{"id":233,"date":"2010-11-29T04:52:28","date_gmt":"2010-11-29T12:52:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=233"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:32:57","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:32:57","slug":"sustainability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/sustainability\/","title":{"rendered":"Sustainability"},"content":{"rendered":"

SUSTAINABILITY<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 “Sustainability”\u009d has become such a buzz word, that some people cringe when they hear it.\u00a0 While the word “sustainability”\u009d may be suffering from a terminal case of incessant repetition, I like to think that gardeners have been maintaining the practice for millennia.\u00a0 Yes, there was a time, beginning just after World War II, when American home gardeners became enamored of the chemical compounds that banished pesky bugs and weeds.\u00a0 At about the same time, many of them discovered the joys of gas-powered lawn mowers, which made it easy to maintain a pristine suburban lawn.\u00a0 Post war homeowners who grew up hand pulling endless weeds and pushing reel lawn mowers exalted in the increased free time afforded by these chemical and mechanical conveniences.\u00a0 It was progressive at the time.\u00a0 Knowledge of and concern about the environmental cost came later.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But we are counting the cost now and doing something about it.\u00a0 The current slow-to-recover economy and a renewed focus on environmentalism have inspired people to compost, raise organic vegetable gardens and think of new ways to reuse everything from plastic plant pots to old garden equipment.\u00a0 On trips to the bookstore, I occasionally see books with titles like How the Irish Saved Civilization.\u00a0 <\/em>I have yet to see one titled How Gardeners Saved Civilization<\/em>, but I think the evidence is clear.\u00a0 Once upon a time, a very long time ago, someone figured out how to plant seeds and raise food.\u00a0 We have been eating better ever since.\u00a0 Now gardeners are leading the sustainability parade.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Though the word itself makes me itch, I find myself thinking about sustainability whenever I go out in my garden.\u00a0 I do a lot of trimming, raking and weeding and produce a bumper crop of garden waste. \u00a0My goal is to make sure none of it lands at the curb on trash pick up day.\u00a0 Some goes to the composter.\u00a0 Most of the sticks and branches get broken down to a certain size and stockpiled for use as plant supports, but more than once I have wished that I had a talent for making rustic garden structures.\u00a0 In windy months, I could construct all kinds of trellises and tuteurs out of downed branches.\u00a0 If winter goes on long enough this year, I may just figure out how to do that.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Last week I had an ecological epiphany while discarding the Halloween decorations.\u00a0 I was attempting to toss a large pumpkin into the composter, when I ran into serious interference from a wayward wisteria vine.\u00a0 Regular readers know that wisteria is one of the banes of my existence.\u00a0 A long ago resident of the neighboring property planted it to adorn an archway between the properties.\u00a0 It flourished, traveled and put down roots wherever it rested.\u00a0 Now, it comes up everywhere, threatening to engulf the fence between my property and my neighbor’s, twining its way up trees and popping up out of the ground many yards from its home territory.\u00a0 As I was preparing to cut it back, I had an idea.\u00a0 Liberating a good quantity of it from a nearby tree, I stripped the wisteria of its leaves.\u00a0 I upended a very large plastic plant pot, wound the vine around it in a wreath shape and secured it with some florist’s wire that I found under the Chinese menus in the kitchen drawer.\u00a0 A quick walk around the garden netted me plenty of decorative materials, including bright, plump rose hips; goblet-shaped rose-of-Sharon seedheads and miscanthus stalks topped by feathery plumes.\u00a0 I plugged all the plant material into the interstices between the layers of wisteria vine.\u00a0 At the end of about twenty minutes, I had a very nice wreath, and as I hung it on the front door, I had the distinct impression that a sustainable halo had perched itself atop my head.\u00a0 My wreath is eminently renewable.\u00a0 When the ornaments begin to look shabby, I’ll replace them with other dried materials.\u00a0 The wreath and everything on it are biodegradable and I will have no regrets about eventually flinging the whole thing into the composter.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It occurs to me that I have an awful lot of wayward wisteria.\u00a0 Maybe there is a future for me in wreath making.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Not everyone has these kinds of resources, but each of us can pursue sustainability in his or her own backyard.\u00a0 More people would probably do so if the media didn’t persist in making the whole thing sound like a tedious moral crusade.\u00a0 Sustainability should be a natural by-product of every day life.\u00a0 A good many gardeners already save and re-use plastic plant pots, downed branches and rocks that surface in the course of planting. \u00a0Instead of allowing the baggage-laden word “sustainability”\u009d to infest my brain, I think of such practices as good old fashioned thrift.\u00a0 Somehow that makes me feel exceptionally virtuous, not to mention fashionable in these tough times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SUSTAINABILITY \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 “Sustainability”\u009d has become such a buzz word, that some people cringe when they hear it.\u00a0 While the word “sustainability”\u009d may be suffering from a terminal case of incessant repetition, I like to think that gardeners have been maintaining the practice for millennia.\u00a0 Yes, there was a time, beginning just after World War II, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1557,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions\/1557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}