Creating and maintaining a vibrant, healthy yard can be costly, labor-intensive, and time-consuming. But this doesn’t mean you can’t turn your outdoor space into a dream-worthy landscape. An eco-friendly landscape can make a difference if you’re environmentally conscious.
So, how do you incorporate an eco-friendly design into your landscape to make it more sustainable? This article explores eco-friendly landscaping ideas to help revamp your outdoor space.
Practical Eco-friendly Landscaping Ideas
An eco-friendly landscape, also known as a sustainable or green landscape, is a landscape that benefits the environment. Creating and maintaining a sustainable landscape saves time, energy, and money.
The goal is to create a healthy and thriving landscape that nurtures nature. This type of landscape reduces air, water, and soil pollution while creating an ideal habitat for wildlife. Below are the ten sustainable landscaping ideas to transform your Minnesota lawn.
Use Native Plants
Going native in your yard or garden is a great way to allow for sustainable landscapes. Native plants are well adapted to your area’s soil conditions and climate. They can also survive with less maintenance and resist native pests.
Additionally, these plants hardly require fertilizers and supplemental irrigation. Plants native to your region create ideal habitats for native wildlife, such as birds and butterflies.
When going native, determine which plants will thrive in your yard. The fact that a particular plant is native to the USA doesn’t make it native to Minnesota. You’ll also want to look for noninvasive native plants to prevent competition for water and space with other vegetation.
You can ask a local landscape expert to help you choose native perennial plants suitable for your landscape.
Harvest Rainwater
Harvesting rainwater is a centuries-old water conservation method used in many homes. You can create an eco-friendly landscape by harvesting rainwater to irrigate your lawn and vegetable garden.
By harvesting rainwater, you minimize the amount of household water used to irrigate your landscape. This helps reduce the water bill while providing your plants with sufficient water.
A simple rain harvesting station incorporated into your landscape can be a good starting point. You can buy a rain barrel to collect rainwater from the gutters.
Rainwater harvesting is also a great way to mitigate the problem of water runoff. Runoff water after a storm can carry away the topsoil, depriving your plants of essential nutrients.
Embrace Xeriscaping
A xeriscape means a “dry landscape.” Xeriscaping involves creating a landscape that can survive with minimal water while maintaining its aesthetic appeal. However, you don’t have to turn your outdoor space into a desert to make it a xeriscape.
Typically, the local rainfall is enough to keep xeriscapes in tip-top conditions. You can embrace xeriscaping to conserve water in dry regions.
The first step to xeriscaping is choosing drought-tolerant vegetation. Try grasses such as the Mexican feather, blue oat, and yellow pampas grass on your lawn. Succulent vegetation such as sedum, agave, and crassula plants can thrive in your gardens.
Besides choosing drought-resistant plants, you can minimize the size of your lawn. Create patios and pathways and cover them with sand, stones, or wood chips. This will reduce the amount of water required to water the landscape.
Working with a landscaping pro with years of experience is advisable to determine which shrubs or plants will thrive in your yard.
Install Retaining Walls
If you have steep slopes in your yard, it may be challenging to control soil erosion in the event of heavy storms. However, installing retaining walls is an eco-friendly landscaping technique that can solve this problem.
Retaining walls restrain soil on two different levels. They hold back soil on the upper side, preventing it from sliding or eroding. A landscape with retaining walls holds more water, allowing your plants to remain hydrated and green.
Additionally, retaining walls can level sloped surfaces for creating lawns, gardens, and patios. You only need to install and backfill the wall with stones and soil.
You can make your retaining wall more visually appealing. For example, install the wall with material that matches your landscape. Then, plant flowers along the wall and add river stones on top. Installing retaining walls is relatively costly, but it will help you save much money over the years.
Create a Compost Area
Creating a compost area in your landscape helps to put household or garden waste into use. With a compost area, you don’t have to toss green waste into dustbins for disposal. You can put yard waste, such as grass clippings, leaves, and dead plants, into the compost and allow it to decompose.
Similarly, you can add household waste such as vegetable peelings, old fruits, eggshells, wood shavings, and newspapers into your compost area. The mixture will produce an organic fertilizer that you can use to enrich your garden and lawn.
When creating a compost site, choose a shady area in your landscape. Install your compost bin and add the green waste. Then cover the waste with soil and add wastewater from time to time. This mixture can decompose in 6-9 months.
Utilize Smart Irrigation
Whether using rainwater or household water to irrigate your vegetation, it’s always necessary to be water-wise. This is especially true for gardeners living in dryer regions. Remember, you’ll need to conserve stored water to use it during the summer months.
Smart irrigation is one of the best ways to keep your landscape green while conserving water. For example, you can install sprinklers on your lawn and a drip irrigation system in your garden. Unlike watering with a garden hose, a sprinkler and drip irrigation system saves water, time, and energy.
Ensure your sprinkler system has gauges to assess moisture levels. You can also make the necessary adjustment to prevent sprinkling water on your patio, driveway, and sidewalks.
A drip-irrigation system delivers water directly to the roots of your plants. It’s also a great way to encourage a deep root system to make your plants more resistant to drought, wind, and diseases.
Mulch
Mulching is another eco-friendly landscaping technique to incorporate into your lawns and garden. You can use leaves, wood chips, pine needles, and bark around your plants. To ensure effective mulching, create a 3-inch layer of mulching material.
Mulch can help minimize the need for regular watering as it reduces moisture loss. If you’re in a dry area, mulch will regulate soil temperature to keep your plants healthy. Other benefits you’ll get from mulching include the following:
- It’s an easier way to inhibit weed growth in your landscape
- Prevents the spread of fungi and bacteria in your garden
- Encourages the beneficial soil microorganisms to grow
- With time, mulch decomposes and provides your plants with nutrients
Add another layer of mulch, at least 2” each year.
Reduce or Avoid the Use of Chemicals
Inorganic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides threaten the health of your landscape. They pollute the soil, water, and air while promoting garden diseases. Eventually, chemical fertilizers strip nutrients from the soil, making your plants dependent on them.
An eco-friendly landscape discourages the use of chemical fertilizers and, instead, uses organic ones. For example, you can use compost or mulch to add nutrients to the soil.
If you want to eliminate weeds and pests in your sustainable landscape, avoid using herbicides and pesticides. Use natural weed control methods such as mulching and hand removal.
Natural pest control methods can also help eliminate pests without pesticides. You can use neem oil, tomato leaf, Chile pepper spray, and oil spray can eliminate aphids, mites, whiteflies, and slugs.
Alternatively, create a natural habitat that attracts ladybugs and birds to feed on mites, aphids, and ticks.
Use Ground Cover Plants
Instead of maintaining a grassed lawn that requires regular watering and mowing, use ground cover plants in your landscape. These plants grow closer to the ground, covering large areas in your landscape. As a result, they regulate soil temperature while minimizing moisture loss.
Unlike grass, ground cover in your lawn is easy to maintain as you don’t need to water, mow and add fertilizers regularly.
A good ground cover to plant in shady lawns is moss. It remains green throughout the year. Homeowners in dry areas can use clover as their ground cover. Clover remains green despite the temperature extremes. It’s also sweet-smelling with flowers that add more beauty to your landscape.
Another good choice is creeping perennials. Most creeping perennials are sweet-smelling and feel soft underfoot.
Use Power Equipment Less Frequently
Garden and lawn maintenance may require power equipment such as mowers, lawn aerators, leaf blowers, and hedge clippers. However, these equipment are not eco-friendly as they emit harmful gasses or consume much power.
To create an eco-friendly landscape, look for alternative tools or use power equipment less frequently. For example, you can use manual tools such as rakes, shovels, shears, loppers, and manual lawnmowers.
The downside of manual tools is that you’ll require more time and energy to complete the work. Additionally, these tools may be less effective in larger lawns or cutting bigger branches.
Another way to cut back on using power tools is by creating smaller landscapes. Opt for smaller lawns and utilize permeable hardscapes on your patio, driveways, and walkways.
Execute these Eco-friendly Landscape Ideas
Are you ready to create an eco-friendly landscape in your Minnesota home to protect the environment? Put into action our eco-friendly landscaping ideas and enjoy the beauty of a lush green landscape.
If you need help, don’t hesitate to contact ALD. Our landscaping experts will assess your outdoor space and create a thriving green landscape.