This blog is intended to be a forum to discuss ideas about green, sustainable, & regenerative design in all its forms, but mainly focused on the landscape and horticulture. We are a landscape design firm that specializes in designing beautiful, edible, organic, and sustainable gardens. Please visit our website for more information: www.GreenHarmonyDesign.com.
Want to have a green holiday?
Do you ever wonder how the holidays became the biggest shopping frenzy
of the year? Is it Santa’s marketing genius? Is it just force of habit?
If you are tired of the same ritual of
trudging off to shop at the mall, jostling through the crowd, waiting
hours to park, and struggling to find gifts
within your budget, there is a solution. Yes, the solution to enjoying
the holidays and not getting overwhelmed with shopping till December
25 is really quite simple.
Sierra Club Green Home’s green holiday
solution is to shop less and spend more time doing fun activities that
bring joy to your family and friends—and quite possibly even to
strangers. After all, the holidays are meant to instill in us the spirit
of giving, and this can mean many things besides material goods.
As I thought about this idea of
consuming less, I realized that there are so many ways to have good
times with your loved ones that I could never list them all. In fact,
it’s an endless list! So instead, I will tell you some of my favorite
holiday activities, and I invite you to share yours by commenting on
this post or on the Sierra Club Green Home Facebook page.
Our family enjoys driving into the rural
countryside to cut down our own Christmas tree, which is a great way to
spend time together and get some outdoor exercise. Christmas tree farms
also protect vital open space and help cool the planet.
We also like to take our son to visit
the local holiday train garden displays. He absolutely adores the
trains, as many other children do.
We like to make holiday foods together,
whether it’s cookies, cakes, and desserts or complete, delectable meals.
Sometimes, we attend a holiday vegan potluck party, ...
To read the entire article on SCGH's website, click here:
Before you saddle up and head to the
mall for your holiday shopping, let Sierra Club Green Home give you the
lowdown on how your purchases can help or harm your health and the
planet’s.
What’s the harm in heading to the local
superstore? Well, that lower price tag is often hiding the costs to the
environment and to human health, especially for products made abroad.
Most of the items for sale at chain stores contain toxins, are created
using polluting and unsustainable practices, use up fuel being shipped
far distances, and are made by workers who are paid low wages and work
in poor conditions. Even animals are often harmed in conventional
manufacturing. Many corporations still test their products on animals
and use unnecessary animal ingredients.
This season, we have a choice as to
where and how we spend our money, and it is a very important one. That’s
why Sierra Club Green Home is showing you how to find products you can
feel good about buying, whether you’re shopping in your town or on the
Web.
Ring in the New Year with gratitude for what this year has given us, and excitement for what the next year holds. Here Sierra Club Green Home writer Roland Oehme shares the top 12 things he is grateful for going into 2012.
12 Green Things I Am Thankful For:
1) My family and friends are the most important things in my life. I
am grateful for the time I’ve been able to spend with them this year.
2) My local nature park that I enjoy daily walks in. The simple act
of exercising in nature rejuvenates my body and spirit. I think everyone
should be able to take walks in forests, meadows, hills, valleys,
streams, wetlands, and other natural ecosystems.
3) I enjoy relatively clean air, water, and soil. However, I see this
as the minimum of what is acceptable. Much more can be done to clean up
my local environment, especially the Chesapeake Bay (the largest
estuary in the United States). ...
To Read the Entire Article on SCGH's website, click here:
Thanks for your fertilizer question. Your question and my answer follow.
Question: Would you consider selling Market America’s Lawn Power or Plant Power products on your Green Harmony Living’s website?
Answer: I looked at the Lawn Power product. I think its premise is sound: adding enzymes, nitrogen, and minerals to plants and the soil are good. However, what I don’t like is that the ingredients list is vague; it doesn’t state exactly what the ingredients are; which enzymes, what form of nitrogen, and what form of minerals. There are natural forms and synthetic forms of each. I prefer to use only natural, organic, and animal free forms. I did read that this product uses urea nitrogen which is a red flag for me since I am morally and health consciously opposed to using slaughterhouse products. Urea is made from the urine from slaughtered cows and buying it supports the slaughter industry.
I prefer to use natural forms of nitrogen from plants such as cottonseed meal, and will occasionally, if for a special reason, use non slaughterhouse, composted animal manure from wild animals, such as bat or bird guano, since then my plants and in turn I am consuming what is naturally found in the environment. Using only plant forms is called veganic, as in veganic fertilizer. Veganic is important to me since I think that if you apply animal fertilizers to plants, the plants take up many of the toxins, which are higher in animals than in plants, so that when you eat that plant, you are getting more toxins into your body. In fact, there is a line of science called phytoremediation that uses plants to take toxins out of the soil for safer cleanup and disposal, so this phenomenon is well documented. I want to live as toxin free as possible and I think that what fertilizer I put on my vegetable garden is important to my health, so I choose only plant derived fertilizers which I think are safe and effective.
To go a step further, in most instances for a vegetable garden, one doesn’t need fertilizers if you are able to put in a little extra effort. Good, homemade compost is the best nutrient source and all your plants need. For lawns or ornamental plant beds, some organic, plant fertilizers may be needed to establish a new planting, but once the plants are established after a few years, and you employ nutrient recycling where you leave the lawn and plants trimmings on the lawn and beds, then fertilizers aren’t really needed. Using fertilizers, especially slaughterhouse and factory farm derived ones, causes more global warming since it generally takes much energy to produce the fertilizer, transport it, and then once applied, the plants need more water to deal with the higher nutrient load, especially during the summer when plants can burn or die out from too much fertilizer. The only fertilizers found in nature are naturally occurring animal excrement, nutrient recycling from leaves and other decaying plant (mostly) and animal (some) materials, and nitrogen from the air (which is why plants get a boost after a rain),
In my green point of view, following nature's way is the soundest way to go since in nature we see regeneration and longterm sustainability at work as opposed to humans’ unsustainable, rape the earth mantra which will only bring about the planet’s demise.
In summary, the lawn power sounds fine in premise, but I don’t agree with the use of urea nitrogen and cannot comment on the other ingredients since it doesn’t state what they are. For me as a consumer or when deciding what products to carry on our webstore, I do not buy from companies who are vague or do not list exactly what the ingredients are since it appears that the company is trying to hide the truth and are, in many cases, using cheaper ingredients, i.e. slaughterhouse and factory made, and then cover this fact up with glossy marketing and then sell it to unknowledgeable consumers. That is, in a nutshell, how most products are made and sold by large companies, especially in the USA. That is why we started our company Green Harmony Living, to offer to the public really healthy, really green, really truthful, really effective products that are hard to find anywhere else these days! I apologize if I gave you more information than you wanted to know. I believe in being honest with people since I believe this helps people more in the long term.
My outlook is entirely nature based. Every thing I do I see from the vantage point of how this affects nature, will it harm?, will it help?, will it work within the laws of nature? I seek solutions that will work with nature’s laws.
For instance, my main thought when I think about buying something (which I try to limit to only real needs) is, how natural and safe for nature is this product? So, products that are biodegradable, recyclable, or are made from natural plant materials are always preferable to me since they work within nature within nature’s system and will not simply end up in a landfill further polluting the planet.
This is one of the main reasons that I use in my own life and promote the use of hemp and the many products from it in body care, foods, clothing, bags, paper, and so on. Hemp is very easy to grow and grows so dense that weeds are shaded out, meaning less or no pesticides or herbicides are needed as is typical for many conventionally grown crops. Hemp actually helps to rebuild the soils health through shading and the buildup of organic matter. And hemp has many uses that make it a valuable crop for farmers. Hemp’s environmentally friendliness is the reason that we sell many hemp products (and many others) at our green store: Green Harmony Living (see http://www.greenharmonyliving.com/).
Every two years at the Federal Garden Show in Germany, called BUGA, there is an exhibit organized by the German Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection that showcases plants as valuable renewable resources. Outside there are many rows of various crops organized by industrial categories like dyes, pharmaceutical, foods, textiles, oils, fuels, and so on. Inside the pavilion the various plants are shown with their respective end uses. For instance, hemp is always a major example displayed here, growing outside, and shown inside usually shown with the hemp door panels used by some car manufacturers like Daimler as well as other uses.
There are many other plants that may be used as renewable resources for our industrial society. This exhibit and the garden shows are truly remarkable and you will surely not see anything like them here in the US. This progressive attitude by the German government and its citizens, as is showcased at their garden shows, is the reason that I started organizing ecotours to Germany every two years to coincide with the garden shows. This ecotour visits some of them most cutting edge sustainable design and living concepts in architecture, garden design, urban planning, product design, transportation, and so on. The next ecotour is next year in August 2009. To learn more, please visit: www.GreenHarmonyTours.com.
During the bare, bleak winter season I am again reminded of the importance of dead trees in the landscape. It is during this time when all the leaves are off the trees that the sky becomes prominent and clear from the summer haze that any still standing dead trees are more clearly seen. I imagine most people consider dead trees, especially tall ones, to be an eyesore at best, and at worse, to be a severe hazard for fear of falling over. Because of this neatnick and fearful outlook most trees that die become wood chips before the blink of an eye.
I think this is a real shame and I am recommending that people leave dead trees standing where it is safe to do so. Dead trees are a natural part of our planet’s ecosystem and many plants and animals have developed over millions of years to rely on this habitat as a place to live, for food, and for shelter. The most recognizable benefit is to woodpeckers who need dead and mature live trees for their survival. Dead trees house beetles and insects that the woodpeckers need for food, and they use their strong beaks to carve out a hollow space in the trunks that makes a great home for them. I know I have enjoyed watching woodpeckers many times as they peck at the trees and fly about. I don’t want to imagine a world without them, for they are a beautiful sight!
In our garden we have three rather tall dead pine trees that attract many birds, including woodpeckers. We decided to leave these trees since they are not endangering anybody and they are very valuable to the ecosystem. I also think dead trees present a striking architectural and sculptural element not found in any living elements. Dead trees are, like boulders and mountains, nature’s sculptures that make landscapes beautiful. Unlike anything else, dead trees provide a direct connection between the sky and the earth that helps us understand both realms.
So, the next time you suddenly have a tree die in your garden, please consider letting it stand. If you are the least bit observant, you will be amazed at how much new life it will bring to your garden!
About Roland Oehme: He is a landscape architect specializing in beautiful, bold, edible, sustainable, and wildlife friendly garden design. To view his portfolio, please visit iwww.GreenHarmonyDesign.com
