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Is your
Landscape Neat or Messy?
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A national organization
recently surveyed a broad cross-section of
homeowners to find out what homeowners find
important in a landscape. Very high on the list of
homeowner desires was “neatness”. In fact neatness
was second in importance to “easy to maintain”.
So its not too surprising that most homeowners think
that they need to whisk any and all debris right out
of the landscape and into the lawn waste dumpster.
This compulsion is so ingrained
that even in spite of overwhelming and
well-publicized information regarding the clear
benefits of mulching grass clippings, the majority
of homeowners still bag their clippings—and put them
into the lawn waste dumpster. Now there are also a
number of studies which show a clear benefit to
leaving other landscape debris in the landscape—at
least through the winter. The traditional
recommendation has been to clean up landscape beds
in the fall to remove all of those “disease laden
plant tissues”.
But the new studies show that
landscape plant debris provides much needed shelter
for pretty much every type of beneficial insect and
animal, and in doing so, actually helps keeps
populations of undesirable insects in check the
following summer. |
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The secret to a neat and
environmentally friendly landscape is to know just a
little bit about how a healthy landscape works. A
healthy landscape has a healthy soil ecosystem. A
healthy soil ecosystem must be fed on a regular
basis. It doesn’t take much. Feed your lawn its
very own clippings by using a mulching mower. Feed
your landscape beds all of the fall leaves that land
in them, and a few more that you rake into the bed
off of your lawn or garden paths. If that looks to
messy for you, throw a thin layer of new mulch over
the top of all that mess and call it good.
With the arrival of fall less
than a month away, the urge to remove leaves,
perennial stems, and other similar plant debris from
the landscape becomes overwhelming for many
homeowners. But the landscape debris that will be
collected and placed in bags for curbside pick-up
is, in a very real sense, free mulch. Or at the
very least free compost. Rather than sending it to
the city “yard waste recycling center” consider
leaving it on your landscape—with a little tidying
up, if you must, or take it to your own little yard
waste recycling center in some out of the way corner
of your yard. With very little effort, you’ll be
rewarded with a nice pile of rich humus by next
spring. |
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Previous Articles
Fractions March 15
Yardner March 8
Urban
Legends of Trees March 22
Que
Serra, Serra March 29
Grocery Store or Garbage Dumpster Plants April 5
Planning Your Landscape Project April 12
Planting
Cool Trees April 19
Keeping
Trees Alive April 26
Thrillers, Chillers, Spillers May 03
Will
You Still Love Them May 10
Ornamental Grasses May 17
In
Memory of Cedar Trees May 24
Gardening is not Childs Play
Versatile
Viburnums June 6
Yardner Plants
June 13
2007
Garden Walk and
Blue Spruce Decline
The Birds
& Bees of Butterfly Gardening June 28
Summer
Landscaping July 5
Cutting Your Lawn Down to Size July 12
Some Like it
Hot!! July 19
When a Tree
Falls on 5th Ave
July 26
Green
Landscaping August 2
American Idol-Landscape Aug 9
Fall is
for Planting Aug 16
2006 Articles |
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A relatively few insects
actually feed on live or green plant leaves and
stems and cause problems in landscapes when their
populations grow too large. Many insects feed on
plant pollen and nectar, others feed on dead plant
tissues, and even more feed on other insects.
Almost of these latter three types of insects help
plants grow by performing functions in the
environment that improve the growing conditions for
plants. Pollinating insects help plants form fruit
and go to seed. Insects that eat dead plant tissues
help to recycle those plant tissues and enrich the
soil. Insects that eat other insects help to keep
the green plant tissue eating insects under
control. Landscape debris can be an important
source of food and shelter for many beneficial
insects.
A homeowner’s desire to have a
neat and orderly landscape is understandable.
Unfortunately that neatness often comes at the cost
of visual interest and environmental damage. It
doesn’t need to be that way. It is possible to
have a landscape that is easy to maintain,
environmentally very friendly, and neat and tidy at
the same time….OK, somewhat neat and tidy.
I cringe every time I see those
television commercials with two guys competing to
have the most perfectly manicured lawn. The message
of the commercial is clear….the perfect lawn, the
envy of your neighbors, and certifiable manhood can
all be achieved through the use of this company’s
lawn care products. What the commercial doesn’t say
is that the perfect lawn, the envy, and the manhood
all come at a high price for the environment. By
the way, the term environment includes not only
birds, bees, butterflies, and rabbits, but also
pets, your kids, the neighbors kids, and perhaps
even you. There is a limit to neatness in the
landscape.
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Or maybe it’s just the words that have you hung up.
You see yourself as a neat
person and don’t want to have a messy
landscape. As Lucy, the self-proclaimed Peanuts
psychiatrist would say, “The Doctor is In!” Just
consider the following.
A “neat” landscape is also
High maintenance
Unnatural
Dangerously toxic,
Unchanging,
Fragile
Unbalanced
A “messy” landscape is also
Low maintenance
Natural
Ever-changing
Safe
Diverse
Stable
Balanced
Dynamic
Which list do you want to
describe your landscape?
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