A Haunted House: Home Gardener’s Edition
If you are on social media, you’ve probably seen the #ahauntedhousebut viral posts going around. The point of these posts is to highlight things happening in the world that probably shouldn’t be and bring awareness to how we can potentially grow to be better people and ultimately have a better, less scary world. I thought it might be fun to highlight some spooky things that you might be doing in your yard that are actually hurting the environment and maybe even yourself. You can scroll through the images below to quickly see some of the frightening things gardeners and homeowners do. Below the images, I’ll go into more detail about each boo-able fact. I am providing several links to products that I think are great. These are my opinions and I am not being compensated for any of the products mentioned here.
Stop protecting your fescue by eliminating broadleaf plants like clover.
Clover is incredibly beneficial for soil health. Clover takes nitrogen from the air and converts it to ammonium which feeds your grass making it stronger and giving it a greener appearance. Clover also stays green most of the year and doesn’t grow as tall as grass meaning that you may be able to mow less. Clover also outcompetes less desirable weeds. Its flowers are some of the first food sources for bees in the Spring. There are micro-clovers on the market now that may be more appealing and offer the same benefits. American Meadows is a great source for lawn alternative blends. I am using the pelleted microclover in my field pathways to help push out undesirable weeds and allow me to mow a little less often while providing extra nutrients to the soil. A total win-win there!
Upgrade your sprinkler systems with smart control panels that know when rainy weather is expected.
Nothing makes me shake my head more than sprinkler systems running in the rain. Technology is incredible and there are now systems on the market that use local weather data or your own weather station to make automatic adjustments to your watering schedule. The best one that I know of on the market is Rachio. They have now released hosebib timers too. I plan on converting my raised bed irrigation over to these eventually. My timing of purchasing Wi-Fi-enabled timers was terrible because I would have much rather invested in this even more foolproof system. I am terrible about manually rain delaying my hoses.
Move your budgeted lawn care allowance to a landscaping budget for the purchase of trees, shrubs, and plants that offer shelter and food for beneficial insects and birds.
If you know me personally, you know I am a blunt, say-what-you-mean, not always the most tactful person so here it goes. The modern lawn is essentially a biological wasteland. Lawns do absolutely nothing for the environment. They provide little value to our wildlife and they contribute widely to our current carbon footprint, global warming, habitat loss, and widespread species extinction issues. The good news is that we can fix it! The Homegrown National Park initiative gives practical guides to help you reduce your lawn and add plants that support our natural world. Instead of spending so much money on the perfect green manicured lawn, consider adding an extra flower bed this year. Mother Earth will thank you with increased butterflies, hummingbirds, and more visiting you. I’m not sure there is anything more delightful and satisfying than seeing these creatures flitting around the special habitat you personally created.
When designing your landscape, make sure to include native plants.
In order to guarantee that our planet will survive for generations to come, our gardens and landscaping must serve a purpose other than being beautiful. There are free PDF guides for every region in Virginia here to help you select the best plants for you. If you are local to the Ashland/Richmond area, Colesville Nursery has a list of native plants they carry that is updated daily with their current stock. Small space? No problem! Homegrown National Park has great information on native keystone plants that are suitable for container gardening.
Invasive plants are still available in many big box stores.
I was walking through Walmart’s garden center this past Spring and I was flabbergasted by the fact that they were selling English Ivy. Like…uhhh…it’s 2023. Do we not understand how this plant suffocates trees and destroys the mortar on bricked structures? Get familiar with the Virginia Invasive Plant Species List and try to be informed in your buying decisions when shopping big box stores. These retailers buy plants for their stores all over the country and unfortunately, something that isn’t a problem in areas that experience harsher winters than we do, for example, may be highly invasive and take over here.
Spring is not the best time to plant. Fall is for planting.
Contrary to popular belief, fall is for planting. Don’t hold off on planting because you fear frost and cold temperatures. Perennial plants or plants hardy in your zone are much more resilient to cold than they are to heat. By planting in the Fall, you are giving plants a chance to put down a robust root system before the heat of the summer hits. Your fall-planted additions will thrive and will put on more rapid growth in the Spring when they don’t have to focus on building their roots because that unseen work was already completed in the Fall.
Fall is not the best time for garden maintenance. Spring is for cleaning.
Hold your horses when it comes to cleaning up your garden and landscape in the Fall. Wait until the Spring to clean up spent bloom stalks, dead foliage, etc. Leaving these things in place can provide winter interest in the garden. Native Joe Pye Weed, Serendipity Alliums, and Black Eyed Susans are 3 plants in my yard that provide some fun winter interest. The Black Eyed Susan’s provide tasty snacks to birds over the winter with their voluminous seed heads.
Bagging up leaves and sending them to the landfill.
Don’t bag up your leaves, especially in plastic. The EPA estimates that yard debris makes up 13% of waste in our landfills and without enough oxygen to decompose, it releases the greenhouse gas, methane. Leaves are part of a tree’s natural life cycle. Leaves drop for a reason or it wouldn’t be a function the plant completes each season. Leaves add organic matter to the soil, reducing the need for fertilizers. Woo hoo! Free fertilizer! They act as a natural mulch (Awesome! Another saved expense). Here are some options: 1) Do nothing. They don’t hurt your lawn. 2) Run your lawn mower over them to mulch them and leave them in place. Doing this helps speed up the decomposition process and makes nutrients available to microbes faster so you can get back to looking at the green. 3) Rake or blow the leaves into your flower beds. Instant mulch and fertilizer. 4) Make a pile at the back of your property and let it sit. In a year, you will have beautiful leaf mold which is like gold in the gardening world. 5) Make compost with leaves, grass clippings, and vegetable and fruit peels. 6) If they must go, share them with a friend or a small farmer like me. I’d gladly take them off your hands.
Using Round-Up as a go-to herbicide in 2023.
Without even going into the environmental impacts that Round-Up has on soil micro-organisms, there have been over 100,000 Round-Up cases settled over accusations that the product causes cancer….100,000 and over 30,000 more lawsuits pending…why risk it?!?! Studies show that glyphosate (Round-Up’s active ingredient) probably causes damage to DNA, increases the likelihood of suffering from non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and shows significantly more tumors in mice that were exposed to the chemical. Yikes! Round Up is still on the market because the EPA says that it is safe based on non-peer-reviewed studies conducted by the makers of the product. These studies are not available to the public. Hmmmm…I’m not willing to take a chance. Are you?
Just do your best.
I know this post was full of doom and gloom, but I hope it was also filled with valuable resources to help us all do a little better as we plan our gardens this coming year. Baby steps are better than no steps. Each of those baby steps will eventually add up to us moving mountains together…saving our planet together with more unique-looking yards that distinguish each other apart with diverse plants and wildlife instead of mundane green monsters that we have to constantly care for week in and week out.
“In the past, we have asked one thing of our gardens: that they be pretty. Now they have to support life, sequester carbon, feed pollinators and manage water.”
That’s all for this week! I love Halloween and Fall is my favorite time of year. I hope you find space in your weekend to take it all in. Embrace the color, embrace the letting go, embrace the cool breeze, and wait in anticipation for those fireside, cozy winter days to come! If you found this blog post helpful, please pass it all to your friends via email or share it on your social pages. Next Flower Friday is an exciting one. I planned to do my how-to this week, but with hospital visits and other things that came up (including warm weather that isn’t ideal for planting bulbs), I pushed it to next week.
Keep Blooming, Flower Friends,
Nicole Dillon, Breemar Flower Farm
