Melton Engineering and Homebuilders - Indian Creek Homes
 "Homes for the 21st Century"

Landscaping as an environmental benefit

Landscaping as an environmental benefit?  Of course!  Two big things make a significant impact on the environment related to landscaping. The first considers what is know as xeriscaping.  Xeriscaping is simply the concept of using local or adaptable plant species in an appropriate design for the local environment.  Local species are easy to define, but most people don't realize what a non-indigenous plant is, or what kind of damage that a non-indigenous plant can do to an environment (I will talk about that next). Adaptable plants are those plants that may not be from around here, but never-the-less can adapt to local conditions.  By using local and adaptable plants one does not have to water, fertilize or use pest control methods nearly as much as compared to many of our traditional landscaping plants. This act alone significantly reduces the probability of fertilizer or pesticide being washed off of the landscape and into our waterways as pollutants or environmental contaminants.

The second method to minimize the impact of a landscape on the environment is to use native, indigenous plants. Indigenous means the plants are from around here. They are not native. By using native plants, that is, plants that are from around here, you get plants that will grow in our soils, and have adapted to the pests common in our area and therefore need less pest control.  Plus, their water needs have been tailored to the local climate for thousand of years.  What I have just said is basically an extension of the paragraph above on xeriscaping.  But there is a significant drawback to using most other plant species besides those that are endogenous to our area.

Adaptable, NON-endogenous plants may do great in the landscape, but some of them are highly invasive.  This means that they escape the landscape and start growing on their own in the woods, and along our creeks, and in our parks.  In urban areas, a significant percentage of all plants in a given area can be non-native. I am talking like 80 to 90%.  What is the consequence of this?  These non-native plants colonize woods, parks and open areas because they are aggressive growers, and they are quite adaptable to our climate. They can easily take over a forested area, or become a dominant plant species in an urban park.  This displaces the native plants.  The aggressive plants simply outgrow our native species.  Once this happens, many of the native birds, bugs and other flora and fauna have nowhere to go, because they have evolved with the local plants.  Without their familiar surroundings, with familiar food and shelter, many of these species leave.

I have been in many, many non-developed urban areas and even in urban parks and found, in an area where there should be 30 or 40 easily identifiable species of plants, there are on a small handful of different species and two or three of them are non-native, and almost completely dominate the local environment. Where there should be oaks and elms and mountain laurels and sumacs and native grasses and wildflowers there are only wax-leaf ligustrums, nandina and Johnson grass (all terribly invasive non-native, non-indigenous plants). Oh yeah - once the native plants are gone, many of the native birds and other wildlife leave only to be replaced with other non-native species like house sparrows, Norwegian rats, and bag worms.

So, the fact that these non-natives can and do take over native environment is bad enough, but the social consequence are much farther reaching than that. Most people move to an area for a reason.  Whether its work availability or the natural beauty of a place, we all have our reasons for moving to a place.  Places are special because they are unique.  That is they are not like other places. That is why we moved here rather than someplace else. One of the great drawbacks of non-native plants is the invasive nature of some of them.  Their are major parts of the gulf coast where the dominant tree species is from china (chinaberry). This species has dramatically invaded the coastal prairies. So much so that in many places the prairie has turned to forest.  A Chinaberry tree forest, straight from China. Urban woodlands and parkland throughout the south have been enormously invaded by wax-leaf ligustrum.  Another highly invasive Chinese species.  It grows to tree size in only a few years and its dense evergreen foliage can smother the hardiest of native plants and trees. These two species became popular in for landscaping uses in the 1960s.  In 40 years their inroads into the local environment have been enormous.

So What social impact does this have?  In the extreme (which may eventually not be far from the truth when you start considering the billions of invasive plants now in this country) non-native plants can change the very shape of a region.  The earth is becoming homogenized by invasive species. If left unchecked, in future generations there may not be any such thing as an indigenous plant. Because, there may be no more unique environments to make plants from somewhere.

And finally, we highly recommend using organic and least toxic techniques in the lawn and garden.  There is no room for chemicals that have a half life of 50 years in our environment or our yards. (Dursban - the most popular pesticide in 30 years has a half life of 50 years.  That's why it works so good. That's also why it is being phased out.) Many, many chemicals have bad side effects, that's why they call them poisons.  Learn least toxic techniques.  Practice organic methods. They really work.  It may not make you live longer, but it may make your children live longer, or healthier.