Beyond the plants you choose, you can also help the planet by the way you choose to fertilize and water your garden.
It turns out these practices are beneficial for your wallet as well, because sustainable gardening involves elements of recycling, using up fewer natural resources and making sure that nothing goes to waste.
It starts with picking the right plants. Select plants that are well suited to your area, keeping in mind climate, sun exposure and the amount of rainfall the area gets. Fortunately, there are many varieties of native and naturalized plants that thrive in the region, and the experts at Warner’s Nursery can help you match the right plant and your garden’s environment. Picking the right plant also means less fertilizer and water will be needed to keep it thriving.
Additionally, you need to consider plants that are disease- and insect-
resistant. This will lessen the need to be dependent on artificial insecticides or fungicides. Potentilla and Russian Sage are great examples of plants that have both beauty and resistance on their side.
When you pick your plants, give a thought to the insects that visit your garden, particularly the pollinators like bees, which need your garden for their fuel. Try planting in clusters, which makes it easier for them to feed without needlessly wasting their energy reserves, and choose a variety of plants that will bloom in rotation throughout the growing season. For example, you could have crocus and wild lilacs in spring; snapdragons and foxglove in the summer; and zinnias and asters in the fall.
Beyond the plants you choose, you can also help the planet by the way you choose to fertilize and water your garden.
One way to be water-wise is to invest in drip irrigation. Drip irrigation has several advantages over hand-watering, sprinklers and other watering methods as a conservation method because it puts the water exactly where it is needed. It also delivers water at a rate that the soil can absorb it; often hand-watering and sprinklers shoot out water too fast, meaning it is lost to runoff or evaporation. Finally, drip irrigation helps prevent disease, as much of the diseases that plague garden plants are caused by excess moisture on leaves.
The other way to be water-wise is to take advantage of what nature already offers us – free water in the form of rain. Monsoon season is coming up, and for the cost of a rain barrel and a regulator, you can capture that rain and use it to water your garden. Not only is rainwater better for your plants, it also helps eliminate runoff that will eventually wash silt and pollutants into the local watershed.
One of the best ways to feed your garden is also environmentally responsible – by composting. Storing organic material such as food waste, leaves, grass, twigs and lawn clippings in a bin where they can decompose and then be added to your garden as a soil amendment will help feed and naturally protect your plants. Adding composted material to your soil helps to increase drainage and support microorganisms that are beneficial to your garden. Doing so also reduces the amount of waste that winds up in our local dumps.
Finally, you can show your commitment to the ecology by doing some of the most humble work in gardening – weeding and keeping debris out of your yard. Fire season seems to start earlier and earlier each year as we saw with the Tunnel Fire this past April. Maintaining your yard and getting rid of green waste is fire-wise and helps reduce the fuels fires feed on.
Our experts at Warner’s Nursery are available if you have any questions on how to make your garden more ecologically sound. We’d be happy to discuss this or any other tips for sustainable living in your garden or landscape.
Happy gardening! FBN
By Misti Warner-Andersen
Misti Warner-Andersen is the manager of Warner’s Nursery & Landscape Co., located at 1101 E. Butler Ave. in Flagstaff. To contact Warner’s Nursery, call 928-774-1983.