Last time, I wrote a little bit about Joe Lamp’l’s book the Green Gardener’s Guide: Simple, Significant Actions to Protect & Perserve Our Planet.  Let’s finish up, shall we? The chapter that really got my attention is Chapter 7: Gardening to Protect the Ecosystem. Now here, I thought, Lamp’l could start to lose the casual gardener. This has potential to get preachy maybe, or so scientific as to turn people off. Nope. He very easily explains our garden food webs and their importance.  He also explains why monocultures are bad, why heirloom plants are good, why you shouldn’t use bug zappers, and a whole lot more.

I often see lists on websites or in magazines about what gardeners should or shouldn’t do to protect the environment. What is lacking in most of those is the background information as to why something is either good or bad for the planet. And that is why I give high marks to this book; the easy way he explains why you should avoid invasive non-native plants (they are one of the biggest threats to biodiversity in the US), and the reasons why you should leave dead trees standing (they provide homes for native wildlife, among others).

Do yourself or a loved one a favor: Come to our Sustainability Symposium, hear Joe speak, get a copy of this book, and read it. You will be glad you did.

And just keep counting down the days ’til spring…

I promised last time to highlight this book by Joe Lamp’l, our keynote for our upcoming Sustainability Symposium, and I really enjoyed this read. Its best quality: he boils some complex scientific topics down to easy-to-understand levels.  I found so much in here to share that I’m splitting this entry into 2 parts, so please enjoy.

 Part I:

In the chapter on Reducing Garden Chemicals is a very useful section on “…the unintended effect of de-icers in winter.” Useful, because well, we live in Cleveland and we use lots of de-icers. And we should if we don’t want people or pets slipping and falling. But there are many different products out there that can damage plants and soils in various ways. One product he does recommend as a salt-free de-icer is SafePaw™. Good to know!

I am also intrigued by chapter four: Landscaping to Control Runoff.  In the section, “plant trees and shrubs to control erosion” there is a nice little list of helpful trees and shrubs you can use for this purpose including spicebush, serviceberry and larch.  The thinking is that the tree canopy of these plants slows down the rain velocity, stores water on their leaves for a short period of time, and the roots help uptake water from the soil to prevent excessive runoff. In “plant a rain garden” there is once again a helpful list of plants to use in such a plot.  Joe-pye (one of my faves), swamp milkweed (another fave), and Jack-in-the-pulpit make this list. Stay tuned for chapter 7 highlights next time: Gardening to Protect the Ecosystem!

Posted by Renata Brown

 Tracy Di Sabato Aust, a dynamic voice for good and creative gardening, was the keynote speaker at the Garden’s annual Sustainability Symposium on Feb 7^th. The theme of the Symposium was “In Your Own Back yard”. It was appropriate that the featured speaker did her graduate research, established her highly successful garden design business and maintains beautiful display gardens right here in our home state. While anyone who gardens in Ohio (or North America for that matter) should be aware of her original books on garden design and maintenance, it was still gratifying to see that there was sold out attendance at this fun and educational event.

260 sustainable gardening enthusiasts, landscape professionals, educators, environmentalists, and others descended on the Garden this past Saturday for our 4th Annual Sustainability Symposium. The crowd lapped up wisdom from the Keynote Speaker, Tracy DiSabato-Aust, who had these many kind things to say about us on her blog.