You can certainly make your garden green and less toxic with a little effort. In fact, the most green landscaping choice is one that requires little or no maintenance - that means no watering and no chemical fertilizing. Here are 5 tips for growing a beautiful garden that is self-sustaining and productive.

1. minimize the percentage of your yard that is covered by lawn: Lawns require a lot of upkeep, water, and fertilizer to stay healthy and look good. Not only does this cut into the precious amount of potable water, it pollutes oceans, streams and water tables with high levels of nutrients that destroy ecosystems and available drinking water. *Only 1% of earth’s water is potable (drinkable). In place of lawn, try more regional ground coverings. In drier climates, stone is a good option. In seaside locations, crushed shell is popular. If you still want to keep your lawn or grow a smaller area of lawn, go with a species that is native so it requires less water. If you have sprinklers, have a sensor installed that can gauge when your lawn actually needs watering and when a sprinkling session can be skipped when it rains.
2. grow your own food: By farming your own land, even if it is merely one tomato plant and one cucumber vine, you are helping to reduce your energy consumption. Rather than having those cucumbers and tomatoes shipped from Mexico to your local grocer, they skipped the trip and went straight from your yard to your table. Fruit trees require little attention and will produce large amounts of food for years, while vegetables, berries and herbs require slightly more attention and watering but are well worth the effort. Choosing species of plants that are not genetically altered will almost always assure that your home grown food will taste better than the average food you find in the local grocer. Genetically modified plants (or hybrids) are created by crossing the DNA of two types of plants to produce a variety that has characteristics to either speed up production time or create larger fruit or vegetables with little or no regard for its nutritional value or flavor.
3. use more natural fertilizers: When I was younger, my father and I would go fishing and if we had luck, we ate fish for dinner. The fish head always went in the garden. Sure, it stunk for a few days over by the zucchinis, but those zucchinis were huge and the plant produced plenty to supply the neighborhood with zucchini all summer. Good alternatives to MiracleGro are: natural compost (which you can make yourself); seaweed ; and grass clippings/leaves . All of these things took nutrients to grow, decompose relatively quickly, and put nutrients back into the soil for plants to eat. Your local dump will probably have a compost pile that you can shovel into a barrel and take home for free.
4. plant native species: Plants that originated in your climate have adapted to the temperatures, seasons, sun, rain, soils, etc. of the region. For this reason, they require little to no maintenance and will be stronger and less likely to croak or be eaten by wildlife like squirrels, rabbits or deer. Seasoned gardeners know all too well how expensive their experiments with the foreign plants can be- that spectacular group of flowering bushes that died when transplanted and cost over $7,000- ouch. You can find native species of plants with this nifty tool: Native Plant Database
5. install a rain/grey water collection system: This will enable you to recycle grey water and rain you have collected to water your garden and lawn. If it rains periodically in your region, there is a good chance that you can use recycled water to irrigate a good portion of your landscaping. This will save you money and save your community’s water supply.

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