Category: low-footprint living

The two houses in these photos are located just a couple doors down from one another. Both houses are right on the beach. They literally have the beach in their backyards! The owners of the home in the top photo have a typical lawn. The owners of the home in the bottom photo chose to leave the existing trees and shrubs in place rather than clear the lot.

These houses front onto a busy highway. The house with the trees gets a free privacy buffer and noise buffer. Interestingly enough, although the lawn obviously has a much lower volume of vegetation, the lawn people probably have to water their yard more than the tree people do. The tree people might not have to water at all! (Actually this lawn doesn’t look too extremely green, like those you see sometimes whose uncannily green color is maintained by massive inputs of water and fertilizer and weed-killer. It looks fairly low-maintenance as lawns go. Still, the trees win hands-down in terms of beauty and functionality!)

Another benefit: The trees to the west shield the house from the fierce afternoon sun, which probably means the tree people don’t need to spend as much money to cool their house as the lawn people do.

Smart people, those tree folks! So much else to do with their time other than maintain a clipped lawn. After all, the beach beckons! … Or the library, or the fishing pier, or the art museum …

They may or may not realize it, but the tree people aren’t just benefiting personally from their landscaping choices; they are also helping to reduce the load on the stormwater infrastructure and protect the land from wind and water erosion. And they are creating a cool moist microclimate which provides habitat for beneficial wildlife as well as making life more comfortable for humans.

A fine example of stacking functions, as we say in permaculture design.

In my town (and possibly yours too), we’ve got a water crisis. Sometimes our stormwater infrastructure is overloaded by flooding. Other times we’ve got drought. Interesting how everywhere I’ve lived, from deserts to rainy subtropical areas, the situation seems to be pretty much the same, alternating between these extremes.

If that’s not bad enough, our waterways here in Florida are polluted by toxic bacteria and algae which is killing the wildlife and even in some places making it difficult for humans to breathe.

Some of the best solutions to our big water woes are the simplest.

One, conservation. Quite simply, use less water and encourage others by your positive example. When friends and neighbors hear how low your water bill is, or see your pretty yard that requires no fuss because it’s all locally adapted, hardy, drought-tolerant plants, they will take notice.

Two, harvest rainwater. Rainwater harvesting is not just cisterns; it’s also doing things that help the soil hold onto water longer, and help trees and other plants sustain themselves through periods without rain so they don’t need constant daily watering. Examples include mulching (fallen leaves aren’t trash; they’re treasure!); adding compost to the soil; planting (or allowing to remain in place) coastal grasses and shrubs that help reduce runoff from a site; creating berms and swales to do the same. And of course, rainwater collection does include rainbarrels too.

Three, composting. Keep your kitchen scraps out of your trash, and compost them. If you currently use a garbage disposal, you can save a lot of water by composting instead of throwing food down the drain. Food scraps aren’t trash; they’re treasure! Even apartment-dwellers can compost; there are many compact units on the market designed for indoor use.

And, very important, urge your local government to implement all of the above on a city-wide or county-wide level. Many cities have composting programs already. New York City is one! Here’s a municipal compost bin at my cousin’s apartment complex.

Ask your city to institute low-mow or no-mow landscaping practices, such as retaining a buffer of wild vegetation along all waterfront areas, and transitioning to a more natural mix of vegetation in road medians.

My city is on the verge of requesting the state to have its allotment of water increased. And we’re about to embark on a fancy and expensive wastewater-treatment experiment. Unless we first do a lot more in the way of conservation, this is outrageous, morally bankrupt really. We could probably cut our usage almost in half without breaking a sweat! The simplest thing is always to cut back and use less. Costs nothing, and can even put quite a bit of money in our wallets, not to mention creating a kinder and more beautiful world.

I leave you with one of my favorite quotes:

“Although the problems of the world are increasingly complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple.” — Bill Mollison

Recommended Resource:
Visit this rainwater harvesting calculator to find out how much free fresh water you can collect from your roof! You input your roof’s square footage and the annual rainfall for your area, and get an instant answer. I was amazed to find I could potentially collect up to 2,500 gallons a year just from my little 10-foot-by-10-foot porch roof! Innovative Water Solutions is based in Austin, TX, a place I myself lived for many years, and a place that knows all about flooding and droughts!

Trees in a forest grow in guilds, rather than in isolation. Oftentimes their branches end up encircling one another or even intertwined. Here in Florida, a common sight is a palm tree growing up into the branches of an oak. This beautiful duo in my neighborhood offer a nice visual metaphor for human interdependency also.

So did the palm tree nurse the baby oak seedling, or was the palm tree seedling nursed by the tall leafy oak? I imagine the latter, as the oak tree looks to be of a stately age, and palm trees don’t offer much shade. But it could have been a different scenario entirely. These trees sit on an empty, mostly grass lot which at one time was probably densely forested with a much wider variety of tree and shrub species.

While googling for an answer (I haven’t found one yet), I stumbled on this article, A Miami Emblem Is Sacrificed for Shade, about how the city of Miami realized it needed to start planting oak trees again. (Truly, there should be no sacrifice required; it should not be an either-or. The palm tree growing within the branches of the oak offers a memorable reminder.)

The article was published back in 2006 but it caught my eye because my city seems to be cutting down a lot of oak trees, as well as palmettos and other native scrub, from public lands, leaving little except wide expanses of buzzcut turf grass and palm trees. A lot of homeowners seem to be doing this as well. It makes for a rather desolate, not to mention hot and relentlessly sun-scoured, landscape.

Further Reading:

Botanical Nursing: From deserts to shorelines, nurse effects are receiving renewed attention: paper in BioScience journal. Fascinating overview of the various aspects of botanical nursing, and how the benefits tend to be mutual rather than one-sided. Key takeaway: “One plant’s reliance on another for its survival and growth has clear implications for conservation: Namely, saving a species dependent on nurse plants requires saving the nurse plants and endangerment of a nurse species endangers plants that depend on it.” Something for cities (and homeowners) to keep in mind as they remove seemingly “extraneous” or “undesirable” vegetation. Also: “Just as nurse plants are important to preservation, they can also be useful in restoration. … [W]ork on denuded ski runs in the Swiss Alps has focused on creating ‘safety islands’ — patches of diverse vegetation that provide numerous sites in which seedlings can safely establish.”

Actually, edible gardening has been on the upswing for years, and its growing popularity has been making the mainstream media for quite some time. It’s gotten extensive coverage by the New York Times among other major publications.

But this wonderful article by Ken Wells in the Wall Street Journal, “The New American Garden Is Edible,” particularly strikes my fancy because it introduces the general public to a specific kind of edible garden known as a “food forest,” which is a layered landscape of trees, shrubs, vines, and veggie plants. Mimicking the layered structure of a naturally occurring forest, a food forest of edible and/or native plants provides food for humans, as well as forage for pollinators and other beneficial species.

A food forest, once established, is much less labor-intensive and more resilient than a conventional vegetable garden where the veggies are cultivated in rows in bare soil. In a food forest, use of vertical space is maximized, and the plants shelter each other and share nutrients and other resources.

Edible gardening addresses multiple needs at once: One, it conserves water (according to some estimates, edible gardens use up to 66% less water than lawns — for more about that, see my “Further Reading” section at the end of this post). It also builds the soil, reduces erosion, builds drought-resilience, and boosts local food self-reliance. It brings neighbors together, and it gives families a productive and enjoyable activity to share.

Besides these benefits of edible gardening in general, food forests have the additional benefits of providing shade, habitat, and privacy. A food forest can even reduce your energy bill and make your home more comfortable, by mitigating temperature extremes.

Obtaining multiple yields in this manner is the hallmark of good design. The old saying is “killing two birds with one stone,” but I prefer to say “feeding two birds with one scone“! In permaculture design, we call it “stacking functions.” And the minute you start dedicating yourself to this approach (not just in your yard but in any other areas of your life), you will start saving lots of money, and have more time and energy for the things that really matter to you.

My photos for you today bring good news. The seeds I planted from a dragonfruit I ate the other day (thanks Ro for the yummy fruit!) have sprouted! And my papaya babies have taken off; look at the difference over just about three weeks. I’ve thinned out the plants over time (they seem to do better with thinning than with transplanting — the few I tried transplanting look a bit peaked). The papaya plants are starting to look like real trees! (Photo #3, at the bottom, is the “Before” pic of the papaya seedlings; the photo in the middle was just taken yesterday.)

Further Reading:
• “Edible Gardens vs. Lawns” article by Urban Plantations, describing the extremely important water-conservation angle of food gardens. Did you know that a food garden consumes as little as ONE-THIRD as much water, or less, as a lawn? (And of course you’re also obtaining a yield: fresh delicious food!) Urban Plantations, based in San Diego, is an organization whose website I strongly suggest you bookmark regardless of where you call home. As more and more of us nowadays find our regions affected by the alternating drought-and-flood cycle, and extreme weather in general, it behooves us to listen and learn from our desert-dwelling brothers and sisters who have always known such extremes.

• In-depth article by David the Good, on food forests and how to build one. Although the food forest described in this article is located in central Florida, a subtropical region, you can tailor the specifics to your region with a bit of research and trips to your local nursery. Other sources of information: your local permaculture guild or bioregionalist group; your own direct observations of naturally occurring clumps of shrubs and trees in your area. Even if you don’t feel ready to build a food forest, this article with illustrations and photos is a delight to read. And after reading it, you might feel more ready! David the Good has authored multiple books, and his website thesurvivalgardener.com is a gold mine of highly expert yet accessible information.

What a fantastic upcycle! Reusable straws (made of glass, bamboo, or stainless steel) are becoming more popular as we’ve come to realize that disposable plastic straws harm wildlife and our environment.

But my highly creative and very DEEP GREEN friend Roseanna takes the reusable straw to an even greener height, by upcycling one from a used pen! Added benefit of the pen: The pen-point is great for straining pulp, if you prefer to have a non-pulpy drink experience.

Great one, Ro! Thanks for sharing.

Recommended Resources:

– Strawless Ocean: “Plastic straws are really bad for the ocean. We use over 500 million every day in America, and most of those end up in our oceans, polluting the water and killing marine life. We want to encourage people to stop using plastic straws for good. If we don’t act now, by the year 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish.”

– Surfrider Foundation: nonprofit dedicated to protecting beaches and oceans. “Straws suck” — and you can take action via their website to reduce the use of straws.