Environmentally Friendly Living
Are we dealing with global warming? Perhaps our weather patterns are just the result of a long-term climatic cycle. Either way, our weather patterns over the last few years have offered us both periods of excessive rain and, usually, at least one drought period during the calendar year.
Regardless of which side of the global warming issue you choose, we are still left dealing with the real life effects of our current weather patterns. Fortunately, there are simple changes we can make that offer real comfort and money-saving benefits.
Did you know that an inch of rain on a thousand-square-foot surface provides 340 gallons of water? Think about the size of your roof. Why not collect the run-off with a rain barrel to use for outside watering? Your plants will love it and your well or water bill will be better off for the change. Here’s another little water saving tip for use during those hot, sticky summer months. Installing a simple valve between your air conditioner and drain pipe lets you collect up to 10 gallons of water a day that normally would just flow down your drain.
It’s a pretty sure bet that you will spend a lot more money to cut and trim your property this year, compared to just a few years ago. Maybe now is the time to consider adding permanent beds, trees, and natural areas. You’ll be reducing the area that you maintain, slowing runoff, and possibly cutting your cooling bills with the added shade. Areas naturalized with bulbs, wildflowers, or other living material can greatly reduce the areas requiring your constant attention.
We now live in a different world from the one in which many of us grew up. Virginia waterways are no longer as pristine as they once were. The Chesapeake Bay struggles to maintain both water quality and a thriving seafood industry. For better or worse, we all impact the situation. One better way to make that impact is with trees. Rain water filtered through leaves, especially oak leaves, helps filter and purify the water both in streams and in our underground reservoirs. Planting one tree will help. Planting a large area will really help. In addition to leaves, other mulching material helps to reduce runoff and keeps your soil cooler, providing better plant growth.
Excessive nutrients are a major concern when we talk about water pollution. Our desire to have the perfect lawn may lead us to apply more lawn products than is necessary, allowing the runoff of excessive nutrients. Always follow labeled instructions when applying fertilizer or other lawn-care products. You’ll be improving our water quality and saving yourself a good bit of money to boot! The saying, “If a little is good, a lot is better,” does not apply when it comes to fertilizers and pesticides. Please, be careful!
Recently, Virginia Tech, Cumberland County, and the Farm Bureau hosted a conference at Bear Creek Lake State Park, discussing agricultural and tourism opportunities for the future. Many of their suggestions to improving the outlook for both industries were based on an assumption that Virginia would see a population growth of 39 percent between now and the year 2030. That growth will put a premium on our open spaces, natural resources, and especially on our need for waste disposal.
What can I do, you say? Recycle, reuse, and compost. Aluminum cans, old metal, even scrap wire can put money in your pocket. The simple act of composting kitchen waste, shredded paper, grass clippings, leaves, and mulch will reduce the need for commercial fertilizer, trash removal, and trips to the dump. Recycled cardboard reduces landfill demands and saves trees in the process.
Composting can be high-tech or as simple as collecting materials in a suitable place and letting Mother Nature take her course. We’ve all seen those compost tumblers or other such composting contraptions. While they work well, they may cost more than you wish to spend. A great way to compost is in a trench. Simply dig a trench about a foot wide and six-to-eight inches deep in an area that you wish to use later for growing. Place your materials to be composted in the trench and cover it as you go. Wait about six months, and you’ll have an area in which to grow that will require almost no fertilizer.
You can also compost both indoors or out with a worm composting bin. Take a plastic container of a suitable size, fill it with red wiggler worms, composting material, and a bedding material such as paper. You’ll be surprised at the amount of material these worms can compost, and you’ll end up with a worm compost that is unbeatable for plant growth. Kitchen vegetables, coffee grounds, old bread, pasta, peelings, or other vegetative waste will all compost well. You’ll find that the only real drawback to using compost is that you never have enough of it.
Privacy becomes more of an issue as property sizes become smaller and smaller. We all need those quiet spaces that offer refuge from the noise and the hustle and bustle of our daily lives. How do we create those spaces? Outdoors, consider using trees, shrubs, and vines to create a buffer between you and the outside world. Sometimes these spaces are called outdoor rooms.
Information on creating outdoor rooms is readily available in your local library, in bookstores, on the internet, or from many TV gardening and landscaping programs. Your own creative ideas are probably best because you know how you and your family operate within your own spaces. Small enclosures with flowers, benches, and gazebos are great starting points. Areas that overlook open spaces with bird feeders, a bird bath, bird houses, or other wildlife structures will add so much pleasure to your leisure hours.
The availability of suitable plant material has increased greatly during the past few decades. A walk through your local garden center offers the first indications of the outstanding plants available in today’s market. Add the numerous catalogs and internet offerings to these, and you begin to see just how enormous your planting options have become. A word of caution: Be sure to check the suitable growing zones and other special conditions before ordering any plant material.
It is said that two things are certain: death and taxes. Perhaps we should add one more item to this list: change. Technology and population increases will provide future changes at which we can only guess today. Our quality of life will depend greatly on how we adjust to these coming changes. Dealing with them will best be handled in small, incremental ways. For all of us, our quality of life will be influenced by the collective adjustments made by individuals, families, and communities. Now is the time to begin planning for a bright and prosperous future. The Virginia Cooperative Extension Service and your Heart of Virginia Master Gardeners are ready to help. Give us a call. You’ll probably find one of us just around the corner from you.
Written by members of the Heart of Virginia Master Gardeners
posted 4/9/07