We at Backyard Abundance sincerely appreciate the Press-Citizen’s May 27 article “Our View: Eco-friendly starts in your own backyard.” Lowering landscape maintenance, improving environmental health, and food security are at the heart of this recent gardening trend. The gulf oil spill is contributing to the emergence of an underlying environmental angst that we all carry within us.

 

It may seem that fossil fuels are required to power our existence. Yet we know that their extraction causes an immense amount of damage. This is an unpopular dinnertime topic and our busy lives leave little time for reflection, so we persevere with the status quo, repressing feelings of guilt, despair, fear, and powerlessness. Where to begin?

 

We can find lasting solutions to some of our energy issues in our own backyards.

 

Solutions outside our backdoor
Our urban landscapes are miniaturized reflections of our world and worldview. They are disconnected and energy-intensive. The fuel for mowing, fertilizing, and weed prevention only scratches the surface of a yard’s veiled energy requirements. Fossil fuel powers the construction and maintenance of factories that produce fertilizers (made from natural gas), herbicides (made from petroleum), mowers, trimmers, and blowers. Landfills must be maintained to accept the limited lifespan of this equipment.

 

Water is another important issue. After a small amount of rainfall, most turfgrass sheds water like asphalt, requiring miles of concrete sewers to funnel water to nearby urban streams. Stream bank undercutting, caused by chaotic water fluctuations, requires additional fossil fuel for repairs. Rainfall on our landscape is quickly shuttled away while we create and maintain a massive infrastructure to pump water from deep in the ground, purify it, store it, and transport it to our outdoor spigots. Increased flooding is one result of our current water management system.

 

Our food system follows a similar pattern. Low-maintenance edible landscaping could replace turfgrass and ornamentals in our yards. But right now, fossil fuel powers the destruction of distant wild spaces to cultivate our food. This food then travels an average of 1300 miles to reach our plates. No wonder our children think that food comes from the grocery store instead of understanding it requires fertile soil to produce it.

 

We do not need more fossil fuel energy; we need more multi-functional, integrated designs, right in our backyards. These designs, however, can only come from an integrated worldview.

 

When we learn to create highly functional, productive, and low-maintenance landscapes that benefit people, plants, and wildlife, we begin to understand how these principles can be applied to our larger energy issues. This integrated ecological worldview contributes to lasting solutions that scale upward, changing more aspects of our lifestyle.

 

This shift in perception and subsequent actions are very fulfilling and empowering. These are rare and welcome feelings since we are constantly told that the best we can do is cause less environmental harm. The question then becomes, “When will we make it a priority?” Let’s begin right now.

 

The classes, yard tours, and presentations offered by Backyard Abundance are about more than growing nice plants. We continually put landscape design, water management, and low-maintenance gardening into this larger world context. The results are both beautiful and productive.

 

Our goal is to help people in our community transform that nagging environmental angst into knowledge and skills that directly improve our lives and the health of our world.