Save Your Garden, Save the World
Figure 1. Vegetable raised beds and nearby herb and small fruit garden in early spring by Susan Marquesen, Penn State Master Gardener
Introduction
The change in climate that is the result of our warming planet will create more severe storms and weather patterns in the future. Heavier rainfall, stronger winds, and longer periods of drought are all forecasted. These weather events will, in many ways, affect the flora in our gardens and the fauna that live there. It is such an overwhelmingly huge problem that one can throw up their hands in frustration. How can one person, one garden, make a difference? It is important not to become cynical because we are not powerless.
There are many positive steps that home gardeners can take that will not only help mitigate the effects that climate change will have on their gardens, but can also reduce the contribution that their own gardens are having on climate change. We can create gardens that sequester more carbon than they release, and we use them to sustain them. We can be kind to and provide habitats for struggling wildlife. We can reduce energy use. We can reduce the impact of storms on our own gardens and nearby ecosystems.
What follows are many suggestions. Pick one or two and start your journey to a more sustainable and resilient garden and perhaps even a better future.
Plant!
Plant trees. Trees absorb carbon and store it until they decompose. Trees cool our landscapes and homes in the summer. Trees create windbreaks, especially evergreens, in the winter. Trees provide sustenance and habitat for wildlife. Trees help cleanse the air and reduce pollution.
Create layers in your garden with large trees, understory trees, shrubs, perennials, and groundcovers. Not only is this interesting and beautiful, but it also provides additional habitat and just more green living flora. Plant a hedgerow for wildlife and as a windbreak for more severe storms. Planting on the vertical surfaces of your house living walls, trellised vines, or espaliered trees will help cool it in the heat of the summer. Plant on or alongside garden fences and other garden structures. Create green landscapes on hard horizontal surfaces with containers or green roofs. What you plant can also be important. Plants grown locally require less energy than those that are transported across the country. Native plants are generally better adapted to your garden's location and the insects, birds, and mammals that have evolved alongside them. Choose to grow some edible fruit or nut trees, shrubs, perennials, and annuals. Not only can “edimentals” be very attractive, but they also reduce the need to travel to the market. Homegrown food is very nutrient-rich and delicious when eaten straight from the garden. Edible trees, shrubs, and perennials like rhubarb and asparagus are especially useful as you only need to plant them once, and they will produce a crop for you for decades. Investigate concepts such as permaculture and forest gardens where complete self-sustaining systems have been fleshed out.
Consider that your own garden is actually an area that is integral to the greater natural world. Tend to the plants there but also the wildlife. Make your garden friendly to birds by planting for their food and shelter needs. Think about a variety of plants that will give sustenance through a succession of food and flowers throughout the entire year. Plant areas specifically for pollinators. Consider creating a garden that can be certified through Penn State’s own Master Gardener Pollinator Habitat Certification program.
Reduce Inputs!
Take care of your landscape. Keeping your trees, shrubs, and perennials healthy will allow them to be able to withstand weather extremes and invasive pests better. Keep your existing trees healthy, as a lot of carbon is stored within. Plants are costly to replace in multiple ways (dollars, energy, etc.). Maintain the health of your soil, too. Research suggests that tilling your soil is actually detrimental to its structure and organisms living there. Carbon is also stored in the soil. Apply organic mulch to retain water, cool the soil, reduce runoff, and eliminate the germination of weeds, especially invasive ones.
Reduce lawn area because lawns, especially pristine monoculture lawns, require a lot of inputs - water, fertilizer, herbicides, mowing – repeated over and over again. Consider turning some or most of your lawn into productive garden beds. You can also allow your remaining lawn to become a source of food for insects, including pollinators, birds, small mammals, and even your family. A polyculture lawn with clover, violets, plantain, dandelions, and wild strawberries becomes a haven for wildlife. Pollinators visit the flowers. Birds will eat worms and seeds. Rabbits will nibble throughout, so much so that they may be satiated enough to avoid your vegetables. Don't forget to provide a water source for wildlife with a small pond, birdbath, or puddling pool.
Harvest water with rain barrels to use during times of drought. This will reduce your consumption of water from the hose. Research other methods of reducing stormwater runoff by creating rain gardens or bioswales. Contact a Penn State Master Watershed Steward for further information.
Follow the gardening adage of the right plant in the right place. Established plants, including native plants, should require fewer inputs like water and fertilizer. Plants that are in the wrong place will require greater expenditure of effort and resources.
Avoid synthetic fertilizers as they are energy-intensive to create. Instead, encourage a reliance on beneficial insects such as ladybugs and praying mantises and provide habitats for them.
Keep an eye out for invasive weeds such as garlic mustard, Japanese stiltgrass, and mugwort, and eliminate them as soon as possible. Use the least toxic method available. Hand-pull or cut off weeds at the soil surface. Avoid planting and remove existing invasive shrubs such as burning bush, Japanese barberry, and butterfly bush.
Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. This mantra can be applied to plants, soil amendments, equipment, as well as hardscape materials. Buy good-quality tools that can last a lifetime. Learn how to sharpen and repair your tools. It goes without saying that hand tools are better for the environment than electric ones. Electric tools are better than gas-powered tools. When creating new patio areas or paths, use locally sourced materials (even recycled or reused ones) and make the areas permeable to reduce runoff from storms.
Learn how to save your seeds from vegetable and perennial plants. Save the best examples from year to year and you will have bred plants that are specifically adapted to your own garden’s microclimate. Choose non-peat compostable seed pots, make your own from paper, or reuse other containers.
Compost garden and kitchen waste. Use it instead of trucking in bagged sources of compost. Leave the leaves, as they are nature's mulch. Composted leaves, also known as leaf mold, are a wonderful mulch and break down to improve the soil.
Take a Break from Perfection
Many of the above suggestions will lead to the creation of a more resilient and sustainable garden. Perhaps one barrier to achieving this is our own mindset about what constitutes a great garden. To be friendly to pollinators and other wildlife, we should sometimes allow our gardens to be on the "untidy" side. Pollinators and other beneficial insects rely on the stubble of herbaceous perennials and leaf litter for nesting through the winter. The seedpods of some perennials provide sustenance for birds in the winter. This "untidiness" can be difficult for many an avid gardener. Instead of thinking about the mess, we can turn our focus to the wildlife that is now welcome in our gardens. We can realize that every positive change we make contributes to a better world for all of our children and the insects, wildlife, and plants that will be there with them.
