An Ecological Gardeners Handbook: How to Create a Garden With a Healthy Eco-System and Garden Sustainably

Bastard

Introduction

The Life Keeper

I built myself a garden wild, selfishly for mine own pleasure,

A sanctuary of scent and sight and sound

Where-in my frazzled soul could wander head high

intoxicated with blossom sweet scented blooming buds

to riot amongst a feast of form, and sing a song of all seasons delight.

Then tucked deep within the branches of my tree I found a nest

and realized the garden I had built to satisfy my soulful longing

had grown. All of its own acquired a will

and become for others a God created world of sustenance

and of Life, I had become a Keeper.

(Val Payn. 2003)

…the future of mankind can be assured only if we rediscover ways in which to live as a part of nature, not apart from her HRH The Prince of Walesi addressing UN climate conference COP15, Copenhagen (December 2009).

For millions of years plants flourished on Earth with no help whatsoever from human beings. Where ever there was enough sunlight, warmth and water, plants grew all by themselves with not a person in sight. Then along came some bright, hard working, plant loving people who decided plants could not possibly survive without plenty of dedicated human help. The gardening industry was born.

Gardens, of course, have brought many delightful pleasures to people through the ages. They beautify our surroundings, are places to relax, socialize, enjoy the outdoors, commune with Nature, be creative, uplift our spirits, and of course grow all sorts of useful, interesting and attractive plants.

Today the gardening industry is worth a fortune. Countless gardening magazines, T.V programmes, adverts and garden stores encourage us to create gardens full of highly bred, exotic plants from all corners of the world. To get these to grow we often irrigate heavily, use lots of chemical fertilizers, and spray toxic pesticides around like air freshener to keep all the bugs at bay – just in case something dares attack our precious plants.

In the United States of America gardeners spend on average $35 billion on 90 million pounds of pesticides each year. In fact, American gardeners use more pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers per acre of land than any other industry, including commercial agriculture (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).2004). Many of these chemicals cause serious environmental problems. Some have also been linked to a range of human health problems, including cancer, birth defects, infertility, allergies, and liver and kidney problems (Repetto, R., et al. 1996. Rudel, Ruthann, et al, 2003. Lewis, R., et al. 1991).

The good citizens of the USA are not the only ones on Earth guilty of this complete chemical garden overdose. In my part of the world in Southern Africa, visit any garden centre or outdoor store, and one will likely find rows and rows of shelves groaning under the weight of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and all sorts of other ‘cides promising quick-fix solutions to any gardening problem. Sometimes there seem to be even more ‘cides than plants for sale. There must be plenty of customers, otherwise why would the stores bother to stock all those toxins?

Gardening that relies on chemicals and heavy irrigation is expensive and time consuming. It causes pollution, wastes water and energy, damages the soil, and often changes the natural environment so much that local native plants and wildlife battle to survive. In short, this sort of gardening is an ideal way to create a pretty lifeless, drug addicted yard. One could say gardening with ‘cides is the equivalent of environmental suicide!

And how on Earth, a skeptic might well ask, do wild plants ever manage to grow and thrive, all alone, without all this dedicated and expensive chemically based human help? And if wild plants can do it, why can’t garden plants?

This book will tell you how Nature gets plants to grow. It will reveal the hidden natural processes that enable wild plants to thrive without any human help. And it will explain how we can use these same natural processes to create ecologically well –adjusted gardens that support healthy plant life without using tonnes of chemicals.

We all hear regular warnings about the dangers of climate change, pollution, habitat loss and a host of other environmental ills for which humans are responsible. Growing populations, ever spreading cities and chemical intensive factory farms, and our generally environmentally damaging and polluting ways, leave less and less land for wild plants and animals to thrive. Unfortunately, ecologically destructive garden practices contribute to this sad state of affairs. Our environmentally damaging human activities are putting such a strain on Earth’s environment that conservation organizations warn Earth is facing an ‘extinction crisis’ (Brown et al. 2001). If Planet Earth was a business, our poor management of Earth’s natural resources would mean Planet Earth Co. Ltd bank balance would be running into very serious debt. The Planet Earth Bank’s creditors, auditors, accountants and bank manager would be calling us every month telling us to get our Planet Earth Business affairs in order or they will foreclose.

The Benefits of Eco-friendly Gardening

Luckily, as gardeners, if we take steps to create a garden with a healthy ecological system (or eco-system) we can make quite a difference. By creating a healthy garden eco-system we can trim down, or stop altogether, our use of chemical fertilizers, toxic pesticides, and heavy irrigation. This reduces water and energy use, and air, water and soil pollution. Gardens with healthy eco-systems help create healthy environments for our loved ones and communities to live in and enjoy. And they help conserve important natural processes that are essential for all life on Earth. Indeed, when we create an eco-friendly garden we bring many benefits to our garden and the environment around our garden.

These, in no particular order, are some of the benefits you will see from eco-friendly gardening:-

-The condition of your garden soil will improve over time. As your soil improves so will the health of your plants.

-You will be able to grow a range of healthy plants that thrive with little attention, and that seldom suffer damaging pest or disease attacks. This means you will be able to cut your use of pesticides and other harmful chemicals.

-You will be able to choose plants for your garden that are ideally suitable for the conditions in your area.

-You will learn how to modify harsh conditions in your garden by using plants, ground shaping, shelter belts and other techniques.

-You will create a garden that suits the unique conditions in your yard and your locality, and that fits your needs, your abilities, and your budget. This means you will be able to create a low maintenance garden, tailor made to your unique situation.

-Your garden will become more resilient. It will be able to cope better with changing, harsh and varying conditions without losing its essential character. Your plants will become less susceptible to drought, to pests and disease, and to extreme temperatures and weather changes.

-Your garden will become full of life. It will attract a wide variety of beneficial birds, insects and other small creatures. Contrary to what to you may think, these multitudes of creatures don’t devastate the plants. In fact, they are signs that the garden eco- system is thriving and healthy. As you will learn in later chapters, these beneficial garden creatures contribute to the health of your garden eco-system. They will naturally do much of the pest control, will improve the condition of your soil, and play other vital roles in your garden eco-system.

-Because it supports a wide variety of plant and local animal life, your garden will play a conservation role. It may even help prevent the extinction of rare endangered species.

-You will be able to cut down on the amount of irrigation water you use. With careful planning, you may be able to stop irrigating altogether, even in a dry climate. If you pay for water, this can be a huge budget saving. If your water source relies on energy, such as an electric water pump, saving water will also save energy.

-You will be able to grow some of your own organic food, as well as create a pleasant, healthy eco-friendly decorative garden.

-The combined results of these benefits means your garden will help put a brake on environmental damage in your neighbourhood, instead of contributing to that damage.

Gardens with healthy eco-systems come in many styles and sizes. Babylonstoren, Paarl. South Africa.

A Remedy for Gardening Headaches

Eco-friendly solutions can also remedy certain problems that often cause headaches for gardeners. These problems may be the result of natural conditions in the environment, or they might be caused by environmentally damaging human activities. If your garden frequently suffers from any of the problems listed below, eco-friendly ways of gardening will help resolve these:-

Frequent outbreaks of plant damaging pests.

Frequent diseases in your plants.

Infertile soil.

Hard soil that compacts and cracks easily.

Soil that dries out very quickly after rain.

Soil that does not drain well after rain, or smells bad.

Bare soil that easily washes or blows away in rainstorms or wind.

Plants that cannot survive without frequent watering.

Plants that die easily from heat, cold or wind stress.

Plants that don’t fruit or seed well.

Plants that easily blow over in the wind.

Very few beneficial creatures in the garden.

Heavy build up of mineral salts, or other pollution, in your soil.

Invasions of problem plants or uncontrollable weeds.

Rapid loss of moisture from the garden.

Plant damage caused by rapid and extreme temperature changes, drought or wind.

The basic ideas behind eco-friendly gardening are simple, easy to grasp and effective. They don’t need special equipment or specialized knowledge. In fact, you probably already have most of what you need in your yard to start an eco-friendly garden. Whether you are an experience gardener or a beginner, this book explains how you can improve the way your garden eco-system works by making the most of what is easily available in your vicinity.

Gardens with healthy eco-systems come in many different styles, sizes and layouts and are found in different environments all over the world. They can be found in cities, suburbs or in the country, in deserts, along the tropics, in the mountains, along rivers, in forests, on savannah, along the sea shore and even on roof-tops. They may be large or small, formal or informal, neat or unkempt, or evocative of wild places. Often they are productive as well as decorative. What unites them all is that the gardeners who created them have learnt to understand, mimic and work with Nature.

Six simple steps

Creating a garden with a healthy eco-system involves 6 basic steps:-

These are:-

-Analyze and understand your own expectations for your garden. What do you want your garden to do for you? Determine what is realistic, and what isn’t, for your particular situation.

- Get to know your local environment, and plan and manage your garden with this in mind.

-Understand the connections between plants, animals and the non-living parts of your garden, and learn to use these to your advantage.

-Choose plants for specific ecological and human purposes.

-Learn how to create and work with living soil.

-Learn how to attract useful, or beneficial, creatures into your garden. These creatures are an essential part of a healthy eco-system.

This book will take you through these steps. It will explain, in simple terms, the theories behind the practice, and how to take practical steps to put in place what you learn.

You will reap the most benefit from this book if you read all the sections and try to apply what works for you and your particular situation. But, just as a hand with some fingers missing can still work as a hand, you will see some benefits to your garden even if you only choose to focus on one or two sections of this book.

Each section of the book includes a range of practical idea’s you can put into practice. You don’t have to undertake all the ideas to see benefits to your garden eco-system. Choose those that seem most relevant and do-able for you. Certain practices are repeatedly recommended in many different sections. This is because these particular practices bring a wide range of positive eco-system benefits to many different gardening challenges. So if you have doubts about what your best course of action should be, follow these re-occurring suggestions.

Chapters 1 to 4 deal with the general qualities of eco-friendly gardens. Chapter 5 and 6 discuss ways to adapt your garden to suit harsh conditions and your local climate. Chapters 7 and 8 explore the living soil, and how to build soil fertility without using chemical fertilizers. Chapter 9 looks at ways of creating sustainable plant communities. Chapters 10 and 11 discuss various common garden creatures and how these benefit our garden. Chapter 12 gives tips on growing some of your own organic food. Chapter 13 provides an inspirational summary on how to move towards creating an eco-friendly garden.

I hope this book inspires you to take steps toward creating a garden with a flourishing eco- system, or to continue down that path if you are travelling it already. If you follow even some of the tips in the book you will begin to enjoy a productive, healthy garden environment that helps sustain people as well as Nature. You too will become a Keeper of Life.

2 - Hitched to the Universe

   When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe. John Muir. Conservationist.

We should protect species not because it is affecting us, but because we have the stewardship of the planet… We don’t have the right to exterminate nature. Sir David Attenborough. Conservationist and T.V. presenter. (Mongabay.com. 25.10.2013)

Plants have an amazing ability to transform their environment. I recently got a strong reminder of this transformative plant power. In my neighbourhood in Kwazulu-Natal Province, South Africa, is a large, lush wild forest, known as the Ingeli Forest. Marked trails through the forest are popular with hikers, cyclists and birdwatchers. Last summer, on a hot, dry day, I hiked one of the trails through the forest with a group of friends. We approached the forest from a road leading along a dry barren hillside where commercially grown pine tree plantations had recently been felled, leaving the hillside bare of any vegetation. Along the baren hillside conditions were dry, hot and dusty. The few remaining plants on the hillside were tinder dry under the hot sun. Like the few struggling plants still trying to grow on the denuded hillside, our little party of hikers wilted in the heat. But as we approached the forest the humidity and temperature changed considerably. Inside the forest it was cool, moist, humid and green. Plants grew lush, with no signs of the heat stress that wilted plants on the denuded hillside. The ground in the forest was still moist, despite the dry weather. A shading tree canopy and dense layers of leaves on the ground retained moisture in the forest and protected the soil from excessive heat. Although the hot hillside received the same amount of rainfall and sunshine the forest did, the forest plants had made a remarkable difference to temperature, humidity and ground moisture levels between the forest and the barren hillside.

Plants, though, are just one part of an eco-system. Although they have a strong influence on conditions in the eco-system, they are also affected by whatever happens in that eco-system. When we create a healthy garden eco-system we generate the best possible natural conditions in which our garden plants can grow.

A Life Support System

Think of an eco-system as being a support system for life. Wherever one finds living things, one finds some sort of an eco-system. Eco-systems contain living things such as plants and animals, as well as non-living things that living things depend on, such as water, air, sunlight and soil. Every garden has living things in it, as well as non-living things, so every garden has an eco-system. But not every garden has a thriving, well functioning eco-system.

A garden’s eco-system is shaped by the particular combination of living and non-living things found in and around the garden. To create a healthy garden eco-system, then, we have to think about the way the living and non-living parts of our garden connect to and influence each other. Rather than just thinking of the garden as a bunch of separate, unrelated plants and parts - like a collection in a museum or art gallery – I find it helpful to think of a garden as a living community. In this living community each member of the community plays a part in the way the whole community functions.

The non-living parts of a garden eco-system include:-

-Some of the natural elements of the garden, such as local climate and weather conditions, soil, the availability of water, topography ( the shape of the local landscape), and aspect (the way sunlight and shadows affect the garden).

-The architecture of the garden, such as garden paths, walls, hedges, drains, ponds, terraces, arbors or any other man-made features.

-The state of the physical environment around the garden. Is this built up or rural, pristine or highly altered?

Forest garden. Kirstenbosch National Botanic Garden. Cape Town

Living parts of a garden include:-

-The communities of wild and domestic plants in and around the garden

-Wild and domestic animals that live in and around the garden, such as birds, insects, small mammals, reptiles, soil-dwelling creatures.

-The invisible but very important world of microbes, fungi and other things too small for humans to see without a microscope.

-People who plan, work in and use the garden.

All gardens have some sort of an eco-system, because all gardens have living and non-living things in them. But not all gardens have thriving, vibrant or healthy eco-systems.

In a healthy garden eco-system a wide range of living things - plants, mammals, microbes, birds, insects, fungi, reptiles, amphibians etc - perform various essential functions that are necessary for life to thrive. These essential functions include pollination, recycling ( the ability to turn waste into something useful for life), soil turning, decomposition or waste removal, pest and disease control, mineral and gas conversion, nutrient building, seed dispersal and photosynthesis – the trick of turning sunlight into food energy; a trick only performed by plants. If anything happens in an eco-system to weaken or damages these essential natural functions, the eco-system can become degraded and fail to work as well as it should. Our human labour then has to replace what Nature should do or we end up with gardening problems. Pollution, soil degradation, and the loss of living things that play vital eco-system roles can all affect the ability of an eco-system to function well.

Sun Energy

All living things, of course, need energy to grow and be active doing whatever it is they like to do, breeding, feeding, birthing, fighting, growing, scratching, digging, gardening, reading, writing…. To perform these tasks living things need energy. They get this energy by feeding off each other or off each other’s waste products, or they turn non-living things such as sunlight, soil minerals and gases into useful stuff that can