To move towards a more eco-friendly yard it may be necessary to change your perception of what a well cared for yard looks like. While landscape practices in the last 50 years frequently meet human needs and our desire for a manicured aesthetically pleasing appearance the long term reality of this is a high maintenance chemically dependant landscape. This type of landscape requires extensive use of mechanical equipment that is highly polluting, regular supplementary watering and frequent applications of fertilizers and pesticides. As a result our air and water is being polluted, valuable resources, time and energy wasted and the biodiversity of our eco-systems threatened.

Eco-friendly landscaping and gardening is about finding a balance. This balance is not only between our needs, the needs of our environment and the other life it supports but also the balance provided by Mother Nature that allows a landscape to be self-sustainable. We can reduce the amount of pollution and synthetic chemicals in our yards and communities by changing our approach to our landscapes. By design we can increase self-sustainability and lower maintenance time & costs, energy consumption and chemical dependence. We need to throw out conventional landscape design which is based on aesthetics and human needs and seek a new model based on self-sustainably, functionality and ecology. Combine the basic principals of xeriscaping with organic gardening practices and you will be on the way to creating and maintaining an eco-friendly yard.