Native plants: These are “best suited to your region’s normal amount of rainfall,” says Jason Mark, who co-manages Alemany Farm, a 4.5-acre San Francisco community garden. In Houston, for example, put in Texas hummingbird sage. To research the best plants for your area, talk to experts at your local nursery and gardening center—and for a plant-hardiness-zone map, check the National Arboretum site, usna.usda.gov.
Water: To prevent water from evaporating into the air, avoid using sprinklers, or at least use them very early in the morning. Instead, get water to plants’ roots by using soaker hoses, or, better yet, put in a drip-irrigation system, which slowly releases water into the soil. A kit with a 200-foot, half-inch hose is $47.90 at dripirrigation.com. Especially in drier climates, try xeriscaping (named after the Greek word for dry), which calls for no extra irrigation. Common plants include cactus and aloe vera. See xeriscape.org.
Composting: To improve the quality of the soil in any fruit or flower garden without using fertilizer, make compost. Let fruits, vegetables and other non-meat, nonfatty kitchen scraps decompose in a compost bin. You can buy one at sites like cleanairgardening.com. In the spring, after you’ve let your compost decompose for about two months, spread a half inch to an inch around your garden and let it break down into your soil. Consider “vermicomposting”—letting worms eat through the scraps. Their excrement is a nitrogen-rich fertilizer; see sites like wormlady.com. If you don’t want to do composting yourself, buy organic compost, now available at mainstream garden stores. Try mixing nitrogen-rich coffee grounds into your soil, which promotes healthy leaf growth. Most Starbucks stores distribute free bags of Grounds for Your Garden. Just mix the coffee grounds with dried leaves or grasses and apply it to the garden.
Mulch: Mulch protects plants from cold and heat, puts nutrients in their soil, keeps weeds from popping up and preserves soil moisture. (Maintaining healthy soil is the best way to prevent pests and plant diseases.) Add a one-inch layer and reapply a few times a year, when you see it disappear. Make your own mulch from yard waste, like leaves you shred with your lawn mower. Avoid cypress mulch. It’s made from clear-cut trees that are important to the swamp system in Louisiana because they can absorb water from storms.
Herbicides: Avoid chemical-laden products. Instead, pull weeds and cover the area with layers of newspaper (weighed down with stones). Try organic products, available at sites like extremelygreen.com. Or make your own from garlic, onion and hot pepper steeped in boiling water.
Pollinators and bugs: Without pollinators, like bees and butterflies, you can’t grow food crops like peas, beans, apples and strawberries. To attract them, plant a lush, diverse garden, filled with plants like fruity shrubs and with evergreens that provide cover for them to hide in. Pollinators also like shrubs with thorns for nesting, since other creatures can’t get in there. Ladybugs are especially wonderful because they lay their eggs on plants like Queen Anne’s lace and eat aphids. Finally, to add a “magical” touch, hang solar lanterns from bird-feeder hooks. And enjoy cultivating your environmental thumb.
