66 Ways to Practice Sustainability

By Ross Lamond

66 ways really offers an introduction about the scope and brevity of gardening. Plants, birdlife, insects, and life itself form part of the garden, and they all seek sustainability. It’s a natural function. Our task as gardener is to provide that place so all within are content and happy. That really becomes the reward of sustainability.
This is a book about gardening practice. Sustainability has come along for the ride because good gardening practice is about sustainability There are many benefits including that of sustaining the health of our plants, soils, water presence, birds and animals visiting the garden, fruits and vegetables, and what the garden provides for our well-being and satisfaction of its visual appeal.
My studies and application of Feng Shui led me to a realisation; Feng Shui is a very sustainable practice, a revelation like the parting of the mists. I realised a responsive and beneficial Feng Shui garden offers what those ancient Chinese sought. Surroundings that they could connect to and offering continued health, prosperity and well-being.
I’ve incorporated something of my interpretation of Feng Shui to introduce some links. I haven’t purposely bound the book around Feng Shui because it would lead away from the ideas presented. Besides, an intensive explanation about things like Yin and Yang, Qi or Chi, the sha or sheng of a garden and Five Element Balance are all intense and bewildering. Many of my publications offer something more in depth explanations about Feng Shui within the garden.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ross Lamond
• Release date: Aug 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9780980758894

Ross Lamond

Ross Lamond is the youngest member of a well-known and respected dairy farming family of the New South Wales South Coast, Australia. He schooled away from home, completing secondary studies at Sydney Grammar School, Sydney. Upon leaving school, Ross returned to the family farm and over a forty year period, gained extensive experience in dairying, beef cattle production, sugarcane, small crop cultivation and horticulture. An ever present interest in the garden naturalised into that of a nurseryman, landscape gardener and grower of in ground trees for landscape. Concern about environmental issues such as tree decline, dry land salinity and habitat degradation led Ross into external studies in Environment at Mitchell College of Advanced Education at Bathurst, followed by post graduate studies in Urban and Regional planning at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane. A chance reading of a Feng Shui publication in 1998, introduced Ross to Feng Shui and its influence on our lives and surroundings. He applied some of its principles into the garden and developed his own interpretation of Feng Shui garnished through personal experience and observation. The interest has led Ross into a journey of self-discovery including that of nature, environmentalism and spirituality. It’s an ever growing interest. Ross lives by himself, has four grown up children, and likes to travel and garden and write about his experiences and observations.

Book preview

Preface

About three years ago I was in Unawatuna in Sri Lanka and sitting at a rickety wooden table beside the sea. In front of me was a jumbled collection of topic ideas for 66 Ways and a traveller from Russia with his family asked me what I was writing about. I replied I had a convoluted list of ideas for a book about sustainable gardening and after I condensed and added them up, they came to 66. He liked the number I came up with. I can assure you it was not easy to come up with 66 Ways to Practice Sustainability in the Garden!

When preparing 66 Ways, some themes emerged.

A theme so central for a plant's health and sustainability is what they grow in and that is soil. Soils are the catalysts of growth, stability and nourishment. Garden plants are products of their soils, for soils form the base and foundation for diversity of life as we understand, and soils support the perpetuity of living things.

Secondly, the link between plants and soil is water. Water is the deliverer of life, for life is another necessity to the functioning of a garden. Water is so fundamental for a garden’s diversity in image and function, but also central for the production of plant biomass and food.

A third link to a gardens health and stability is climatic influence. A plant's performance is directly related to climate. Plants differ from each other through climate, and their diversity and habitat they choose to grow within is a direct adaptation to climate. Climatic influences could be incorporated in most of the topic headings for 66 Ways.

The garden and what we take from it, (food, flowers and personal enjoyment) come from its plants. A garden is a plant place. They are necessary evils for a functioning and responsive garden. Plants become the collective products of soil, water and climate.

Plants and their use are central to sustainable practice. It is plants which give us life. They are abundant, become productive, give pleasure, and moderate and stabilise environments. Plants give life to other creatures and make up a considerable part of the garden we see and enjoy.

Other themes emerged as the 66 topic ideas came together. Firstly, garden design. Design comes into it at the start of it all, for a garden materialises as a product created from bare earth, a refurbishment or makeover, a change in theme or personal preference, but each treatment considered to change the appearance and use of a garden space, hopefully offering something difference and unique. Design is the ‘before the earth is touched’ part of gardening, but all gardens emerge into something physical and they require maintaining. Maintenance can lead to the greatest impediment in gardening and sustainable practice. I commenced the topic list with garden design. Ungrouped topics are included in a general list.

I purposefully did not go into books or the Internet to write 66 Ways to Practice Sustainability in the Garden, simply because it would end up as a rehash of other’s work. The 66 come from my own experience and knowledge of 50 years association with the land and the garden, and I'm first to admit my practice of farming and horticulture was not always sustainable. I knew no different and followed tradition. We used the land and saw it as something indefinable and there in perpetuity. We did not view it as something that could no longer support us.

Readers are likely to find some topics in the book overlap their messages, although each offers something different. The topics tend the suit an everyday gardener who may be interested in sustainable practice and adopt the topic ideas to suit their own space and needs. Collectively the topics form a practical guide for gardening. They don’t preach sustainability as the focus to gardening because that’s a dedicated process and unlikely to suit everyday gardening.

66 Ways to Practice Sustainability in the Garden

Contents

Garden Design

1 Set your garden into themes with entry points, destinations and open space

2 Design the garden to suit an existing home

3 Design the home around the garden or natural landscape features

4 Marry the garden to the home

5 Garden to the contour, the aspect, and slope of the land

6 Group planting rather than single planting

7 Trees in the garden can become a curse - Select wisely

8 Put time and energy into garden bed preparation before planting out

9 Maintenance costs and energy requirements when designing a garden

10 Permaculture techniques improve a garden’s efficiency and stabilise energy inputs

11 Permeable surfaces versus concrete or impervious ones

12 Use locally-sourced materials

13 Lawn areas respond best to good preparation before establishment

14 Use vigilance when selecting lawn species

15 Lay out garden beds and lawn with mowing in mind

16 Lawn minimised as a percentage of garden area

Soil

17 Organic life and litter in the soil - it's a living thing

18 Soil health and balancing pH levels

19 Beneficial bacteria within healthy soils

20 The earthworm is an extremely beneficial mate for the gardener

21 Prevent moisture loss, rain damage and compaction by covering bare soil

Water

22 Install water presence in the garden and use it wisely

23 Rainwater should move through a garden - not over or around it

24 Water retention or harvesting is beneficial for the garden

25 Drainage within the garden

26 Locate a pond of water for visual amenity and wildlife

27 Mains water usage minimised and possibly reduced to nil

28 Drip (or micro) irrigation systems.

Climate

29 Accept the vagrancies of nature and climate, including wind and rain

30 Micro climates are beneficial and aid