Landscape Articles

“Save the bees” is a phrase that has been repeated endlessly over the last couple of decades. We know how important it is to support our pollinator population, and have learned many ways to care for bees as they do their incredibly important work.

Gardening provides us with many joys, but there are, of course, hurdles to jump. The fact of the matter is that you can’t have a garden without garden pests. You can spray for them if you want to take care of them quickly. Or, if you can’t bear to kill them them, you can let them run wild and eat holes through all of your beautiful produce.

Mushrooms play a very important role in many different ecosystems. The fruiting bodies are a source of food for many different species, not just humans, and on a smaller scale, the mycelium digests and decomposes organic matter that may not be able to be used by other organisms.

But even more important, is a relationship called mycorrhizal symbiosis. In this relationship, the fungus grows around the roots of a vascular plant, and passes water and mineral nutrients to the plants in exchange for complex sugars created through photosynthesis.

The most common type, arbuscular mycorrhiza, is found in at least 70% of all plant species, including many crop species such as wheat and corn that humans rely on for survival. If you have nearly anything growing in your garden right now, you can thank mycorrhizal fungi for making it happen!

Adding compost to your lawn and garden is one of the best, easiest, most natural ways to get happy, healthy plants. Compost can be bought at lawn and garden centers, farmers markets, and sometimes even from zoos. But making your own compost is relatively easy, and is great for the environment.

Food waste is a major problem in the United States. It’s easy to forget about the bag of apples on your counter, and since one bad apple spoils the bunch, once they start to go, it can be hard to catch them before they all get mushy.

Before the mass adoption of chemical pesticides, fertilizers, and mechanized farming equipment in the early 20^th century, people had to rely on more natural methods of cultivating plants. Prior to these changes, gardening and agriculture changed relatively very little in the previous 10,000 years or so since humans first began cultivating plants. These methods have made a major resurgence recently as the damage done by chemical pesticides and fertilizers during the past 80 years has become more and more clear.

For an environmentally conscious gardener, managing your garden during a drought is a constant battle between needing to conserve water and keeping your parched plants alive. Drought is often paired with heat waves which can further complicate keeping your garden from drying out completely.

Fortunately, many species of plants have mechanisms in place to help them survive less than ideal conditions. Between those mechanisms and a human helping hand, we can help plants survive the dry spells.

Home lawn care has been a subject of human interest since around the 11^th century, with the Japanese sodding areas around their gardens with turf grasses taken from livestock fields. Since then, with the introduction of exotic grass species from all over the world and modern lawn equipment, our lawns today are a long way from where they began all those years ago.

What was once a mix of replanted native grasses and weeds has become monocultures of imported and genetically modified grasses. In their defense, these carefully curated grasses look great to the human eye, but all wildlife sees is a desert.

When it comes to plant care, chemical processes are the main element of whether plants wither and die, or survive and thrive. But more often than not, these processes are watered down into three categories; light, water, and the ever ambiguous “nutrients”. A deep understanding of these processes is not necessarily vital to success, but being somewhat familiar with the chemical needs of your plants can make the path to a thriving garden far easier.

Maintaining a home garden can sometimes require a significant amount of water to maintain. Of course, from time to time that’s supplemented by rainfall, but what about the rest of the time? For most people, this extra water comes from a municipal water supply, which can add up fast on the water bill. Luckily, there are ways to collect rainwater that would otherwise evaporate or seep into the ground, and use it to water your garden. Humans have been collecting and diverting rainfall for thousands of years, so why stop now?

Supply chain shortcomings are topping news headlines left and right lately, and it’s not just the latest cars and electronics being affected. Food shortages and price increases are becoming the new normal, and many people are beginning to look for places outside of the grocery stores to source their food.Luckily, you don’t have to look any farther than your backyard. Organic gardening can be a great way not only to decrease your reliance on grocery stores, but also trim your grocery bill, and decrease your carbon footprint all at the same time!

Although insects are vital to a sustainable landscape, an excess of the annoying ones like mosquitos can be a deterrent to enjoying your outdoor spaces. Chemical pesticides can be effective, but are indiscriminate and can cause harm not only to other wildlife, but also to you and your family. So what’s the responsible solution? Bats. Bats survive on a diet of insects, and some species are known to consume their body weight in mosquitos and other bugs on a typical summer night. That’s a lot of bugs that won’t be bothering you anymore!

Rewilding is not a new idea, but it has grown in popularity over the last several years. The modern homeowner is becoming more aware of how even small choices they make in their backyard affects the bigger picture.

As we understand the relationship between us and nature more, there are several changes we can make in our backyards that will help the environment and the critters who we share it with. The beauty of these changes is that they are not expensive—in fact, some of them are even time and money-saving because they hinge on us doing less!

Pollination has recently become a hot topic in part because a fatal disease has been killing honeybees, threatening the ability of commercial farms to produce an adequate supply of the fruits and vegetables we all love – not to mention honey. Pollination by bees, hummingbirds, moths, bats, butterflies, flies, and beetles ensures the continued existence of millions of plant species, and in turn, of most animal species, including humans – in fact, one of every three mouthfuls of our food depends on them. 

As efforts to combat climate change become increasingly urgent, one term that is gaining visibility and popularity is “sustainable landscaping.” But what exactly is it and how can it help us protect the environment?

Sustainable landscaping is an umbrella term that encompasses a number of landscape design, construction, implementation, and management practices utilized for both residential and commercial landscapes. Essentially, it is a strategy for making full use of the environment to provide natural key elements that a healthy landscape requires. As part of sustainable development, it preserves limited resources, reducing waste, and preventing air, water and soil pollution. Growing the right plants in the right places; utilizing compost and mulch; employing natural fertilization, weed and pest management; and implementing effective moisture control are all components of sustainable landscaping.   

Gardening in general and organic gardening specifically are growing in popularity as an increasing number of homeowners are becoming aware of the benefits. The pandemic, economic uncertainty, and the rising cost of food coupled with a desire to help the environment while spending time outdoors engaged in a fun, stress-reducing activity all have contributed to an interest in planting and raising flowers for beauty and fruits and vegetables for the table.

The pandemic has brought about a number of widespread changes in how we live, eat, and thrive. Gone for now are the days of carefree eating out. Tightened budgets often mean tightened belts as more and more Americans look to save money as their incomes take a hit with reduced working hours, furloughs and, in the worst cases, lost jobs. The silver lining to all this grim news is the growing interest of many people in growing their own food. However, substantial numbers of home gardeners find themselves challenged for space and turn to flexible, versatile container gardening to raise both food and flowers.

While summer may be long gone, that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy an active yard during the colder months and throughout winter. The key is creating an attractive, sustainable winter ecosystem that not only provides year-round beauty, but acts as a winter feeding habitat for the kinds of wildlife you’d like to see and nurture. 

By helping sustain wildlife during the harsh New England winter months you’re also helping maintain a healthy, balanced environment. All life is interrelated and dependent upon each animal and organism doing their part, however small. Insects and microbes break down organic matter into nutrients; those bugs feed small animals that help keep plants in check; they, in turn, feed larger animals that, when they die, feed the insects and microbes and help nourish the soil. Every organism plays a critical role in the cycle of life.

Truly successful landscaping starts with sustainability, which is built on a foundation of ecology -- really just a fancy word for the relationship of all organisms to each other and their surroundings. By understanding how each element of an environment is in balance with all the others, we can learn how to create beautiful and harmonious landscape designs that can thrive with minimal interference. That’s sustainable landscaping in a nutshell. 

In part one of our series comparing ecological cleanups with traditional ones, we discussed the differences between ecological and conventional landscaping. In the second part, we reviewed some of the specific processes of ecological landscaping.

For the final installment in the series, we’ll take a closer look at the overall benefits of ecological fall cleanups and the cost considerations of embracing a more environmentally-friendly strategy. At first blush, this approach may seem counterproductive and “messy” – a lazy person’s excuse for avoiding more aggressive and vigorous traditional cleanup tasks. Also, many people believe that preserving nature through organic landscape techniques is more costly than conventional methods. Neither of these are true.

It seems intuitive that we like to spend time outdoors -- we’ve all craved nature at one time or another -- but science has now identified some of the reasons we actually need to spend time in a more natural setting. In fact, there is a term for this, Ecotherapy, that refers to the various physical and psychological benefits of being outside.

Gardening and garden landscaping to many people invokes images of beautiful flowers or rows of healthy fruits and vegetables. But gardening is so much more than that. Modern garden design encompasses a wide range of landscapes and locations – from sunny, open areas to shaded woodlands, from residential patios to commercial courtyards – filled with plants and features not even dreamed of just a few years ago.

Many garden landscape designers today, including Moodscapes, have embraced a modern, sustainable, and environmentally-based approach – ecological gardening. Instead of relying upon manmade solutions without regard to their environmental impact, ecological gardening emulates nature’s processes and promotes biodiversity, sustainability, soil health, and plant health. It’s gardening designed to restore and enhance both the environment and your wellbeing.

According to the American Society of Landscape Architects climate change is rapidly growing as a significant factor in landscape design. Raising temperatures, more frequent and severe droughts, and increasing damage from bigger storms are all taking their toll on both the natural and built environment.

If you’re a property owner considering a new landscape project it’s important to be aware of the following five major factors that can have a significant effect on your landscaping plans:

Organic landscaping is both a process and a strategy for creating a beautiful, dynamic landscape while supporting a low-environmental-impact installation and maintenance approach. And while organic landscaping may not be the least expensive or  fastest method in the short-term, over time it will prove less expensive, healthier and more sustainable than more traditional techniques that depend on manufactured fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. 

Lawn care chemicals have been around for decades. But only in recent years have we started to become aware of some of the damage that can be caused by these compounds. There is a lot of hype and misinformation out there about certain products and whether they are safe to be used on your yard. Understanding the toxicity of popular lawn care chemicals is an important first step in choosing the right products for your yard.

In recent blog posts, we have been discussing the key differences between organic and conventional landscaping. While conventional gardening tactics may be more prominent, we believe that organic methods are better for the environment, more cost-effective in the long run, and safer for humans and animals.

To close out our series on organic gardening, we’re offering four guiding principles of organic gardening that we believe will make any landscape healthier. At Moodscapes, we strive to follow these guidelines on every landscape maintenance project we take on.