Reduce reuse recycle
The three Rs don’t just apply inside the house, they can also be applied to the landscape.
Landfills are such an eyesore. They also contribute to blowing trash that ends up in our cities, groundwater pollution, and methane in the atmosphere. Trash trucks cause wear and tear on our streets, contribute to auto emissions, and wake me up too early on every Monday when they stop in front of my house. I try to reduce the amount of trash I create any way that I can. This includes reducing the amount of packaging, junk mail, and fast food containers that come into my house as well as reusing all of my yard waste in the garden. It takes a conscious effort, creative thinking, and perseverance but I feel it is worth it.
Reduce
Lawn and mowing
Use of sphagnum moss (non-renewable resource)
Use less tap water by catching rainwater
Reuse
Clean pots and use them again
Maintain garden tools and hoses
Stumps and logs in the landscape
Recycle
Compost kitchen scraps
Collect Stormwater runoff to water plants
Fall leaves turn into leaf mulch
Repurpose
I’m not sure where the line is between having an interesting collection of artistically displayed garden art and having a yard full of junk. I suppose it is in the eye of the beholder. I have a collection of bent bike wheels that I have wired together in geometric patterns that look like sculptures of flowers but to some people they look like scrap metal.
I tend to see the beauty in junk and don’t mind the look of a cluttered garden. So, my garden might contain a bit more repurposed junk than is the normal aesthetic. I love to find new purposes for waste. Every item I can repurpose is one less thing in the landfill.
Repurposed items don’t have to only become art. Plastic cartons can become seed trays, an old skillet could be a bird bath, broken blinds make good plant tags, a bird will nest in an old boot, and the list goes on and on. Use your imagination when you look at trash and see what else you can come up with. The benefit of starting with trash in the first place is that if the project doesn’t work out, just put it back in the trash with no guilt.
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