Best Plants for Organic, Eco-Friendly Landscaping

The best gardens are those that nurture nature, and the best way to create one of these gardens is to design your landscape with plants that are eco-friendly and organic. Landscape that includes plants that sustain each other include the use of organic plants, plants that are native to your region, and a few landscaping tricks to minimize their impact on your garden and the environment. Green landscaping sounds complicated, but it is actually a lot easier than you may think. Here are a few things to remember when you are choosing the best plants for your own eco-friendly landscaping project.

Make Room For Natives
The most important step you can do in creating and eco-friendly landscape is to choose those plants which are native to your area. Native plants thrive in the soil where they naturally cultivate and require very little maintenance. These backbone plants should be used in large quantities and spread out over the entire area that you are landscaping. To do this you can use flowers, seeds or plugs and then include trees, grasses and shrubs that are also native to your area.

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Buy Organic
Even though your own garden may be prepared and kept up with organic products and methods, it is important to make sure that the plants you bring into the landscaping were grown organically. If chemical fertilizers and pesticides were used in the cultivation of new plants, those very chemicals will leach into the rest of your garden and into plants that you include in your garden now and over the next couple of years.

Plant in Clusters
Along with planting native flowers, trees and shrubs it is important that you plant these eco-friendly plants together in clusters. Planting in clusters is beneficial for several reasons. Native plants that are grown together will coexist peacefully, with each type of plant fitting into the sunlight and water niche that it needs without competing too much with other similar natives. In addition to reducing competition, clustering reduces the need to constantly water, reduces weeds and other growth and creates a mini ecosystem where plants tend to grow and thrive faster than they would on their own.

Don't Attack the Weeds
Weeds are plants too, and they have a role in your eco-friendly landscape as well. Now that you are over that shock, understand that some weeds are ok in your garden. Remember though, that there are native and invasive weeds as well as plants so only the native ones should be allowed to remain. As long as your eco friendly native plants are provided with all the things they need to thrive, you will not need to worry about weeds taking over your garden. That said, there is no need to go through your garden and pull every weed you see. Weeds have their own role to fill in your garden and they can actually work in a beneficial relationship with the rest of your garden.