of the United States, he recommends “Native Sun Turfgrass,” a blend of 34 percent Blue Grama and 66 percent Buffalo grass created by his Native American Seed Co. It’s ideal for urban and suburban lawns, with an average height of 5-8 inches, un-mown. Once established, Neiman says, it looks like any other lawn, but requires far less water and mowing. “If you didn’t know it wasn’t some imported grass, you’d think it was Bermuda or St. Augustine. It gets that thick and lush.”

Neiman explains that the turf grass mix will sprout after the first one-inch rainfall if the soil is warm enough. And, depending on seeding rate, you could have a solid stand of grass within 90 days. With light seeding (which is cheaper), it can take up to one and a half growing seasons.

Other ideal native grasses for lawns and landscaping Neiman recommends include:

• Buffalo grass — A short, 5 to 8 inch height, sod-forming grass. Lives on as little as 12 inches of water per year. It spreads by seed and surface runners and is a good choice for sunny sites.
  Buffalo grass, prefers loamy or heavier clay soils, has no natural diseases or pests and does not need fertilizing. It can withstand extreme heat or cold and is found naturally growing from Minnesota and Montana to Mexico.
  Exotic lawn grasses such as Bermuda and St. Augustine, require five or more times as much water — 60 to 120 inches of water per year, need frequent mowing, can freeze out in harsh winters and need regular applications of fertilizer and pesticides (unless you follow an aggressive organic plan using natural pre-emergent weed killers and fertilizers).
• Blue Grama — This grass grows just 3 to 6 inches tall and requires just 7 inches of water per year. If left unmown during the flowering period, the grass produces a beautiful 10-inch seed stem. Excellent stands can be readily established from seed. Because of its wide adaptation (all soil types, including alkaline soil) and ease of establishment, Blue Grama is used extensively as a water conserving grass. It makes an excellent lawn grass in sunny areas in combination with Buffalo grass. It’s ideal for an accent when landscaping.
• Little Bluestem – At home on the range or in your yard, this beautiful blue-green bunch grass turns red-bronze after frost with fluffy, silver-white seeds. It grows 2 to 3 feet at maturity with the seed head adding another one to two feet in height. Roots reach 5 to 8 feet deep and it grows on soils of sand, loam, clay or caliche. It appears in a variety of places in Texas’ divergent ecosystems: alongside Big Bluestem grasses in the deep soils of hardwood forests and prairies; with Indiangrass/Sideoats on the Edwards Plateau and rolling plains; and on the coastal prairie.
  Little Bluestem is found throughout the southern and central United States, and provides excellent nesting cover for birds and larval food source for butterflies.
• Sideoats Grama — This mid-sized grass is the official State Grass of Texas and is often used in ornamental plantings. The grass grows 1 to 2 feet tall, with oat-like seeds along one side of its stem from July to September. It spreads by seeds and roots and makes a good planting with Little Bluestem. Sideoats grows on well drained uplands, shallow soils on ridges and rocky areas. It may be found on sand, loam and clay soils, ranging from deep to very shallow, from Kentucky to the Gulf of Mexico. Sideoats takes full sun to dappled shade. It is a larval food source for butterflies and turkeys use it for food and cover.
• Prairie Wildrye — A cool season grass that’s tall and works well in landscaping, Prairie Wildrye grows abundantly on moist open prairie sites, but is also found in shaded areas. It is one of the few native grasses that does well in shade. This cool season grass begins growth in the fall and grows slowly through the winter, maturing in late spring to early summer. It mixes nicely with all other warm-season native grasses. Its seedlings are vigorous and produce ground cover rapidly. Height with seed head is 2 to 4 feet. It is a larval food source for butterflies, and the grain from seed is an important food for wildlife. For more info about planting native grass, see The Native Seed’s tip sheet.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media