Its may, time to prepare our lawns, go green and beautify our world with all colors. According to Norman Booth, a professor of landscape architecture at Ohio University, sustainable landscape should be more eco-friendly, natural and energy saving. It should work with natural systems like sun, soil plant material and hydrological cycles. Sustainability involves use of minimum energy and other resources like labor, water and gasoline used by the lawn mower .
A sustainable landscape should be capable of self perpetuation and look natural. The species should be diversified making it least susceptible to diseases. This eliminates the use of pesticides which spoils the microclimate of the earth. They should posses their natural shapes and sizes so that they can produce flowers, fruits and shelter for wildlife. In this way they portray the nature in the environment. Before landscaping one should research on the size, type of soil, sunshade and determine which species suits the place.
One should also consider the environment if it is residential, hospital or commercial place. A natural landscape should have logs, boulders and stones. One should plant more trees to cut down on the lawn area by planting trees which will support the local wildlife and insect species like butterflies. One should also consider the climate of the place and try to reflect it in what one plants. Prairie plants should be grown in areas with harsher climate and they require low maintenance.
Shade trees can be planted on the southwest side to keep the house cool during summer while planting evergreen trees on the northwest side will screen out winter winds. Though it is hard to abandon our perfect rows and shapes sustainable landscapes have their own natural beauty. They also stay around for a long time. The only disadvantage of green landscapes is that they require more time and patience to take root grow and portray their colors.
REFERENCES
Peder Jones; College Writing Skills; Rowman & Littlefield, 2002