Beautiful and ecological
By Tresa Erickson

Several months ago you bought a new home. Since then, you've been working on the interior. You finally have everything the way you want it and now you're moving to the outside. First up? Landscaping, but you're not looking for anything traditional. You want a beautiful landscape using minimal resources that will provide a natural habitat for wildlife. What you want is an enviroscape.

An enviroscape requires less resources and maintenance than a traditional landscape, and best of all, it's easy to create. Just gather your lawn and garden tools and follow these guidelines.

First, prepare the site. Test the soil to determine its nutrient content and add mulch and compost where needed. Next, study the climate and existing vegetation in the site and choose plants based on those characteristics. If your site is arid, for example, you may want to plant some succulents.

As you plant, try to keep maintenance to a minimum. Select drought-tolerant, insectand disease-resistant plants to eliminate the need for pesticides and conserve water. Group those with similar water needs together to make watering more efficient and place them where they will thrive without a lot of help. Add organic mulch around the plants to prevent weeds and reduce the need for watering. Install several large, flowing borders around your site and add some sloping walkways to increase water penetration and decrease turf and make mowing more efficient.

Once you've designed and installed the appropriate enviroscape, you'll need to maintain it. Because you've already prepared the site to be low maintenance, this will be a snap. Just mow the lawn as you normally would, but let the clippings drop in place so they can return the nutrients to the soil. Fertilize and prune plants during dry periods when you won't foster growth and add mulch and compost to the site each year to replenish the nutrients in the soil. You may also want to add more groundcover to reduce the need for mulch.

Creating an enviroscape isn't difficult. Nature does it all of the time. Just keep these guidelines in mind, use nature as an example and you're sure to create a landscape that is visually appealing and environmentally friendly.