Green Jay Landscape Design

Green Jay Landscape Design

(914) 560-6570

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Landscaping for a newly constructed home is always an exciting job – a completely blank slate!

This contemporary country home in Riverside, Connecticut already had great design features to work with: a modern rectangular pool in need of landscaping, and mature trees lining the front and back of the property.  The client also needed to complete wetland mitigation requirements with an attractive and ecologically valuable planting.

This type of project necessitates a Landscape Design Master Plan.  Given the scale and scope of the design work, there was no doubt that our design ideas would be best communicated through a detailed site plan drawing. During the initial Professional Consultation, we established the design goals / program with the client and took status of the site conditions.

Design Goals

  1. Modern front entrance, with custom masonry and front yard gardens
  2. Colorful, meadow-like landscaping for the pool area
  3. Foundation plantings
  4. Woodland garden
  5. Wetland mitigation
  6. Organic vegetable garden
  7. Boosting the ecological value of the property through habitat creation, encouraging biodiversity, and storm water conservation.
Landscape Design Master Plan including poolscape, organic meadow, summer garden, woodland garden, front entrance and wetland mitigation.

Site Development

The post-construction landscape often has significant site development challenges including remaining construction debris (on the surface and often buried in the soil) and intense soil compaction from heavy construction machinery.  For this projet, our site development included:

  • Clearing all construction debris and gravel and de-compacting all ground surfaces.
  • Soil regrading for elevation and drainage (particularly for the front walkway).
  • Addition of structural soil with amendments including: premium screened topsoil, high grade organic compost and biochar mix.
  • Radical reduction and pruning of existing Forsythia and Dogwood trees.
Front yard, post site-development, ready for planting!

Modern Bluestone Walkway & Front Entrance Planting

We opted for large, rectilinear bluestone pieces in a geometric pattern for the front walkway to compliment the clean line architecture of the home. The linear walkway is softened and enhanced by a simple and colorful fragrant planting with a seasonal progression of bloom and aesthetics. The planting consisted of a tapestry of low-growing sedges, flowering perennials for pollinators, and ornamental grasses for year-round structure and interest.

Rectilinear sweeping bluestone pathway to the front entrance.
Post planting the front Butterfly Walk — can’t wait to see this garden grow!
Ground cover and low-growing flowering perennials accentuate the new walk.
New bluestone walkway from driveway to side door.
We love these native flowering plants with great foliage!

Front Yard Landscaping – Habitat Gardens

Scalloped border gardens featuring sunny pollinator-attracting perennials and woodland sections with native shrubs and flowering perennials under the existing mature trees. pollinator-attracring

Front yard perimeter garden for maximum curb appeal!
Heuchera and Allium in Spring! (newly planted garden)
Woodland perennials for the front yard shade garden.
Goat’s Beard in the front yard woodland shade garden.
Shade gardens can stick have flowers! And be ecologically valuable!
New walkway from the street to the front yard via the native woodland garden.

Wetland Mitigation

Per the design plan, the landscape environment is now surrounded, embraced and framed by a native wetland planting bracketing the property. The entire design plan was named Field and Stream, Camp Refugia, and the bracketing wetland gardens represent the stream aspect of the composition.

Meadow Poolscape Landscaping & Summer Garden

The sunny pool area invited a bold and beautiful planting that would attract butterflies and birds to a highly visible garden enjoyed by the whole family. GJL designed a meadow-inspired garden to surround the pool.

This pool landscaping design supports the Pollinator Pathways initiative in Fairfield county by using native plants to invite pollinators and create sustainable habitat.

The summer garden lines the back border of the property, directly across from the main patio and adjacent to the pool area.  It features a similarly colorful and ecologically valuable perennial plant pallet, with emphasis on summer-blooming plants.

Terraced garden featuring spring blooms. This will be fantastic in summer too!

Together, these garden areas manifest the ecological design intent and inspiration. In Jay’s words:

“The fields/meadows and summer garden will present life abundant and enduring, possessed of the inherent memory and morphic resonance of plants in the continuum from the before to after.”

The Beautiful Bird Beds

This trio of oval-shaped planting beds was specially designed to attract both migrating and year-round resident bird species by providing shelter, habitat and pollinator resources. This brotherhood of islands provides continuity for the property’s eco-system.

The planting pallet includes native flowering shrubs including fragrant Clethra and repeat-bloomer St John’s Wort.  Native ornamental grasses like Tufted Hair Grass achievces mutli-season interest, and perennials provide pollen, nectar and seeds for the birds.

Woodland Border Garden

The rear of the property has a border of mature evergreen trees, but needed some underplanting to build visual interest from the ground up.  We designed a native woodland garden with boulder accents.

Native variegated dogwood is a great shade shrub and the birds love it too!
We love the natural and architectural feel achieved by incorporating boulders into garden beds!

Enclosed Raised Bed Veggie Garden

Protecting your vegetable garden from hungry wildlife is essential! We install fencing around the perimeter and as a ceiling. Of course the raised beds are filled with organic compost with biochar and potting soil.  If you are planting something acid-loving like blueberries, make sure to amend the soil appropriately!

Raised bed veggie garden in progress.

We can’t wait to share more photos of this project with you as it matures and evolves throughout the seasons. Stay tuned!

Contact us about your Landscape Design project! We’d love to speak with you.

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Green Jay Landscape Design

Where Design Meets Ecology

914-560-6570

Much has changed within the landscape industry in recent history.  What began as a fascination with exotic plants and a design style that emphasized control and artificial perfection in the landscape is now seeing a tide change toward natural and organic landscaping.

Learn more about our Ecological Landscape Design  and Organic Maintenance services. 

Groups like the Ecological Landscape Alliance, the Northeast Organic Farming Organic Land Care Program, the Native Plant Center of Westchester, and Bedford 2020 Healthy Yard Program are making great strides in elevating the natural land care industry and spreading valuable information to the public.

What is Natural, Ecological Landscaping?

Much of the public is still unfamiliar with the term ecological landscaping. At Green Jay Landscape Design, we subscribe to the creed of:

  1. Do No Harm – Reject landscape chemicals and practices that harm the environment and local ecology. Natural landscaping is necessarily organic landscaping. (Learn more about why organic landscaping / gardening is the first step towards a safe and healthy landscape.)
  2. Use Landscape Design for Good – Protect precious natural resources and improve the environment by:
    • creating habitat
    • cleaning the air
    • capturing carbon
    • collecting, filtering and reusing storm water
    • preventing erosion
    • building healthy soil microbial communities.

Ecological landscaping looks toward nature for inspiration; hence it is often also referred to as natural landscaping, native landscaping, or environmental landscaping.

Instead of striving for highly manicured landscapes, requiring countless chemicals, endless maintenance practices, and relying on exotic plants that do very little for local wildlife, we turn to our native landscapes for design guidance and creative inspiration.  We seek to replicate these natural landscapes in a residential setting and achieve their same positive impact on local ecology.

At Green Jay Landscape Design, we have designed and installed native organic wildflower meadows, woodland gardens, naturalistic ponds and streams, and sunny pollinator gardens.

A key tenet of natural landscapes is supporting biodiversity – using a range of (mostly) native plants that invite pollinators, birds, and other local wildlife.  Natural landscapes are not sterile but vibrant with life and activity! Learn more about Our Promise as Landscape Ecologists and our commitment to biodiversity.

Examples of our Natural Landscaping Work

Whether you are looking to transform your front yard, back yard, or a specific garden area, our landscaping services can fit your needs! Below are some examples of Green Jay Landscape Design design and construction projects that exemplify natural, environmentally friendly landscaping.

Backyard landscaping: GJL transformed this rear lawn into a woodland wildlife paradise with a constructed waterfall, stream, and fish pond!

 

This entire property is an example of organic landscaping, with many native plants for pollinators.

 

A fish pond and organic hillside pollinator garden. Sustainable landscaping in New Canaan!

 

Native plants and natural landscaping — this design provides habitat for pollinators, birds, fish and other wildlife!
An organic meadow in South Salem, NY featuring native Joe Pye Weed (pink), New York Ironweed (purple), and Goldenrod (yellow) — pollinator favorites!

 

Are you ready to explore sustainable, natural and organic landscaping? Is supporting local ecology and improving the environment important to you?  Give us a call to discuss your property! 914-560-6570 or submit our consultation form!

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Green Jay Landscape Design

Where Design Meets Ecology

Serving NY and CT

914-560-6570

 

A newly renovated home requires an updated landscape design to compliment it.  In this case, the front façade of the home was given a modern update with unique architectural elements – major inspiration for the designers at Green Jay Landscape Design!

We have worked with this client for many years, developing the landscape in phases.  The initial phases focused on the backyard, where we repaired a seawall, natural swimming pond and bog garden, a salt-tolerant, pollinator-attracting perennial border, and brand new bluestone patio for entertaining.

New Home, New Walkway, New Landscape!

After renovating their home, it was obvious that the existing front walkway, constructed of brick, looked tired and outdated.

BEFORE PHOTO – front entrance with brick walkway.

The client, an environmental advocate and nature-lover, was also ready to ditch the front lawn for good and replace it with a more ecologically valuable landscape design.

AFTER: the front yard is now a colorful, organic perennial garden and habitat for local wildlife!

Custom Bluestone Masonry

Green Jay Landscape Design designers drew inspiration from the circular port window above the front door, and decided to echo it in the new bluestone walkway.  GJL created a forked walkway, radiating out form the circular landing to the driveway and street. The circular design element encourages a lingering rest to take in the lovely architectural facade of the newly renovated home.

Architectural inspiriation + newly planted organic garden.
Circular landing connects forked walkway and echos the port window above the front door.

The front walkway is constructed of irregular flagstone with subtle color variation.  The organic lines and shapes give the appearance of naturally blending into the beautiful low growing native flower garden.

We chose to construct the walkway on a “soft base” of gravel, item #4 and stone dust.  Whenever possible we avoid the use of concrete, because of the high emissions associated with cement production, and the toxic ingredients that put workers at risk, especially during demolition.

Pollinator Plants & Ground Cover for a Front Yard Shade Garden

With existing mature river birches, the front yard receives mostly dappled lighting – the perfect setting for a woodland shade garden (only briefly in late afternoon does it get illuminated like in the photo).  GJL designers also wanted to keep the plant height relatively low, to accentuate, not overpower the stunning new architecture.

Native garden featuring Heuchera, Geranium, Carex, Alchemilla, and Solidago.

With that in mind, we included several types of ground cover as well as shorter, clump-forming perennials.  Of course, ecological value and habitat creation for pollinators, birds and wildlife was at the forefront of our decision making.  After all, this is a Certified Wildlife Habitat in the backyard – the front yard had to measure up!

Front Yard Native Garden Planting Pallet

Bee feeding on Heuchera flower. Photo courtesy of gardeners-word.blogspot.com

Huechera (Coral Bells)  – Native to north America, over fifty species.  Flowers attract native bees and hummingbirds. Excellent shade garden plant with wonderful foliage in a variety of colors.

Lady’s Mantle, light green scalloped foliage in the left foreground and Coral Bells, orange foliage I the left background.

Alchemilla mollis (Lady’s Mantle) – North American Native. Attracts butterflies and is deer and rabbit resistant (important as there are many rabbits in this neighborhood!).  Charming scallop-shaped foliage, mounding habit and tiny chartreuse flowers.

Solidago foliage in the center and left foreground — a fabulous fall-blooming, native perennial for pollinators!

Solidago (Goldenrod) – Goldenrod is a superstar plant for attracting a huge range of native pollinators including over 115 species of butterflies and moths, as well as 11 species native bees.  Butterfly species include: Bronze Copper,  Gray Hairstreak ,  Orange Sulphur,  Horace’s Duskywing,  American Lady,  Milbert’s Tortoiseshell.

Goldenrod blooms in fall which is very important for successional pollen sources!  If you allow Goldenrod go to seed, the birds will have food too!  There is a common misconception that goldenrod is the cause of seasonal allergies.  In fact, it is animal-pollinated, not wind pollinated, and the pollen is actually too heavy to become airborne.  Ragweed (which blooms at a similar time) is the true culprit of most seasonal allergies.

Pink flowers and lobed foliage of native Geranium.

Geranium – North American native that attracts bees, butterflies (including monarchs!) and hummingbirds. Blooms for eight to ten weeks! Lobed foliage is an attractive garden feature in itself.

Carex pensylvanica (Pennsylvania Sedge)  – Sweeping grass-like ground cover for dry shade areas, native to Northeastern US.

Cornus alba ‘Ivory Halo’ (Varigated Dogwood) – Cultivar of a native shrub dogwood.  Flowers turn to drupes which attract many bird species.  Red stems provide winter interest.

Pulmonaria in the center midground, with spotted foliage. A great addition to any shade or part-shade garden!

Pulmonaria (Lungwort) – Beautiful spotted foliage is attractive even without the violet flowers! Blooms in spring.

Snowberry Clear Wing moth pollinating an Ajuga reptans flower. Photo by Ken Slade

Ajuga (Bugelweed) – Spreading groundcover with a range of shiny foliage colors from green to mauve to purple.  Spikes of violet flowers attract native bees and moths! Sometimes a repeat bloomer.

Gallium odoratum naturalized in a woodland setting.

Galium odoratum (Sweet woodruff) – flowering ground cover, spreading but non-invasive.   Repeat bloomer.  Wonderful fresh and sweet smell.

Lawn Removal & Organic Garden Preparation

The key to replacing a lawn with a garden is first, removing the turf without disturbing the seed bank underneath — otherwise you may encourage weed seed growth and make maintenance a nightmare! For smaller, flat areas like this front yard, we use a sod cutter machine.  Next, we top with organic compost with biochar (to boost soil microbial communities) and any other natural-source soil amendments necessary, as determined by the soil test.

Laying out the organic compost and topsoil.
Our favorite organic compost blend is Organic Mechanics Biochar Blend!
Soil and compost spread, beds are ready for planting!

Thinking about transforming your lawn to a colorful, ecologically valuable garden for wildlife? We can help! Contact us about your ecological landscape design project: 914-560-6570.

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Green Jay Landscape Design

Where Design Meets Ecology

914-560-6570

Now That You Have a Healthy Landscape

The final step for cultivating a healthy and safe landscape: spend time in it!  The only true way to reap the benefits of your newly designed outdoor safe haven is to get outside and soak up all the health.

To recap, in case you missed the earlier parts of our series on How to Make Your Landscape Safer & Healthier:

Step One: Ditch the Landscape Chemicals and Turn Your Property Organic

Step Two: Build Healthy Soil Microbial Communities

Step Three: Design for Biodiversity with Pollinator and Wildlife Gardens

Step Four: Landscape Design for Natural Mosquito Control (Storm Water Management for Health)

Step Five: Grow Your Own Organic Food at Home

Now that you have a toxin-free, organic landscape teeming with biodiversity and layered (mostly-native) plantings that create habitat and effectively manage storm water, AND an at-reach organic food garden… your natural oasis is ready for immersion!

Spending Time Outside (Forest Bathing) is Good for your Health

“Fresh air will do you good” has long been adage in our culture connecting the outdoors with improved health.

Even in the 19th Century, doctors were prescribing time outdoors for the sick and fatigued. Sanitariums popped up all over alpine Europe where ill urban dwellers retreated to natural springs and took therapeutic walks through the surrounding landscape.

In the 1980s, Japan pioneered the concept of Shinrin-Yoku or “forest bathing,” quantifying the health benefits of spending time in forests or green spaces.  It is now part of their national health program. Forest bathing is intentional, meditative time spent in the forest or among greenery.

Japan’s research on the topic has yielded remarkable results, linking forest bathing to:

Many of these health effects have been linked to our inhalation of phytonicides – chemical compounds produced and released by trees to protect themselves from pathogens, insects and other threats.  When we inhale phytonicides in the forest, park or a garden, we benefit from their  immune defense antibacterial and antifungal properties.

Image courtesy of mentalfloss.com

Forest Bathing: Are You Doing it Right?

Trees release the most phytonicides, but all plants produce the compounds in some form.  Therefore, you can reap the benefits of Shinrin-Yoku by spending time in a park, garden, forest, or any green space.

The Japanese tradition emphasizes the meditative nature of time spent in the forest or green space.  Leave your phone and any distractions at home, and fully immerse yourself in the sounds, smells, feels and sights of the natural world. Focus on your breath. It is not so much about physical exercise, although you may prefer to walk through the landscape.  Forest bathing is about releasing tension, expanding the senses, and allowing the inherent therapeutics of nature to soothe you.

‘Earthing’ Maximizes Time Outdoors for Human Health

We’ve already discussed in Part One of the series the benefits of soil microbes on human health, and how simply getting your hands in the dirt is a great way to become reacquainted with essential soil microbes.

Earthing introduces a new theory about the benefits of direct contact with the Earth.  Earthing posits that only recently in human history did we become so disconnected with Earth’s surface, via time spent indoors (90% of the average American’s life is spent inside) and the physical separation from the ground via our shoes.  Earthing promotes a literal reconnection to the Earth by walking barefoot, sitting in the grass, or playing in the dirt.

Image courtesy of hsctstopsms.com

Earth has a natural magnetic field and electricians have long-since learned the importance of grounding wires to disperse electrical charge.  Earthing suggests that the human body also benefits from this electron exchange and neutralization of charge.

Studies have linked Earthing to a reduction in inflammation, because “grounding the body allows negatively charged antioxidant electrons from the Earth to enter the body and neutralize positively charged free radicals at sites of inflammation.” Free radicals are thought of as the “hallmarks of chronic inflammation.”

Another study linked earthing to reduced blood viscosity, which is known to improve cardiovascular function.  Research also suggests that Earthing leads to a reduction in stress, demonstrated by a shift to the parasympathetic nervous system, heart rate stabilization, normalized muscle tension, and a reduction in the stress hormone cortisol.

Additional Earthing benefits include improved sleep and faster recovery from pain or soreness.

Image courtesy of Chopra.com

Your Landscape, Your Health

In conclusion, the stunning health benefits of spending time directly in contact with nature can no longer be ignored.  Especially when you have a diverse, organic, and healthy yard right outside your door!

Be kind to yourself and try to carve out an hour or two each day that can be spent in your landscape, or any natural setting you have access to.  Your mental health, sleep, physiology and immune system will thank you!

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Contact us to start developing your healthy landscape! 914-560-6570

We proudly service Westchester County and Putnam County, NY and Fairfield County, CT

Fresh Food from Healthy Soil

There’s nothing better than fresh, organic, vine-ripened produce, especially when it comes from your own backyard. Growing your own food in your at-home vegetable garden allows you total control of what goes into the soil and how it is grown.  Research has shown that plants grown in soil with high microbe concentrations uptake more essential nutrients from the soil, due to the unique exchange between soil microbes and plants.  Learn more about soil health and organics in Part One of this series.

This is Step Five of our series on How to Make Our Landscapes Safer & Healthier.  Catch up on Steps One and Two, Step Three, and Step Four.

As we discussed in Part One, soil microbes are understood to be strongly linked with the microbes in our human gut, which have been linked to numerous human health impacts ranging from mood, mental health, digestion and various chronic diseases. The more soil microbes we can come in contact, the better.  In fact, eating organic food straight off the vine is great way to increase levels of beneficial gut bacteria like M. vaccae, also found in soil.

I don’t know about you, but eating regularly off the vine is probably only going to happen for me if I have my own vegetable garden in my backyard.

What’s more, growing your food at home ensures that you are getting 100% organic produce. Pesticide residues remain on conventional produce even after it’s washed, and these toxic chemicals can lead to endocrine disruption, brain damage, reproductive problems and cancers.

Raised bed organic vegetable garden under construction.

Professionally Built Vegetable Gardens

Green Jay Landscape Design has designed and constructed several different styles of vegetable / food gardens in Fairfield County, CT and Westchester County, NY.

Materials can range from wood (cedar is best because it will not rot and last longer), fieldstone, boulders, and reclaimed metal.

The layout of beds can be both aesthetic and functional.  Depending on how much you want to plant, you may find it easier to have multiple smaller beds rather than one large one.  Think about what will enable you easiest access for weeding and harvesting.

We tend to work in rectangular or shapes, or circular.  Triangles are aesthetically pleasing but are not so practical when spacing vegetables.

Green Jay Landscape Design can construct your vegetable garden, and plant it, or leave it planting-ready for you to customize and plant yourself.

Drainage & Organic Soil for Your Veggie Garden

We fill each bed with a gravel base to enable drainage.  Most beds are filled with an organic, OMRI-approved potting soil and organic compost.  Some plants have different soil requirements and should be grouped together.  For example, blueberries prefer a highly acidic soil.  We plant them with 1/3 compost 1/3 peat moss (for acidity) and 1/3 native soil if in ground or potting soil in containers.

Picking Edible Plants & Their Companions

Companion planting is a tried and true organic gardening technique that pairs specific plants together in order to attract natural predators, ward off pests, or enrich the yield and/or flavor of one or both of the plants.

Examples of Companion Plantings for Vegetables (see Farmers Almanac for more)

  • Squash, Beans & Corn ( “the three sisters”) – Beans naturally fix nitrogen in the soil, which the other two benefit from. The corn provides a stalk for the beans to climb on and the squash spreads as ground cover, suppressing weeds.
  • Beans & Marigolds, Nasturiums, Rosemary and/or Summer Savory – repel bean beetles. Summer Savory enhances yield and flavor.
  • Onions & Carrots, Beets, Cabbage, Lettuce, Parsnips, Tomatoes – onions keep aphids and other pests out of the garden. Not all plants are onion-friendly, like Asparagus, beans and peas.
  • Rosemary, Majoram – Onions will deter pests like the carrot fly but not reduce the growth of these companion plants.
  • Broccoli & rosemary, leeks, celery, onions, garlic, shallots, spinach, lettuce, dill – to enhance flavor of broccoli. Avoid other members of the Brassica family, as they will compete for the same nutrients, and nightshade family (tomatoes, hot peppers and eggplant)
  • Lettuce & mint – to prevent slugs (but keep mint in check as it can get aggressive)
  • Lettuce & chives or garlic – to repel aphids
  • Tomatoes & Basil – to ward off mosquitos, flies and increase yields
  • Tomatoes & Carrots, Parsnips – tomatoes off-gas solanine, a natural insecticide that targets carrot pests particularly well, while carrots aerate the soil around tomato plant roots.
  • Radishes & Onions, Beets, Cabbage, Kale, Lettuce, Spinach & Squash
  • Fragrant herbs to repel pests, for example: lemon balm, lemon grass, thyme, sage, horehound, hyssop, basil, rosemary, tansy, oregano, chamomile, and mint.
  • Avoid planting plants in the same family next to each other, as they will compete for nutrients.  For example, the Brassicaceae family: bok chow, broccoli, Brussel sprouts, cauliflower, and cabbage.

Laying Out Your Food Garden

Think about harvest succession when picking your vegetable plants.  For example, radishes are harvested in spring and help aerate the soil; the same area can be inter-planted with carrots, which have a late-season harvest and benefit from the aerated soil. Maximize your yield in a small space by planting a variety of crops that can be harvested throughout the growing season.

Check out this list from Harvest to Table that details the number of days to maturity for a variety of vegetables and fruits you might plant in your garden.

Don’t Forget Native Flowers in Your Veggie Patch

Pollinators are essential to your veggie garden yields. It is extremely important that you help guide them to your food garden with surrounding groupings of native perennials and flowering shrubs.

It is also crucial that your property is maintained organically, or you will be attracting pollinators to their deathbed.

Some of our favorite pollinator-attracting perennials for full sun are:

Agastache, Echinachea, Heleopsis, Rudbeckia, Salvia, Leucanthemum, Pervoskia, and Helenium.

Annual flowers also have their place in the vegetable garden, for pest control and attracting pollinators, try these:

Nasturtium (edible!), Marigolds, Cosmos, Borage, Calendula, Lathyrus.

Learn more about companion planting with flowers here.

Upcycle Containers & Go Vertical for Small Space Food Gardens

You don’t need a plot of land to grow your own food.  All you need is a balcony, deck, patio or stoop with at least six hours of sunlight and space for containers or a vertical wall.

We love being creative with container garden materials.

Veggie and herb containers become part of the landscape bed on upcycled logs.
we used an old farmhouse sink the client removed during a remodel, and transformed it into a patio herb garden

If floor space is limited, consider going up! GJL grew greens, herbs ands squash in this vertical hydroponic garden on a small enclosed deck.  Nothing beats having fresh herbs and greens right out the kitchen door!

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Green Jay Landscape Design

914-560-6570

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ecological Landscaping Spring Clean Up

We’ve rounded up our best, environmentally-responsible methods for cleaning up your landscape in spring. With decades of experience in organic and natural landscaping, we’ve worked through all the questions and concerns you may have about transitioning to ecological landscaping and maintenance.

Ecological landscaping strives to first, do no harm, and second, preserve our precious, essential natural resources:

•SOIL – Protect from erosion, build organic matter & soil microbial communities. Reject the use of landscape chemicals.

•HABITAT – Limit weed & invasive growth so pollinator & wildlife habitats can thrive.

•WATER – Preserve water quality by using only organic, natural source soil amendments, fertilizers & weed control. #OMRI approved products.

•AIR – No gas blowers to reduce air & noise pollution & greenhouse gas emissions

Learn more about our Organic Lawn, Tree & Shrub program and ecological landscape maintenance.

Full Transcript of Ecological Spring Landscape Clean Up Tips

Welcome to Green Jay Landscape Design and Landscapes for Better Living, and today we are giving you a crash course in ecological spring clean up.  When you’re doing ecological landscaping and maintenance clean up from spring to fall, it’s an entirely different animal from traditional practices.

What that means is we cut down the perennials that we left up for winter interest and habitat to be hosts and nesting sites for bees and wasps and flies and all these wonderful insects.  We do not want to disturb the ground a lot because what’s going to happen is were going to disturb the ground and make it more productive for weed species.

Perennial species that we planted here, that we chose, are going to be fine by themselves.  And the organic matter that we leave here (by not removing) is going to add nutrition, bacteria, fungi that these plants need.

In the spring, you can see what’s growing and what’s not, and we cut [the dead matter] down. So before we do anything, we’re in mid April now, and were going to cut back last year’s growth.  Here’s a nice native ‘Moonbeam’ Coreopsis; we’re going to shear this, and encourage new growth, right next to the tulips.

Here we have some onion grass, which I pulled out, just another great herb in the garden.  It will come up and grow taller than everybody else but its not hurting anything, if you can tolerate it, leave it. It’s enriching the soil with minerals.  If you really don’t like it you can grab a shovel and pop it out.

Ecological landscape management is different. So for instance, right in here lurks one of the enemies.  This is Mugwort or Chrysanthemum Weed, and this is not what we want in the landscape.  This can be pretty invasive.

So we do a minimum of raking and clean up, no blowing, no blowing to push away the soil and disturb that very fragile balance in the bio-tone of the surface of the soil in the bed. This is ready; we’re going to edge the bed.

We’re going to fertilize very slightly with a completely organic, natural-source, OMRI-approved fertilizer to give things a little energy to perk up. The woodies we’re going to feed acid-loving organic fertilizer to plants like the Hollies and the Azaleas.  Plants that are a neutral pH like the Boxwood and the Yew, we’re going to feed another formulation of organic, natural source, granular fertilizer to stimulate them.

We’re going to mow the grass, we’re going to edge [the bed], we’re going to feed before we mulch, and that’s it. We’re not going to do a lot of rough raking in the lawn.

The lawn in spring has very fragile roots. Grass has a three-inch to four-inch root system at best, so what we want to do is just pick up the big sticks.  Even little sticks, radial wood, are really good to break down fungi and contribute organic matter.

Leaves, not a problem, we’re going to mulch mow. So, once we’re done with this we’re going to put down a corn-gluten fertilizer, which is the magic of organics if you want to prevent crab grass germination.  It’s very important that this be done precisely at the right time.  That’s when the 24-hour-day temperature, night and day, is at 50 degrees soil temperature.  Then we put down the corn gluten.  Corn gluten acts as a barrier from hairy-stem grasses.

Nothing prohibits crab grass and weeds like a good, healthy turf.  So we intensely seed this in the sun in the fall, and then in the spring we just lightly clean it up, we mulch mow, we fertilize it with the corn gluten, and we proceed with our regular maintenance schedule until we get into the fall.

Ecological landscaping is relatively simple.  So follow the simple methods of top-down [maintenance].  So if we’re going to prune, its already too late to prune the Winter King Hawthorne, it’s budding, we don’t want to touch it.  It’s been shaped previously. Its in really good, healthy shape.

In this case, leaving the grass at 3 ½ inches is really critical not only to suppress weeds and grow a healthy stand of lawn and turf, its also going to conserve water.  Water is mostly in the leaves, so if we cut at 3 ½ inches, which is the optimum, with a sharp blade, we’re going to maintain most of the water in the grass plant.  If you cut at 2 ½ inches, you’re going to remove half of that water.  So it’s a big difference if you’re paying for water like we are here in White Plains, New York.

This is going to be all covered with plants soon, so we won’t have to put so much mulch down.  Little bit of fertilizer, little bit of mulch, mow the lawn properly, mulch in the little sticks, twigs and leaves – everybody’s’ going to be happy.  It’s already green and it’ll be nice and put together for Easter Sunday weekend.

If you like what you’ve seen, check out our website: greenjaylandscapedesign.com

Perennial pollinator garden in White Plains, New York.

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Jay Archer

Landscape Ecologist, Designer, President

Green Jay Landscape Design

914-560-6570