Sustainable garden design

Sustainable cities , Sustainable gardens, Sustainable landscape architecture, Green building, Hundertwasser, Green roof planning, Solar panels, Landscaped Architecture, Walls and roofs,

A more-sustainable garden has fewer inputs and fewer outputs than a less-sustainable garden. For example:

The ways in which these design objectives can be achieved are embodied in the gardeners Noble Eightfold Path:

1. Make compost unceasingly. Making compost should be part of the routine in every garden, even if it is no larger than a window box. Items which cannot be composted domestically (eg wood) should be composted municipally. Wood material can also be burned (but see cautionary note).
2. Use home-made composts in place of artificial fertilisers, peat and other organic additives.
3. Practice rainwater harvesting. Water should be collected from roofs and pavements, stored in gardens and infiltrated into the soil, slowly.
4. Use physical and biological pest controls instead of chemicals.
5. Return to nineteenth century methods of soil warming, based on the use of compost.
6. Use a hand-powered grass-cutter instead of a fossil-fuel mower. This will also save you the cost of an exercise machine.
7. Use solar power for garden lighting and garden pumps
8. Use lime mortar (not cement mortar) for garden construction, so that hard landscape materials can be re-cycled.

Gardenvisit.com is pleased to publish 4 articles on Sustainable Garden Design by award winning designer and Times columnist Alice Bowe, with excellent advice on choosing materials and rainwater management.