Land­scape your yard, neigh­bor­hood and busi­ness effi­ciently and eco­nom­i­cally to help con­serve water — an expen­sive and lim­ited resource – as well as, reduce pol­lu­tion and increase habitat.

Land­scap­ing and Native Plants
The use of native plants in land­scap­ing, also known as “Bayscap­ing” or “xeriscap­ing”, is impor­tant within the region to min­i­mize inva­sive species, the need for water­ing, and the use of fer­til­iz­ers, pes­ti­cides. Native plants require lit­tle or no addi­tional water­ing or fer­til­iz­ing, once estab­lished, and can aid in soil reten­tion, ero­sion con­trol, and water fil­tra­tion. Also, native plants pro­vide valu­able habi­tat for many native insect, bird, and mam­mal species in the region, as well as migrat­ing species. Con­sider cre­at­ing a back­yard habi­tat gar­den at home, school, or work using native plants to attract these species.

Soil Qual­ity
Envi­ron­men­tally friendly land­scap­ing is all about qual­ity … of the soil that is. Since healthy soil equals healthy plants, green land­scap­ers are con­stantly on the look­out for ways to boost soil fer­til­ity. When you hire a com­pany focused on sus­tain­able results for the long term, they will pro­vide you with native plants and healthy soil, rich in organic mat­ter. This reduces main­te­nance and water­ing require­ments and increases the life of your plants.

Soil Test­ing

How do you know how your soil is doing?  Soil test­ing is easy and inex­pen­sive.  It makes sense to find out if there is any­thing needed, before apply­ing reme­dies like fer­til­iz­ers and lime.  Espe­cially when they are going to run off into our water­ways.   If you hire a lawn main­te­nance ser­vice, make sure that they pro­vide a soil test.

The Colum­bia Asso­ci­a­tion (CA) is offer­ing free soil test­ing dur­ing 2012.  You can read more about that in their soil test­ing fact sheet and here’s another one that tells explains how to take a soil sam­ple. If you are out­side of CA, there are many soil test­ing options.  The Uni­ver­sity of Mary­land Exten­sion web­site has very detailed infor­ma­tion about soil test­ing includ­ing lists of labs, FAQs and a video on how to take a soil sam­ple. Extension’s Home and Gar­den Infor­ma­tion Cen­ter web­site is also loaded with great gar­den­ing infor­ma­tion that is spe­cific to our region.

Eco-Friendly Land­scape Essen­tials – Com­post is Key!
Approx­i­mately 12% of the County’s land­filled trash is yard­waste. Solve the yard­waste chal­lenge in your own back­yard! Com­post­ing is a safe, nat­ural way to con­vert leaves, grass clip­pings, and veg­etable refuse into valu­able organic mat­ter, known as humus, which is rich in nutri­ents. When spread in the gar­den, humus improves soil aer­a­tion, water reten­tion and root pen­e­tra­tion. Pick up a FREE com­post bin from the Depart­ment of Pub­lic Works and enjoy the won­der­ful ben­e­fits of com­post in your own yard.

Recy­cle Your Yard­waste Into Mulch
For large yard­waste, avoid send­ing it to the trash pile at the land­fill and put it at the curb on recy­cling days! Once col­lected, yard­waste will be turned into mulch at the land­fill. For details on col­lec­tion and obtain­ing free large paper bags for yard waste col­lec­tion visit the Recy­cling Division’s yard waste web­page.

Recy­cled Goods
Another key to a highly suc­cess­ful green land­scap­ing project is the use of recy­cled mate­ri­als such as mulch, other soil amend­ments, and land­scape con­struc­tion mate­ri­als. Con­sider recy­cled plas­tic ben­der board for use in deck­ing and land­scape edg­ing, flag­stone paths and patios, and stone retain­ing walls. Broken-up con­crete, which is widely avail­able from con­struc­tion sites and always free, can make an attrac­tive sub­sti­tute for flag­stone, and many peo­ple also build retain­ing walls from this mate­r­ial. Recy­cled brick is another great option for cre­at­ing beau­ti­ful paths and patios.