Sustainable gardening: how to get started with rocks, native grasses

Published on July 15, 2014

Sustainable gardening: how to get started with rocks, native grasses

Ripping out the front lawn and its bordering rhododendrons and replacing them with a landscape of native grasses, groundcovers, succulents and rocks once seemed an unfathomable act of defiance. No longer.

As many parts of the United States grapple with drought and rising water bills, "The thought of an English garden in the Central Valley of California is sheer madness. It wasn't meant to be, and it's sucking up precious groundwater we need for agriculture," said Ann Savageau, a design professor at the University of California at Davis, who recently traded in her lush green lawns for a desert look.

Instead of scoffing, neighbours stopped to ask her landscaper for his business card. Other California towns, including Sacramento and Menlo Park, have begun offering rebates to homeowners who remove their lawns.

Gardeners nationwide are feeling the effects of climate change. In the East, and other areas where heavy downpours have become more intense, a sustainable garden might include native grasses and other plants that do well in heavy rain and the dry weather that can follow.

"Awareness is changing in a way that is here to stay," said Brian Sullivan, a vice-president for landscapes at The New York Botanical Garden. "Yard by yard, region by region, the overall environmental impact of this trend, which I think is very positive, is substantial."

Mowing and watering a traditional lawn requires a lot of time, money, water and fertilizers. Increasingly, many home gardeners want to focus instead on edible gardens, and rethink the rest of their landscaping in a more environmentally sustainable and low-maintenance way.

It's sometimes hard to know where to begin, however, and few people have the funds or time to tackle a total garden makeover all at once.

Some strategies:

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Sustainable gardening: how to get started with rocks, native grasses