What I Learned from The New American Landscape

Here's my latest for Kirkus Reviews.  Click here to read Amy's interview with Benjamin Vogt about his book Sleep, Creep, Leap.

Sustainable v. traditional front yards in Santa Monica, CA

I must have read every book ever published about “sustainable gardening” – surely there aren’t any more of them! – but still I was eager to read the latest on the subject from Timber Press because the contributors are the undisputed experts on their subjects, from soils and water conservation to native plants and permaculture.  Indeed the book’s subtitle, “Leading voices on the future of sustainable gardening,” is no idle boast.

So despite my imagined overexposure to this topic, I found plenty of interesting tidbits in The New American Landscape, including the following.

Pest and pesticide experts David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth boldly state what’s so often said whispered about the horticultural advice given by universities – that it’s often tainted by the source of their funding - the chemical companies. 

Permaculture advocate Eric Toensmeier isn’t entirely happy with the Sustainable Sites Initiative requirements for LEED-like certification for landscapes because they give no credit for growing edibles.  He goes on to make an impressive case for food-growing even in the desert, showing off a Tucson garden that supplies 10-25 percent of the owner’s food using rainwater, greywater and runoff only. 

Doug Tallamy explains that insects are more important than seeds and berries for sustaining birds, writing that “Ninety-six percent of terrestrial birds in North America rear their young on insects….When they are reproducing, birds need the high-quality protein and energy-rich fat bodies produced by insects to succeed.”  (Tallamy also disproves two opposing myths about native plants, as I reported here earlier.)

Richard Darke defines “sustainable gardens” as “those that consume the fewest resources,” which makes so much sense I wonder why that definition isn’t universally accepted.  Then he jumps into the hottest topic in gardening with his take on invasive plants: “I am not comfortable with the term ‘invasive’… So-called invasive plants wouldn’t exist unless they were better adapted to current conditions than so-called native species.” Darke grows a mix of natives and nonnatives but declares that “None of the plants I grow require watering beyond initial establishment, fertilizing, or pesticides.”  He’s my kind of gardener.

 
Water-wise schoolyard in Portland, OR

Meadows expert John Greenlee, when describing the yearly cutting back required by meadows and natural lawns, recommends doing the job with a “groundcover mower or a weed eater with a blade.”  What the heck are they and where can I buy them?

Reliable predictions are that by 2013, 36 U.S. states will have chronic water shortages, so “waterwise gardening” isn’t just for the arid West anymore.  Tom Christopher reminds us that 30 percent of residential water use goes to the landscape, mostly to lawns that could and should be allowed to go dormant in the summer.  Dormancy isn’t a sign of impending death; it’s the state of “suspended animation” that keeps turfgrasses alive through weeks of summer weather.

Christopher also points out a gaping omission in the USDA’s growing zones – they reflect winter temperatures only and ignore amounts of rainfall.  “The USDA map classifies Naples, FL as identical with Victorville, CA, even though Naples receives 51.9 inches of precipitation annually while Victorville gets less than 7.” 

Christopher’s caveat about the use of mulch surprises me, though.  “In the short term, an organic mulch will reduce soil fertility because it will absorb nitrates (a major plant nutrient) from the soil as it decomposes.  For this reason, the application of such a mulch will probably increase your plants’ need for fertilization in the short term.”  Can that be true of all organic mulches, not just hard wood?  

About soil science and the details of permaculture, I found a lot here that was new to me but frankly, grasped close to none of it.  My bad, I’m sure. 

THE GIVE-AWAY
Just leave a comment and I'll choose one at random to win a copy.  Entries close tomorrow at midnight  Eastern time.

Comments

[Lisa]

After Hurricane Irene, I have more open space that needs to be a sustainable garden. The more information, the better.

[Margret Delves Broughton]

I want to give this book to my friend who lost her whole garden (and lawn) in a recent hurricane. Her new garden must be sustainable!!

[SJ]

I would love to win a copy of this book. It would be good to bring along to prospective clients and highlight certain sections. Driving around there are still way too many unsustainable gardens out there.

[commonweeder]

Looking at all those bits of information makes me glad that I am a lazy and frugal gardener, and that I live in a rural area where I can comfort myself with the surrounding fields and woods that get no interference from me and therefore must be filled with bugs. The issue of mulching I find worth more investigation. I'd love to get this book and read in full.

[Barbara Hobens Feldt]

The mulch comment makes me want to ignore this book, but he is spot on with the non-informative zones and the need to reduce lawns so...I like to read this one!

[Jenn]

Sounds like a great read! I'm always interested in the latest opinions about our gardening ways.

[Charlotte Owendyk]

I would love to read this book...

[Laurin Lindsey]

I can't wait to read this book! I love the way things are changing : )

[John]

Be great to read a copy of this as I slowly rid my yard of traditional turfgrass.

[Carole]

Would love to read this book. Regarding the lawn, I tell my friends I don't mow my lawn, I level the weeds, whie clover, etc. Works for me.

[Tobias]

Green green world and a green green life :) I like green!

[Clare]

I would love to have this book. I am always talking to fellow gardeners about these ideas and could use some more good facts and quotes.

[Maria]

Sounds fascinating. Sign me up.

[UrsulaV]

Fascinating! I'll have to check that one out. (And in case nobody's said it already, you can buy a bladed replacement for the usual string weed-whacker. Makes it look vaguely like something a Klingon would use to garden with, but I find it infinitely more useful than those damn plastic strings.)

[Jean]

I need to understand this better so I can do right by my small piece of the landscape.

[PennyB]

My husband hates that I recycle food (produce) waste from the kitchen because it attracts bugs (small sweet little fruit flies). Now I can show him that the buggers are feeding the birds we like so much. I need this book as evidence!

[Marie Tulin]

I wrote my list of good lawn elimination needs, but it got eaten up. So, briefly, I would read this book from cover to cover and then talk about it endlessly.
Marie

[Linda Chalker-Scott]

Not only is the mulch information just plain wrong (I've debunked that myth here and other places), but I'm incensed that my advice as a university specialist "might be "tainted by the source of [their] funding - the chemical companies."

I am SO tired of hearing this rubbish. Show me one university extension specialist - the faculty that actually give horticultural advice - who falls into this category. Guess what? Those of us who work in urban horticulture, arboriculture, landscapes, etc. get very little, if any, funding from chemical companies or anyone else for that matter. The bucks are in crop production research. Furthermore, those of us whose job it is to give horticultural advice are accountable to our administrations. Is there such accountabiilty for independent advice givers?

I should also point out that USDA zones were developed ONLY for cold hardiness data. Rainfall has nothing to do with it.

It sounds as though this book could have benefitted from some outside fact-checking before it was published.

[MB]

Would love to read this book. I live in Tucson, AZ and I know the USDA zones refer to frost and cold hardiness only but what a great chart the USDA could come up with if they included not only rainfall but summer heat hardiness.

[Sarah]

Wish I hadn't missed the deadline. Sounds like this is my sort of book.

[Adam]

“In the short term, an organic mulch will reduce soil fertility because it will absorb nitrates (a major plant nutrient) from the soil as it decomposes. For this reason, the application of such a mulch will probably increase your plants’ need for fertilization in the short term.” Can that be true of all organic mulches, not just hard wood?
Sorry but the theory stated above (also known as nitrogen draft) has been disproven yet this fallacy refuses to die. When wood chips as used as surface dressing, no significant soil nitrogen occurs ( or if it does, it occurs at the most superficial level where weed seeds might establish themselves) . Nitrogen loss occurs when the wood chips are MIXED with the soil (so don't mix wood chips with the soil!) For a more robust discussion of the virtues of wood chip mulch check out Linda Chalker Smith's website
http://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/~Linda%20Chalker-Scott/Horticultural%20Myths_files/index.html

[Joyce]

How can I convince a people in a small community, or even a neighborhood, to stop watering lawns?