Best Green Gardening Practices

A green garden fits into the surrounding ecosystem naturally, causes as little damage to the environment as possible, and helps promote wildlife use. A green garden can be as beautiful as one dedicated to unusual exotics but cost less to maintain. If you're interested in contributing to fresher air, controlling the heat in the environment, and having your favorite squirrel or goldfinch or browsing deer stop by, consider some of these gardening practices in your garden.

Best Green Gardening Practice # 1 - The Hedge Row

A hedge row is a natural border created by planting a mixture of wildlife friendly shrubs, trees and sometimes vines. A hedge row is green because it provides a good mixture of food in the seeds and flowers of the plant. Safety from predators is also provided by the limbs and cover from the weather by the leaves. It can also be a beautiful, seasonal display of color and flowers and helps contribute oxygen into the atmosphere while absorbing carbon dioxide.

Which plants to use in a hedge row:

[ See photograph 1 ] Example Hedge Row

Evergreens such as pine with seeds at equal spaced intervals, fruit bearing and flowering shrubs and trees such as viburnum, current, lilac, red twig dogwood, vine maple especially any native plants.

Best Green Gardening Practice #2 - Native Plants

Use of native plants is a green practice because they often grow better without addition of fertilizers and water or the application of pesticides. They survived and because they survived they are often the best choice for your garden.

Which native plants to use: mahonia, salal, red twig dogwood, red flowering current, vine maple, fern. See the WSU native plant web site for more information and photographs.

[ See photograph 2 - Fern ]

Best Green Gardening Practice #3 - Natural or Homemade Pesticides or None

Slugs invade my plants, eating off them and leaving holes as they progress. A snip of a leaf removes the evidence. I could as easily snip the slug and it would be gone, too, without the use of fertilizers. Slugs, ants, spiders, beetles all have a place in your garden and are part of the natural order. They can be ignored. The only time I use a pesticide is when I need to protect the plant long enough to ensure that it lives. Dahlias are my worst problem, because between slugs, cutworm, and other charmers, these bulbs never make it out of the ground unless I use one. Same applies to the deer's need to eat my newly planted apple trees, roses, and azaleas.

A dose of homemade pesticide spray - water boiled with garlic, red pepper, soap, egg, onion and oil then sprayed on teaches my friendly deer not to bite except on natives.

Best Green Gardening Practice #4 - Hand Tools

One of the worst things about summer is all the noisy lawn mowers, edge trimmers, and other equipment buzzing about the yard and the uprising of mold and particulate from the practice. I admit some of it can't be helped without additional labor or cost, but for many tasks, hand tools can keep noise levels down, is kinder to the plant, and reduces particulate. If you edge borders, often your lawn mower will make a nice edge without also having to run an edge trimmer.

Best Green Gardening Practice #5 - Mulch

Mulch can contribute fertilizer to your garden without the carbon signature of processed oil products. My favorites include chicken manure and mushroom compost. Nutrients and vegetative matter help enrich the soil and build stronger plants. A good mulch also helps hold water in the soil during warm weather and protects plant roots from damage due to cold.

[1] Sunset Western Garden Book