Your garden is one of the most important connections with nature and one of the places where you have the biggest impact on the environment.
An eco-friendly approach to lawn care and gardening can save you hundreds of dollars and add thousands of dollars to the life of your yard.
It also removes tons of pollutants and toxic chemicals from the air, water and soil, reduces household waste by nearly 2,000 pounds over 10 years, and saves more than a million gallons of water over ten years.
Because alternatives to traditional lawns require much less maintenance, money, and labor, the "grassless" and anti-grass movements are booming in the United States today.
Engage in anti-competitive activities
You can avoid water-intensive grasses and opt for a more natural, sustainable and easy-care option like alfalfa grass. Because alfalfa requires no fertilizers or pesticides and uses less water, it can cut your lawn care budget by several hundred dollars a year.
If low-maintenance plants like clover aren't for you, you can "freshen up" your lawn. This means replacing boring grasses with native plants. Because they are native and adapted to the region's normal temperature and rainfall, they require little or no additional water or maintenance.
Garden remodeling will vary depending on where you are and what type of planting you want to do. A home in a desert area might be surrounded by grasses and poppies, like this California garden, while a Florida gardener might choose toadstools and grass shoots.
To help US homeowners find plants in their area, the National Wildlife Federation has developed a helpful tool that identifies (and sells) native flowers, grasses, trees, shrubs and pollinators based on their location in the US.
The nonprofit Wild Ones has created an indoor garden design website to help you plan a stunning garden.
Growing native plants not only saves time and money, but also protects the environment. You increase biodiversity (the more species in an area, the stronger and healthier the ecosystem) and your plants provide food and shelter for pollinators.
They also help keep water clean as much of the United States suffers from drought.
How to make plants healthy without chemicals
Homeowners spend about $100 a year on herbicides and $95 a year on pesticides to keep pests away from their plants. Some natural landscaping options, such as: other treatments, such as remodeling, allow you to avoid these treatments altogether.
But whether you want a clean lawn or a manicured and protected garden, using natural methods of weed and pest control is inexpensive, saves you about $65 a year, and doesn't put you and your family at risk. A kilo and a half. half every year toxic chemicals.
To get rid of weeds in a small amount naturally and without toxic chemicals, you can pour boiling water on them. For large and developed areas, you can hire a herd of goats to solve the problem, this trend is "goat breeding".
To protect plants from pests, you can create a physical barrier around a box or thorn branch, or attract insects with bait such as beer.
How to feed your plants for free
Commercial synthetic fertilizers are expensive and incredibly harmful to the environment. The production and use of one kilogram of fertilizer produces several kilograms of air pollution, which warms the planet.
After being used in your garden, fertilizers can cause nutrient pollution if they enter nearby water sources and cause algal blooms that kill aquatic life.
Use free and non-toxic organic fertilizers to get the same benefits. Composting is the process of breaking down all kitchen and garden waste naturally in a landfill or pile, usually with the help of worms. The result is a nutrient-rich natural fertilizer that's less likely to wash off and can save you $75 a year.
If you rake and discard leaves in the fall, you have a good reason to stop now: you're throwing away free mulch that serves as an effective (and free) fertilizer. Use a lawnmower to cut leaves and produce about 50 kg of waste each year, where it decomposes and methane causes global warming.
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