Furthermore: Where the Headlines Take You

Green in the Yard

The Maritime Northwest is a land of gardeners. Although our climate of dry summers and long, rainy winters creates some obstacles, many garden plants grow beautifully here, and we are lucky to be surrounded by a variety of beautiful and diverse wild environments as well. But in cities, sensible and sustainable garden and landscape design can be a challenge, and there aren't really any standards for how to do it. Recently the Sustainable Sites Initiative (a joint effort of the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and the United States Botanic Garden) published a report outlining a proposed set of guidelines for creating sustainable landscapes. The hope is that a formal rating system will encourage developers and city planners to think more about how 'green' buildings are on the outside.

If you want to read up on the subject in the meantime, there are many books about rainwater harvesting and building rain gardens, edible landscaping and growing food in cities, and about sustainable design in general. But today, I'd like to share a few of my especial favorites with you.

When I bought my house the yard had one small rhododendron, three musty rose bushes, and a lot of weedy grass. There were no flower or vegetable beds, and no trees, even though the house was nearly 80 years old. I'd never gardened before in my life, but I wanted to minimize the lawn mowing in my future, so I plunged right in. One of the most helpful books I read in those first few years of novice gardening was Robert Kourik's Designing and Maintaining Your Edible Landscape Naturally. It's a classic originally published in 1986, and the text carefully carries readers through a process of learning new ways to look at and understand the land they're gardening on. Kourik discusses irrigation, beneficial insects, soil health, tillage, and he explains how to plan for trees that will shade the house in summer but not winter, how to grow effective windbreaks, and how to integrate vegetables and fruit with ornamental plants. Designing and Maintaining Your Edible Landscape Naturally is straightforward, practical, and easy to read and understand.

Design for Water: Rainwater Harvesting, Stormwater Catchment, and Alternate Water Reuse focuses on one aspect of sustainable landscape design – a very important aspect for those of us in rainy country. Author and land use planner Heather Kinkade-Levario explains a wide variety of strategies for safe, sustainable rainwater management and harvesting. Kinkade-Levario starts by sharing a brief history of rainwater catchment, and exploring some reasons why it can be a good idea to catch and harvest rainwater. The rest of the book is full of specific examples of systems that catch rainwater and save it for use in landscapes and buildings. There are photographs of real rainwater management systems on every page, with diagrams and tables explaining technical considerations. Even if you're not going to build your own cistern or bioswale, this is fascinating stuff!

And finally, if you need an all-around introduction to the practical aspects of designing and building sustainable landscapes, J. William Thompson and Kim Sorvig's Sustainable Landscape Construction may be just the ticket. It's a little bit on the dry side because it's written for professionals and serious enthusiasts, but if you need to understand the philosophy of sustainable design in the landscape, or if you're looking for design principles and standards, it's a great place to start. Managing water in the landscape, planning for recycling and salvage, avoiding noise and light pollution, and planning for sensible maintenance are all discussed in careful, rational terms.