Have you considered sustainable landscape management for your parks and open spaces?
While using pesticides may be a convenient way to eliminate unwanted plants in areas, the negative impacts can far outweigh any benefits. Pesticides can pollute local water sources, harm essential pollinator populations, and degrade soil quality.
Pesticide and fertilizer manufacturing, transport, and application produce greenhouse gases that can contribute to global climate change.
Plus, kids and pets playing at your assets may be exposed to pesticide residue despite your best efforts to protect the public.
Sustainable landscape management and natural lawn care limit or eliminate the use of harmful, dangerous chemicals while ensuring the areas are healthy and resilient. These practices can also help reduce costs and labor hours at parks while improving public opinion about your sustainable efforts.
In this article, learn more about sustainable landscape management, its benefits, and steps you can take to make your assets more sustainable.
What is Sustainable Landscape Management?
Sustainable landscaping helps create thriving, functional landscapes that benefit the environment and community.
Sustainable landscape management uses multiple strategies for designing, developing, and maintaining outdoor spaces that promote long-term environmental health, social well-being, and economic viability. The practice also uses more natural methods for landscape maintenance, requiring fewer herbicides, pesticides, and other harmful chemicals.
Some examples of sustainable landscape management practices include:
- Sustainable Landscape Design
- Mulching
- Composting
- Water Conservation
- Rain Harvesting
- Choosing Native Plants
- Wildlife Habitat Creation
- Erosion Control
Importance of Sustainable Practices in Landscaping
Even with this short list of sustainable landscape practices, you may already envision benefits for your agency and community.
Here are a few reasons why you may consider changing your landscaping approach:
Conserving Resources
Creating areas that use less water, energy, and other resources helps to reduce waste and negative environmental impacts.
Choosing native plants that have evolved and adapted to the local climate requires less water and irrigation. Compared to turfgrass, native plant areas can also help reduce rainwater runoff that may pollute local waterways.
Sustainable practices also help maintain or improve soil health for a more robust, resilient local ecosystem.
Preserving Biodiversity
Planning and choosing the best plants in the best place allows the entire natural area to thrive. Choosing various plants local to the area helps maintain and support the local ecosystem.
Native plants also provide food sources for local wildlife. Some invasive non-native plants can take over entire areas, crowding out native plants and eliminating this natural food source.
Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Caring for turfgrass takes a lot of work. Emissions from mowers contribute to the pollution problem. According to the EPA, off-road gasoline-powered equipment, such as lawnmowers and other landscape maintenance equipment, emits about 242 million tons of pollutants annually.
Non-road gas engines are responsible for 4 to 5 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.
Replacing unused turfgrass on your properties can cut down on some of these harmful emissions.
Why Parks and Recreation Agencies Should Consider Sustainable Landscape Management
Cost Savings
Using fewer resources also means savings on operational costs. Sustainable landscape management allows agencies to save money on fuel, irrigation, supply, and labor costs.
You can reduce costs in several ways. Here are a couple of examples:
- Native plants require less overall maintenance to stay healthy and vibrant.
- Rain collection methods help reduce the need for irrigation expenses.
- Replacing turfgrass with natural areas means less time and fuel mowing, potentially increasing the lifespan of your mowers and other equipment.
Planning and building sustainable landscapes may require an initial investment, but the overall savings should more than pay off in the long run.
Safer, Healthier Parks
Developing landscapes that adapt to changing environmental conditions helps maintain stable, functional areas over time. Reducing or eliminating harmful chemicals lowers the risk of exposure to the public, wildlife, and water supply.
Community Health and Well-Being
Public sustainable landscaping sites can be a source of pride for the entire community. Healthy parks are a beautiful backdrop for community activities, recreational pursuits, and cultural opportunities.
Natural areas and wildlife habitats allow people of all ages to cultivate a better appreciation of nature. The parks can provide a sanctuary to de-stress and unplug from the modern world.
The added green space can help reduce pollution that causes respiratory problems and other health concerns.
Long-Term Viability
Being stewards of public lands, we want to make sure the choices we make now have a positive impact on future generations.
Getting Started with Sustainable Landscape Management
Building a sustainable landscape doesn’t happen overnight. It involves a series of small steps that ultimately reach the design goal. It’s easy to get overwhelmed just thinking about how you can change your parks for the better. But you do it just like anything else--one step at a time.
Get Educated
This article only scratches the surface of the opportunities and ways to create a more sustainable landscape for your parks. Sustainable landscaping internet resources, seminars, and more are readily available to help you better understand this eco-friendly opportunity.
Enlist Help
Even with some intense research, you’re probably not going to have all the answers about creating the most functional, sustainable landscape plan. And that’s fine. Successful sustainable landscape management is often a collaboration among landscape architects, planners, ecologists, and other professionals.
Professional consultants can inspect your park assets, do testing, and recognize the challenges and opportunities the available land presents. Some companies can even do the heavy lifting to set up an area with native plantings, erosion control, rain collection, or other sustainable practices.
Start Planning
With education and consulting, your agency can work on a plan of action for more natural lawn care and sustainable landscaping. Leadership can develop long-range plans and amendments to mission statements, policies, and visions.
Start Small
Think about some smaller changes you can make now to help create a more sustainable landscape. As you build on those small changes and follow the plan you developed, your agency and the community can enjoy some of the benefits of your improved landscape.
Maybe there are areas of your parks you can mow less frequently to reduce carbon emissions. Can staff or volunteers manually pull weeds from an area instead of using herbicides? These are just a couple of ideas to explore.
Track Progress
How are sustainable practices making an impact on your maintenance operations? Collecting data to show the difference is the best way to find out. One easy way to do this is by using maintenance management software for parks and recreation agencies to help capture the metrics you’re looking for and report the results.
Get the Community Involved
Educate your local community about what you’re doing and why it is essential. You can do this by launching a social media campaign or putting up special signage about how an area is becoming more eco-friendly. Get the community excited about what you’re doing.
And enlist some volunteer help! Schedule workdays with groups or organizations to help with pulling weeds, spreading compost, or other tasks. When more people in the community get skin in the game, they’re more likely to support you in different ways.
The Takeaway
Sustainable landscape practices benefit the environment, community, your agency, and your budget. Learning more about sustainable practices and taking small action steps is a great way to start.