Focus on
Native Landscapes

Native Landscapes
Native plants, trees, and shrubs are the original plants that live in a particular region. In order to foster biodiversity and create total ecosystems it is important to use native plants. Care must be taken to understand and use appropriate plants for each site depending on its regional location.

Traditional Design Problems Sustainable Design Solutions
Turf is a monoculture providing limited habitat. Meadows create biodiversity for superior wildlife habitat.
Turf is high maintenance and therefore has a high environmental cost as well since gasoline mowers are not regulated like cars. Maintenance costs are greatly reduced since meadows are mowed much less frequently (in most cases, only twice a year).
Turf maintenance requires pesticides and/or herbicides. Once established, meadows do not require pesticides or herbicides.
Turf is a relatively recent. Planting natives restores the land to approximate the historical condition.

Back to top

Sensitive Site Design
Sensitive site design preserves and restores the land and water resources during the construction phase.

Traditional Design Problems Sustainable Design Solutions
Traditional projects often begin by clearing all the vegetation and flattening the site. Erosion becomes a major problem requiring after the fact management like silt fences.. Minimize grading and native vegetation removal to avoid excess erosion.
Construction on one feature of the site can sometimes create difficulties later for other features. Sequence construction events logically.
Often, existing vegetation is cleared. Adding it back at the end of the job incurs unnecessary costs and new vegetation won’t mimic the functioning of the existing vegetation for many years. Preserve existing vegetation.
Materials shipped from far away cost more in dollars and energy used. Use local materials.