http://www.usnews.com/usnews/culture/articles/050516/16lawn.htm#




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

---









We abuse the land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we
see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and
respect.
Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac




 





by Bonnie Alter, London  on 11.25.09


DESIGN & ARCHITECTURE 



TreeHugger loves green walls--they are beautiful, environmental and good for
nature and the world. Suddenly they are popping out all over in London.
The American store Anthropologie just opened and they have installed a 3
storey high, 1500 sq. ft. living wall made of 14,000 plants and 15 varieties.
Designed byBioTecture, it is meant to represent a piece of plaid woven fabric. 



It is an evergreen wall: no dead leaves needed whilst shopping. It includes many
houseplants such as the homely spider plant, ferns, lilies, euonymus and
heuchera. Pink leaves and tiny purple flowers give it texture and colour. It is
fed by rain water from the roof. As for the lighting, it must be partially
artificial. What a wonderful addition to a department store.
How do they do it? "Plants are grown vertically in our patented modular,
hydroponic-fed system. Each BioWall consists of a number of pre-grown modular
panels that can be erected with very little on-site time."

Then there's the outside wall. Growing on a corner of the Atheneum Hotel, a
not very imposing 70's building, this one was designed by Patrick Leblanc. He is
the famous creator of vertical walls who did the one outside the Quai Branly
Museum in Paris.

It's such a hit that this wall has its own Facebook entry. It is 8 storeys high
and has native plants and flowers as well as an assortment
of Urticaccae--nettles--grown in Japan and India and planted here because the
humid microclimate is the perfect spot for them.
How does he do it? "A system of slats is used to secure artificial felt and
myriads of strategically placed plant roots, with automated watering and
fertilisation. It's nothing short of botanical architecture. "
http://www.treehugg er.com/files/ 2009/11/green- walls-in- london.php? campaign=
daily_nl










[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

The vast majority of traditional landscapes are bad for the environment tho.

--- On Mon, 11/23/09, neilmoran2001 <moranneil@...> wrote:


From: neilmoran2001 <moranneil@...>
Subject: [Landscape_Pro_Tips] Re: Site Sustainability Rating System Unveiled
To: Landscape_Pro_Tips@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, November 23, 2009, 7:39 AM


 



Seems like this would be good news as it seems to highlight the fact that
building landscapes is good for the environment.

--- In Landscape_Pro_ Tips@yahoogroups .com, Frank Lawrence <fplawrence@ ...>
wrote:
>
> depends on the type of landscaper you are i guess.
>
> --- On Wed, 11/18/09, neilmoran2001 <moranneil@. ..> wrote:
>
>
> From: neilmoran2001 <moranneil@. ..>
> Subject: [Landscape_Pro_ Tips] Re: Site Sustainability Rating System Unveiled
> To: Landscape_Pro_ Tips@yahoogroups .com
> Date: Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 5:12 AM
>
>
>  
>
>
>
> Good news for landscapers, or more red tape?
>
> --- In Landscape_Pro_ Tips@yahoogroups .com, Frank Lawrence <fplawrence@ ...>
wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > ---
> >
> >
> >  
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > http://news. mongabay. com/2009/ 1115-hance_ landscapes. html
> >
> > New rating systems seeks to promote sustainable landscapes from shopping
malls to city parks
> > Jeremy Hance
> > mongabay.com
> > November 15, 2009
> >
> > The Sustainable Sites Initiative has developed the United States' first
rating system for the design, construction, and on-going maintenance of a
wide-variety of landscapes, both with and without buildings, including shopping
malls, subdivisions, university campuses, corporate buildings, transportation
centers, parks and other recreation areas, and single-family homes.
> >
> > "While carbon-neutral performance remains the holy grail for green
buildings, sustainable landscapes move beyond a do-no-harm approach," said Nancy
Somerville, Executive Vice President and CEO of American Society of Landscape
Architects (ASLA). "Landscapes sequester carbon, clean the air and water,
increase energy efficiency, restore habitats and ultimately give back through
significant economic, social and environmental benefits never fully measured
until now."
> >
> > Illustration Omitted
> >   Las Vegas sprawl. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler.
> >
> > The ratings system analyzes sites' energy and water usage, waste management,
impact on land, and use of natural resources both during construction and
maintenance.
> >
> > "We are facing unprecedented environmental challenges such as water scarcity
and climate change that require fundamental changes in the way that we interact
with the land," said Susan Rieff, Executive Director of the Lady Bird Johnson
Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin. "This voluntary rating
system and guidelines covers all aspects of working with outdoor spaces of all
sizes, and provides information for designing landscapes that go beyond beauty
to actually improving ecosystem health and the health of communities for
generations to come."
> >
> > Dozens of experts across the US spent four years developing the Sustainable
Sites Initiative's rating system, which has been a partnership with ASLA, the
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and the US Botanic Garden. Built on a
250-point scale, the ratings system grants between one to four stars based on
whether the site has achieved 40, 50, 60, or 80 percent on the scale
respectively.
> >
> > "Landscapes can give back," said Holly H. Shimizu, Executive Director of the
United States Botanic Garden. "We believe that as these guidelines become widely
used, not only will they be as transformative to the landscape industry as LEED
was to buildings, but more than that, they will allow built landscapes to be
regenerative like natural landscapes, and assist in mitigating some of the most
pressing environmental issues we face today. We need to acknowledge our
landscapes' value, treasure them and cultivate them sustainably and responsibly.
The need is urgent, the time is now and these guidelines, when used correctly,
are the tools."
> >
> > In order to test the system, the Sustainable Sites Initiative has called for
pilot projects on any type of designed landscape of at least 2,000 square feet.
> >
> > Reports issued by the Sustainable Sites Initiative, entitled The Case for
Sustainable Landscapes and Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009, are
available for download at www.sustainablesite s.org.
> >
> >
> > .
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>











[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Seems like this would be good news as it seems to highlight the fact that
building landscapes is good for the environment.

--- In Landscape_Pro_Tips@yahoogroups.com, Frank Lawrence <fplawrence@...>
wrote:
>
> depends on the type of landscaper you are i guess.
>
> --- On Wed, 11/18/09, neilmoran2001 <moranneil@...> wrote:
>
>
> From: neilmoran2001 <moranneil@...>
> Subject: [Landscape_Pro_Tips] Re: Site Sustainability Rating System Unveiled
> To: Landscape_Pro_Tips@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 5:12 AM
>
>
>  
>
>
>
> Good news for landscapers, or more red tape?
>
> --- In Landscape_Pro_ Tips@yahoogroups .com, Frank Lawrence <fplawrence@ ...>
wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > ---
> >
> >
> >  
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > http://news. mongabay. com/2009/ 1115-hance_ landscapes. html
> >
> > New rating systems seeks to promote sustainable landscapes from shopping
malls to city parks
> > Jeremy Hance
> > mongabay.com
> > November 15, 2009
> >
> > The Sustainable Sites Initiative has developed the United States' first
rating system for the design, construction, and on-going maintenance of a
wide-variety of landscapes, both with and without buildings, including shopping
malls, subdivisions, university campuses, corporate buildings, transportation
centers, parks and other recreation areas, and single-family homes.
> >
> > "While carbon-neutral performance remains the holy grail for green
buildings, sustainable landscapes move beyond a do-no-harm approach," said Nancy
Somerville, Executive Vice President and CEO of American Society of Landscape
Architects (ASLA). "Landscapes sequester carbon, clean the air and water,
increase energy efficiency, restore habitats and ultimately give back through
significant economic, social and environmental benefits never fully measured
until now."
> >
> > Illustration Omitted
> >   Las Vegas sprawl. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler.
> >
> > The ratings system analyzes sites' energy and water usage, waste management,
impact on land, and use of natural resources both during construction and
maintenance.
> >
> > "We are facing unprecedented environmental challenges such as water scarcity
and climate change that require fundamental changes in the way that we interact
with the land," said Susan Rieff, Executive Director of the Lady Bird Johnson
Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin. "This voluntary rating
system and guidelines covers all aspects of working with outdoor spaces of all
sizes, and provides information for designing landscapes that go beyond beauty
to actually improving ecosystem health and the health of communities for
generations to come."
> >
> > Dozens of experts across the US spent four years developing the Sustainable
Sites Initiative's rating system, which has been a partnership with ASLA, the
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and the US Botanic Garden. Built on a
250-point scale, the ratings system grants between one to four stars based on
whether the site has achieved 40, 50, 60, or 80 percent on the scale
respectively.
> >
> > "Landscapes can give back," said Holly H. Shimizu, Executive Director of the
United States Botanic Garden. "We believe that as these guidelines become widely
used, not only will they be as transformative to the landscape industry as LEED
was to buildings, but more than that, they will allow built landscapes to be
regenerative like natural landscapes, and assist in mitigating some of the most
pressing environmental issues we face today. We need to acknowledge our
landscapes' value, treasure them and cultivate them sustainably and responsibly.
The need is urgent, the time is now and these guidelines, when used correctly,
are the tools."
> >
> > In order to test the system, the Sustainable Sites Initiative has called for
pilot projects on any type of designed landscape of at least 2,000 square feet.
> >
> > Reports issued by the Sustainable Sites Initiative, entitled The Case for
Sustainable Landscapes and Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009, are
available for download at www.sustainablesite s.org.
> >
> >
> > .
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

Thats a great idea, wish more municipalities and the like jumped on that
idea....would do wonders for us Natural Landscapers.

--- On Tue, 11/17/09, boomer55@... <boomer55@...> wrote:


From: boomer55@... <boomer55@...>
Subject: [Landscape_Pro_Tips] Re: Green driveway
To: Landscape_Pro_Tips@yahoogroups.com
Date: Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 5:37 AM


 



In the southeast, we've had drought problems for the past few years. The new
permeable parking lots are catching on. They don't generate the heat of a
conventional parking lot or driveway and allow rain to penetrate the ground
instead of running off. The local property tax structure includes a significant
increase for what they call run-off tax. You are taxed at a higher rate for
every square foot of non-permeable surfaces on your property such as roof area,
driveways, patios, etc. You know other county governments will jump on that
bandwagon to raise their tax revenues so you will pay dearly for all surfaces on
your property that create run-off. The permeable surfaces are an idea whose time
has come!

~Marion in GA.










[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

depends on the type of landscaper you are i guess.

--- On Wed, 11/18/09, neilmoran2001 <moranneil@...> wrote:


From: neilmoran2001 <moranneil@...>
Subject: [Landscape_Pro_Tips] Re: Site Sustainability Rating System Unveiled
To: Landscape_Pro_Tips@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 5:12 AM


 



Good news for landscapers, or more red tape?

--- In Landscape_Pro_ Tips@yahoogroups .com, Frank Lawrence <fplawrence@ ...>
wrote:
>
>
>
> ---
>
>
>  
>
>
>
>
> http://news. mongabay. com/2009/ 1115-hance_ landscapes. html
>
> New rating systems seeks to promote sustainable landscapes from shopping malls
to city parks
> Jeremy Hance
> mongabay.com
> November 15, 2009
>
> The Sustainable Sites Initiative has developed the United States' first rating
system for the design, construction, and on-going maintenance of a wide-variety
of landscapes, both with and without buildings, including shopping malls,
subdivisions, university campuses, corporate buildings, transportation centers,
parks and other recreation areas, and single-family homes.
>
> "While carbon-neutral performance remains the holy grail for green buildings,
sustainable landscapes move beyond a do-no-harm approach," said Nancy
Somerville, Executive Vice President and CEO of American Society of Landscape
Architects (ASLA). "Landscapes sequester carbon, clean the air and water,
increase energy efficiency, restore habitats and ultimately give back through
significant economic, social and environmental benefits never fully measured
until now."
>
> Illustration Omitted
>   Las Vegas sprawl. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler.
>
> The ratings system analyzes sites' energy and water usage, waste management,
impact on land, and use of natural resources both during construction and
maintenance.
>
> "We are facing unprecedented environmental challenges such as water scarcity
and climate change that require fundamental changes in the way that we interact
with the land," said Susan Rieff, Executive Director of the Lady Bird Johnson
Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin. "This voluntary rating
system and guidelines covers all aspects of working with outdoor spaces of all
sizes, and provides information for designing landscapes that go beyond beauty
to actually improving ecosystem health and the health of communities for
generations to come."
>
> Dozens of experts across the US spent four years developing the Sustainable
Sites Initiative's rating system, which has been a partnership with ASLA, the
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and the US Botanic Garden. Built on a
250-point scale, the ratings system grants between one to four stars based on
whether the site has achieved 40, 50, 60, or 80 percent on the scale
respectively.
>
> "Landscapes can give back," said Holly H. Shimizu, Executive Director of the
United States Botanic Garden. "We believe that as these guidelines become widely
used, not only will they be as transformative to the landscape industry as LEED
was to buildings, but more than that, they will allow built landscapes to be
regenerative like natural landscapes, and assist in mitigating some of the most
pressing environmental issues we face today. We need to acknowledge our
landscapes' value, treasure them and cultivate them sustainably and responsibly.
The need is urgent, the time is now and these guidelines, when used correctly,
are the tools."
>
> In order to test the system, the Sustainable Sites Initiative has called for
pilot projects on any type of designed landscape of at least 2,000 square feet.
>
> Reports issued by the Sustainable Sites Initiative, entitled The Case for
Sustainable Landscapes and Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009, are
available for download at www.sustainablesite s.org.
>
>
> .
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>











[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Good news for landscapers, or more red tape?

--- In Landscape_Pro_Tips@yahoogroups.com, Frank Lawrence <fplawrence@...>
wrote:
>
>
>
> ---
>
>
>  
>
>
>
>
> http://news. mongabay. com/2009/ 1115-hance_ landscapes. html
>
> New rating systems seeks to promote sustainable landscapes from shopping malls
to city parks
> Jeremy Hance
> mongabay.com
> November 15, 2009
>
> The Sustainable Sites Initiative has developed the United States' first rating
system for the design, construction, and on-going maintenance of a wide-variety
of landscapes, both with and without buildings, including shopping malls,
subdivisions, university campuses, corporate buildings, transportation centers,
parks and other recreation areas, and single-family homes.
>
> "While carbon-neutral performance remains the holy grail for green buildings,
sustainable landscapes move beyond a do-no-harm approach," said Nancy
Somerville, Executive Vice President and CEO of American Society of Landscape
Architects (ASLA). "Landscapes sequester carbon, clean the air and water,
increase energy efficiency, restore habitats and ultimately give back through
significant economic, social and environmental benefits never fully measured
until now."
>
> Illustration Omitted
>   Las Vegas sprawl. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler.
>
> The ratings system analyzes sites' energy and water usage, waste management,
impact on land, and use of natural resources both during construction and
maintenance.
>
> "We are facing unprecedented environmental challenges such as water scarcity
and climate change that require fundamental changes in the way that we interact
with the land," said Susan Rieff, Executive Director of the Lady Bird Johnson
Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin. "This voluntary rating
system and guidelines covers all aspects of working with outdoor spaces of all
sizes, and provides information for designing landscapes that go beyond beauty
to actually improving ecosystem health and the health of communities for
generations to come."
>
> Dozens of experts across the US spent four years developing the Sustainable
Sites Initiative's rating system, which has been a partnership with ASLA, the
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and the US Botanic Garden. Built on a
250-point scale, the ratings system grants between one to four stars based on
whether the site has achieved 40, 50, 60, or 80 percent on the scale
respectively.
>
> "Landscapes can give back," said Holly H. Shimizu, Executive Director of the
United States Botanic Garden. "We believe that as these guidelines become widely
used, not only will they be as transformative to the landscape industry as LEED
was to buildings, but more than that, they will allow built landscapes to be
regenerative like natural landscapes, and assist in mitigating some of the most
pressing environmental issues we face today. We need to acknowledge our
landscapes' value, treasure them and cultivate them sustainably and responsibly.
The need is urgent, the time is now and these guidelines, when used correctly,
are the tools."
>
> In order to test the system, the Sustainable Sites Initiative has called for
pilot projects on any type of designed landscape of at least 2,000 square feet.
>
> Reports issued by the Sustainable Sites Initiative, entitled The Case for
Sustainable Landscapes and Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009, are
available for download at www.sustainablesite s.org.
>
>
> .
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

Makes sense, thank you.

Michael




________________________________
From: Frank Lawrence <fplawrence@...>
To: Landscape_Pro_Tips@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tue, November 17, 2009 6:32:20 AM
Subject: Re: [Landscape_Pro_Tips] "Green driveway" anyone?

There are 2 types of green driveways that I'm aware of. Both employ pervious
pavers, one where the gaps are filled with soil and grass is grown in the gaps.
The idea of this system is to reduce compaction and to allow for limited water
infiltration. I have seen these used in high quality natural areas as a way to
allow heavy equipment and vehicles to move freely into a area with minimal
damage to the adjacent ecosystem.
The other application for pervious pavers are where the gaps are filled with
finely crushed stone with a underlayment of the same. The idea here again is to
allow a greater amount of water to infiltrate to a sub soil level and often to
be directed into a Bioswale system which usually feeds into a Rain Garden
complex. The following link can explain more.
Frank Lawrence
Eco_horticulturist
N. Illinois
 
http://www.duluthstreams.org/stormwater/toolkit/paving.html


--- On Sun, 11/15/09, pattia <treesha7@...> wrote:


From: pattia <treesha7@...>
Subject: [Landscape_Pro_Tips] "Green driveway" anyone?
To: Landscape_Pro_Tips@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sunday, November 15, 2009, 7:39 PM


 



Hi there. Just wondering if anyone has a "green driveway" or has thoughts on
this idea. Was wondering whether this costs more or less than a conventional
driveway and how well it lasts over time. I have a very old and beat up asphalt
driveway that I was thinking of pulling up.

Thanks very much!









     

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Funny ive just finished laying a grass drive. ive laid two this year now and
regularly maintain the first. its lasted really well (been down since feb), cuts
pretty easy just like regular lawn. Bit pricey but worth the money. just for the
blocks its roughly ₤40.00 a square meter. Shop around to buy though! Have a
look on www.wickes.co.uk product code is 187-886 permeable grass grid.
Sorry forgot to answer one of your questions. it works out about 20% cheaper
than a top quality drive, and about 10% more expensive than a cheap drive. Check
with local authority first though.
good luck

Luke Jenkins
07855 925813
www.jenkinshomeandgardenservices.co.uk





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

In the southeast, we've had drought problems for the past few years. The new
permeable parking lots are catching on. They don't generate the heat of a
conventional parking lot or driveway and allow rain to penetrate the ground
instead of running off. The local property tax structure includes a significant
increase for what they call run-off tax. You are taxed at a higher rate for
every square foot of non-permeable surfaces on your property such as roof area,
driveways, patios, etc. You know other county governments will jump on that
bandwagon to raise their tax revenues so you will pay dearly for all surfaces on
your property that create run-off. The permeable surfaces are an idea whose time
has come!

~Marion in GA.

If you google it, a ton will come up, but here is a link to a short New York
Times article about it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/04/garden/04room.html

The general idea is to create something that is porous, instead of a concrete or
asphalt slab that just sends more water into your town's sewar system.  An old
style one would be just having two strips of cement as your driveway (for your
wheels) with grass growing in the middle.  There are numerous other ways to do
it today.  Like with concrete blocks with holes designed for grass/plants to
grow within it. I am just learning about this...

Thanks to Michael for the tip on checking with your town - it could present a
zoning issue.

Thanks everyone, patti

--- In Landscape_Pro_Tips@yahoogroups.com, Heidi Wilker <hwilker335@...> wrote:
>
> What is a green driveway?
>
>                    Heidi  www.myspace.com/sweeturnhuney
>
> --- On Sun, 11/15/09, pattia <treesha7@...> wrote:
>
> From: pattia <treesha7@...>
> Subject: [Landscape_Pro_Tips] "Green driveway" anyone?
> To: Landscape_Pro_Tips@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Sunday, November 15, 2009, 8:39 PM
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>       Hi there.  Just wondering if anyone has a "green driveway" or has
thoughts on this idea.  Was wondering whether this costs more or less than a
conventional driveway and how well it lasts over time.  I have a very old and
beat up asphalt driveway that I was thinking of pulling up.
>
>
>
> Thanks very much!
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

There are 2 types of green driveways that I'm aware of. Both employ pervious
pavers, one where the gaps are filled with soil and grass is grown in the gaps.
The idea of this system is to reduce compaction and to allow for limited water
infiltration. I have seen these used in high quality natural areas as a way to
allow heavy equipment and vehicles to move freely into a area with minimal
damage to the adjacent ecosystem.
The other application for pervious pavers are where the gaps are filled with
finely crushed stone with a underlayment of the same. The idea here again is to
allow a greater amount of water to infiltrate to a sub soil level and often to
be directed into a Bioswale system which usually feeds into a Rain Garden
complex. The following link can explain more.
Frank Lawrence
Eco_horticulturist
N. Illinois
 
http://www.duluthstreams.org/stormwater/toolkit/paving.html


--- On Sun, 11/15/09, pattia <treesha7@...> wrote:


From: pattia <treesha7@...>
Subject: [Landscape_Pro_Tips] "Green driveway" anyone?
To: Landscape_Pro_Tips@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sunday, November 15, 2009, 7:39 PM


 



Hi there. Just wondering if anyone has a "green driveway" or has thoughts on
this idea. Was wondering whether this costs more or less than a conventional
driveway and how well it lasts over time. I have a very old and beat up asphalt
driveway that I was thinking of pulling up.

Thanks very much!











[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

---


 




http://news. mongabay. com/2009/ 1115-hance_ landscapes. html

New rating systems seeks to promote sustainable landscapes from shopping malls
to city parks
Jeremy Hance
mongabay.com
November 15, 2009

The Sustainable Sites Initiative has developed the United States' first rating
system for the design, construction, and on-going maintenance of a wide-variety
of landscapes, both with and without buildings, including shopping malls,
subdivisions, university campuses, corporate buildings, transportation centers,
parks and other recreation areas, and single-family homes.

"While carbon-neutral performance remains the holy grail for green buildings,
sustainable landscapes move beyond a do-no-harm approach," said Nancy
Somerville, Executive Vice President and CEO of American Society of Landscape
Architects (ASLA). "Landscapes sequester carbon, clean the air and water,
increase energy efficiency, restore habitats and ultimately give back through
significant economic, social and environmental benefits never fully measured
until now."

Illustration Omitted
  Las Vegas sprawl. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler.

The ratings system analyzes sites' energy and water usage, waste management,
impact on land, and use of natural resources both during construction and
maintenance.

"We are facing unprecedented environmental challenges such as water scarcity and
climate change that require fundamental changes in the way that we interact with
the land," said Susan Rieff, Executive Director of the Lady Bird Johnson
Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin. "This voluntary rating
system and guidelines covers all aspects of working with outdoor spaces of all
sizes, and provides information for designing landscapes that go beyond beauty
to actually improving ecosystem health and the health of communities for
generations to come."

Dozens of experts across the US spent four years developing the Sustainable
Sites Initiative's rating system, which has been a partnership with ASLA, the
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and the US Botanic Garden. Built on a
250-point scale, the ratings system grants between one to four stars based on
whether the site has achieved 40, 50, 60, or 80 percent on the scale
respectively.

"Landscapes can give back," said Holly H. Shimizu, Executive Director of the
United States Botanic Garden. "We believe that as these guidelines become widely
used, not only will they be as transformative to the landscape industry as LEED
was to buildings, but more than that, they will allow built landscapes to be
regenerative like natural landscapes, and assist in mitigating some of the most
pressing environmental issues we face today. We need to acknowledge our
landscapes' value, treasure them and cultivate them sustainably and responsibly.
The need is urgent, the time is now and these guidelines, when used correctly,
are the tools."

In order to test the system, the Sustainable Sites Initiative has called for
pilot projects on any type of designed landscape of at least 2,000 square feet.

Reports issued by the Sustainable Sites Initiative, entitled The Case for
Sustainable Landscapes and Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009, are
available for download at www.sustainablesite s.org.


.










[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I think the only kind of "green driveway" is a dirt strip. ;)


On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 8:39 PM, pattia <treesha7@...> wrote:
> Hi there.  Just wondering if anyone has a "green driveway" or has thoughts on
this idea.  Was wondering whether this costs more or less than a conventional
driveway and how well it lasts over time.  I have a very old and beat up asphalt
driveway that I was thinking of pulling up.
>
> Thanks very much!

Excellent question. My drive and house are over 60yo and the drive really needs
work.

Better check with your City before you do anything.

Michael




________________________________
From: pattia <treesha7@...>
To: Landscape_Pro_Tips@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sun, November 15, 2009 7:39:45 PM
Subject: [Landscape_Pro_Tips] "Green driveway" anyone?

Hi there.  Just wondering if anyone has a "green driveway" or has thoughts on
this idea.  Was wondering whether this costs more or less than a conventional
driveway and how well it lasts over time.  I have a very old and beat up asphalt
driveway that I was thinking of pulling up.

Thanks very much!



------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

What is a green driveway?

                   Heidi  www.myspace.com/sweeturnhuney

--- On Sun, 11/15/09, pattia <treesha7@...> wrote:

From: pattia <treesha7@...>
Subject: [Landscape_Pro_Tips] "Green driveway" anyone?
To: Landscape_Pro_Tips@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sunday, November 15, 2009, 8:39 PM







 









       Hi there.  Just wondering if anyone has a "green driveway" or has thoughts
on this idea.  Was wondering whether this costs more or less than a conventional
driveway and how well it lasts over time.  I have a very old and beat up asphalt
driveway that I was thinking of pulling up.



Thanks very much!

























[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi there.  Just wondering if anyone has a "green driveway" or has thoughts on
this idea.  Was wondering whether this costs more or less than a conventional
driveway and how well it lasts over time.  I have a very old and beat up asphalt
driveway that I was thinking of pulling up.

Thanks very much!

Hi everyone.  Anyone have any good advice on where/how to buy inexpensive gravel
for landscaping purposes?  I live on long island (Nassau), in case anyone can
recommend a place.  And I am not looking for huge amounts, my property is small.

Thanks for any leads!

"Zen" is a Japanese school/sect of Buddhism The word "zen" means meditation. A
zen garden is meant to be used as a meditation garden.

In the west most people think of very simple gardens of sand or gravel with a
few large stones. The extreme maintenance of these gardens is used as a form of
meditation.


Go with your "heart" and do what feels right for you.

I am in the process of making one for my self based on a Buddhist altar. A low
mound with a very large statue of the Buddha ( luckily this was a gift, about
one third life size, rather expensive) with cannas as a back drop and a rose to
one side. I am adding mondo grass to surround the entire area and intend to add
a "wild" Eastern Red bud this winter as soon as I can transplant it. I have a
few large "river rocks" in front  with an asian flower pot for an insense
burner. A young red oak about 10 feet away in the back of this.

The "garden" meant to be viewed from my deck with a flagstone stone path in
front and is about 10 feet long by 8 feet deep.

Just keep it simple.

Michael


________________________________
From: pattia <treesha7@...>
To: Landscape_Pro_Tips@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sat, November 7, 2009 6:20:30 PM
Subject: [Landscape_Pro_Tips] Make your yard a Zen Garden?

Hi there.  Just wondering if anyone has made their yard a zen garden of sorts. 
Looking for ideas.  I live in long island, NY.

Thanks very much!



------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi there.  Just wondering if anyone has made their yard a zen garden of sorts. 
Looking for ideas.  I live in long island, NY.

Thanks very much!

One way to slow this down in the home landscape is by using slow release
fertilizers, like Milorganite. Or returning nitrogen-rich grass clippings to
your lawn. I'm not sure what can be done with large-scale agriculture.

--- In Landscape_Pro_Tips@yahoogroups.com, Frank Lawrence <fplawrence@...>
wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>  
>
>
>
>
> http://www.e360. yale.edu/ content/feature. msp?id=2207
>
> 05 Nov 2009: Analysis
>
> The Nitrogen Fix: Breaking a Costly Addiction
>       Over the last century, the intensive use of chemical fertilizers has
saturated the Earth's soils, waters, and atmosphere with nitrogen. Now
scientists are warning that we must move quickly to revolutionize agricultural
systems and greatly reduce the amount of nitrogen we put into the planet's
ecosystems.
>
> by fred pearce
>
> A single patent a century ago changed the world, and now, in the 21st century,
Homo sapiens and the world we dominate have an addiction. Call it the nitrogen
fix. It is like a drug mainlined into the planet's ecosystems, suffusing every
cell, every pore - including our own bodies.
>
> In 1908, the German chemist Fritz Haber discovered how to make ammonia by
capturing nitrogen gas from the air. In the process he invented a cheap new
source of nitrogen fertilizer, ending our dependence on natural sources, whether
biological or geological. Nitrogen fertilizer fixed from the air confounded the
mid-century predictions of Paul Ehrlich and others that global famine loomed.
Chemical fertilizer today feeds about three billion people.
>
> But the environmental consequences of the massive amounts of nitrogen sent
coursing through the planet's ecosystems are growing fast. We have learned to
fear carbon and the changes it can cause to our climate. But one day soon we may
learn to fear the nitrogen fix even more.
>
> A major international survey published in September in Nature listed the
nitrogen cycle as one of the three "planetary boundaries" that human
interventions have disturbed so badly that they threaten the future habitability
of the Earth. The others - according to the study by Johann Rockstrom, of the
Stockholm Environment Institute, and 27 other environmental scientists - are
climate change and biodiversity loss.
>
> Nitrogen affects more parts of the planet's life-support systems than almost
any other element, says James Galloway of the University of Virginia, who
predicts: "In the worst-case scenario, we will move towards a nitrogen-saturated
planet, with polluted and reduced biodiversity, increased human health risks and
an even more perturbed greenhouse gas balance."
>
> The problem is that we waste most of Haber's fertilizer. Of 80 million tons
spread onto fields in fertilizer each year, only 17 million tons gets into food.
The rest goes missing, washing into ecosystems. This is partly because the
fertilizer is wastefully applied, and partly because the new green-revolution
crops developed to grow fat on nitrogen fertilizer are also wasteful of the
nutrient. The nitrogen efficiency of the world's cereals has fallen from 80
percent in 1960 to just 30 percent today.
>
> Artificial nitrogen washes in drainage water from almost every field in the
world. It is as ubiquitous in water as man-made carbon dioxide is in the air. It
is accumulating in the world's rivers and underground water reserves, choking
waterways with algae and making water reserves unfit to drink without expensive
clean-up.
>
> Most of the man-made nitrogen fertilizer ever produced has been applied to
fields in the last quarter-century. Nature has some ability to reverse man-made
fixing of nitrogen, converting it back into an inert gas - a process called
denitrification. But last year, Patrick Mulholland of the Oak Ridge National
Laboratory in Tennessee reported that the system is being overwhelmed. Many
rivers in the U.S. are now so nitrogen-saturated that they are losing their
ability to denitrify pollution.
>
> Most of this excess nitrogen ends up in the oceans, where it is killing whole
ecosystems. Excess nitrogen is the cause of the growing number of
oxygen-depleted "dead zones" in the oceans, says Mulholland.
>
> Why should a fertilizer kill? It is just too much of a good thing. It
over-fertilizes the water, producing such large volumes of algae and other
biomass that it consumes all the oxygen in the water, causing the ecosystem to
crash. Coastal bays, inlets and estuaries around the world are succumbing.
>
> A study earlier this year found that algal blooms dump domoic acid, a
neurotoxin, onto the ocean floor, where it persists for weeks. "The first signs
are often birds washing up on the shore or seals acting funny, aggressive and
twitching, looking as if they were drunk," says Claudia Benitez-Nelson of the
University of South Carolina.
>
> Illustration Omitted
>       Dead Zone.  Fertilizer running down the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers
create a so-called "dead zone," visible in this 1999 NASA satellite image.
>
> Notoriously, fertilizer running down the Mississippi- Missouri river system
creates a "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico. Typically, around 20,000 square
kilometers of ocean forms a layer without oxygen or fish - killed by the
nitrogen fix.
>
> The number of dead zones has "spread exponentially since the 1960s," says
Robert Diaz of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester Point. He
counted more than 400 in a study for Science last year. They now cover a quarter
of a million square kilometers, usually where rivers discharge large amounts of
fertilizers and sewage into relatively enclosed oceans.
>
> You find these dead zones in the waters between Japan and Korea; in the Black
Sea, where an invasion of alien jelly fish in the 1980s wiped out most native
species; off the tourist beaches of the northern Adriatic; in Chesapeake Bay and
the ocean waters off Oregon; and in the semi-enclosed Baltic Sea, the largest
dead zone in world.
>
> Nitrogen is a vital nutrient in soils, essential for growing crops. Soils
recycle nitrogen in organic waste, including animal dung. But before Haber's
discovery, the only way of adding more atmospheric nitrogen to soils was through
capture by the bacteria that live in a small number of nitrogen-fixing plants,
including legumes like clover and beans.
>
> In the 19th century, densely-packed countries like Germany and Britain began
to improve the fertility of their soils by importing nitrogen in the form of
guano from the Pacific islands of Peru, and saltpetre mined in Chile. Geological
nitrogen was a geopolitical resource as vital as oil today.
>
> Appeals were made for science to come up with a new method of producing
nitrogen in a form that plants could absorb. Haber won the race, filing his
patent for fixing ammonia, a molecule made of nitrogen and hydrogen atoms, from
the inert nitrogen gas that makes up 70 percent of the air.
>
> Now, ammonia could readily be turned into chemical fertilizer and added to the
world's fields as easily as cow dung. German industrialist Carl Bosch opened the
first factory near Ludwigshafen in 1913. It was in the nick of time for Germany.
During the First World War, unable to receive shipments of guano from South
America because of a British naval blockade, Germany would quickly have starved
but for the Haber-Bosch process.
>
> Outside Europe, few initially took up chemical fertilizers to intensify their
farming. It was usually cheaper and easier to expand farming - draining marshes,
ploughing prairies and clearing forests. But by the 1960s, as world population
soared, fertilizer manufacture took off, and plant breeders developed new lines
of high-yielding crops that responded best to the nitrogen fix. During this
"green revolution," there was an eight-fold increase in global production of
nitrogen fertilizer from the 1960s to the 1980s.
>
> Today, of 175 million tons of nitrogen applied to the world's croplands in a
year, almost 50 percent is from chemical fertilizer. It has raised the "carrying
capacity" of the world's soils from 1.9 people per hectare of farmland to 4.3 -
and 10 in China, where applications reach twice anything seen in Europe.
>
> This is a profound change to the biochemistry of life on Earth - and to our
own bodies. Today, much of the nitrogen in our bodies comes not from biological
sources but from giant chemical factories. We are, in a real sense, as much
chemistry as biology. Vaclav Smil, the distinguished Canadian researcher into
food and the environment at the University of Manitoba, calls the nitrogen fix
"an immense and dangerous experiment."
>
> Besides fertilizer, we are also making biologically available nitrogen by
burning fossil fuels. Power stations emit nitrogen oxides that create acid rain,
the environmental scourge of industrialized countries in the 1980s and 1990s.
Nitrogen oxides in the air are also potent greenhouse gases, adding to global
warming, and even reach the stratosphere, where they join chlorine and bromine
compounds in eating up the protective ozone layer.
>
> "Most of the world's biodiversity hotspots are receiving doses of nitrogen
from the air and in water at levels known to damage many species," according to
Gareth Phoenix of the University of Sheffield in England. Yet the issue has
never been addressed by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.
>
> In temperate lands, this is turning heaths into grasslands, while grasslands
typically lose a quarter of their species richness. Within nitrogen-flooded
ecosystems, aggressive outside species outperform most natives. So nitrogen is
the hidden force behind invasions of alien species around the world.
>
> The prognosis is not good. The scientists who wrote the Nature paper on
planetary boundaries argued that human nitrogen releases to the natural
environment should be cut by three quarters, to around 35 million tons. But on
current trends, global nitrogen use on farmland is set to double to 220 million
tons a year by 2050 - more than six times the safe threshold.
>
> The danger is that nature's ability to process this excess nitrogen and return
it to the atmosphere will be overwhelmed, and we will end up inhabiting a
nitrogen-saturated planet, with nitrogen driving global warming, acidifying air,
eating the ozone layer, reducing biodiversity, and killing the oceans.
>
> The Earth has nine biophysical thresholds beyond which it cannot be pushed
without disastrous consequences, the authors of a paper in the journal Nature
report. Ominously, these scientists say, we have already moved past three of
these tipping points, Carl Zimmer writes.
>
> Nature Report a Reminder of the Limits to Growth
>
> It has been more than 30 years since a groundbreaking book predicted that if
growth continued unchecked, the Earth's ecological systems would be overwhelmed
within a century. Bill McKibben writes that the new Nature study should serve as
an eleventh-hour warning that cannot be ignored.
> What can be done? To meet the target cited in the Nature study requires a
transformation of the world's agriculture as profound as the transformation of
energy industries needed to meet targets for cutting greenhouse gases. There is
an urgent need, says Smil, to breed crops that are far more efficient at
absorbing the nitrogen in fields, and for developing farming systems that manage
nitrogen far better.
>
> Luckily the potential is considerable. In China, where nitrogen application to
fields is among the highest in the world, a study by a group of scientists led
by Wilfried Winiwarter and Tatiana Ermolieva of the International Institute for
Applied Systems Analysis found that better on-farm management of nitrogen could
cut emissions to the environment by 25 percent without damaging farm output.
>
> Galloway says the flow of nitrogen through the environment can also be reduced
by decreased emissions from burning fossil fuels - perhaps as a byproduct of
efforts against climate change. And better sewage treatment in cities could
convert nitrates that have passed through the human gut into safe gaseous
nitrogen.
>
> If anything exemplifies humanity's growing impact on the planet's life-support
systems, it is the way we are overwhelming the nitrogen cycle. There are
solutions. But for now we are hooked. As Smil put it: "In just one lifetime,
humanity has developed a profound chemical dependence."
>
> POSTED ON 05 Nov 2009 IN Oceans Pollution & Health North America
>
>
> COMMENTS
>
> On top of all of the problems created by fertilizer, 5 percent of the world's
natural gas production is being used to make it. We are running out of the easy
gas, and getting it out of shale in the midwest has huge environmental impacts.
When we run out of gas we are back to guano.
>
> Posted by Lloyd Alter on 05 Nov 2009
>
>
> How would nitrogen dependence be reduced if we stopped eating meat? Certainly
plants that feed livestock are fertilized. I lack the data to run the numbers on
that, but someone at Yale just might be able to.
> Posted by Chris O. on 05 Nov 2009
>
> Great piece, Fred. Just wanted to add that denitrification doesn't just
produce inert nitrogen gas but also nitrous oxide, a powerful GHG. So
over-fertilization loads the air with nitrogen as well as the soil/water.
>
> Posted by niall dunne on 05 Nov 2009
>
> ABOUT THE AUTHOR
> Fred Pearce is a freelance author and journalist based in the UK. He is
environment consultant for New Scientist magazine and author of the recent books
When The Rivers Run Dry and With Speed and Violence. His latest book is
Confessions of an Eco-Sinner: Tracking Down the Sources of My Stuff (Beacon
Press, 2008). In earlier articles for Yale Environment 360 Pearce has written
about the issues of overconsumption and overpopulation, and about the
responsibility of developing nations in any global climate agreement.
>
> ***   .
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

 




http://www.e360. yale.edu/ content/feature. msp?id=2207

05 Nov 2009: Analysis

The Nitrogen Fix: Breaking a Costly Addiction
      Over the last century, the intensive use of chemical fertilizers has
saturated the Earth's soils, waters, and atmosphere with nitrogen. Now
scientists are warning that we must move quickly to revolutionize agricultural
systems and greatly reduce the amount of nitrogen we put into the planet's
ecosystems.

by fred pearce

A single patent a century ago changed the world, and now, in the 21st century,
Homo sapiens and the world we dominate have an addiction. Call it the nitrogen
fix. It is like a drug mainlined into the planet's ecosystems, suffusing every
cell, every pore - including our own bodies.

In 1908, the German chemist Fritz Haber discovered how to make ammonia by
capturing nitrogen gas from the air. In the process he invented a cheap new
source of nitrogen fertilizer, ending our dependence on natural sources, whether
biological or geological. Nitrogen fertilizer fixed from the air confounded the
mid-century predictions of Paul Ehrlich and others that global famine loomed.
Chemical fertilizer today feeds about three billion people.

But the environmental consequences of the massive amounts of nitrogen sent
coursing through the planet's ecosystems are growing fast. We have learned to
fear carbon and the changes it can cause to our climate. But one day soon we may
learn to fear the nitrogen fix even more.

A major international survey published in September in Nature listed the
nitrogen cycle as one of the three "planetary boundaries" that human
interventions have disturbed so badly that they threaten the future habitability
of the Earth. The others - according to the study by Johann Rockstrom, of the
Stockholm Environment Institute, and 27 other environmental scientists - are
climate change and biodiversity loss.

Nitrogen affects more parts of the planet's life-support systems than almost any
other element, says James Galloway of the University of Virginia, who predicts:
"In the worst-case scenario, we will move towards a nitrogen-saturated planet,
with polluted and reduced biodiversity, increased human health risks and an even
more perturbed greenhouse gas balance."

The problem is that we waste most of Haber's fertilizer. Of 80 million tons
spread onto fields in fertilizer each year, only 17 million tons gets into food.
The rest goes missing, washing into ecosystems. This is partly because the
fertilizer is wastefully applied, and partly because the new green-revolution
crops developed to grow fat on nitrogen fertilizer are also wasteful of the
nutrient. The nitrogen efficiency of the world's cereals has fallen from 80
percent in 1960 to just 30 percent today.

Artificial nitrogen washes in drainage water from almost every field in the
world. It is as ubiquitous in water as man-made carbon dioxide is in the air. It
is accumulating in the world's rivers and underground water reserves, choking
waterways with algae and making water reserves unfit to drink without expensive
clean-up.

Most of the man-made nitrogen fertilizer ever produced has been applied to
fields in the last quarter-century. Nature has some ability to reverse man-made
fixing of nitrogen, converting it back into an inert gas - a process called
denitrification. But last year, Patrick Mulholland of the Oak Ridge National
Laboratory in Tennessee reported that the system is being overwhelmed. Many
rivers in the U.S. are now so nitrogen-saturated that they are losing their
ability to denitrify pollution.

Most of this excess nitrogen ends up in the oceans, where it is killing whole
ecosystems. Excess nitrogen is the cause of the growing number of
oxygen-depleted "dead zones" in the oceans, says Mulholland.

Why should a fertilizer kill? It is just too much of a good thing. It
over-fertilizes the water, producing such large volumes of algae and other
biomass that it consumes all the oxygen in the water, causing the ecosystem to
crash. Coastal bays, inlets and estuaries around the world are succumbing.

A study earlier this year found that algal blooms dump domoic acid, a
neurotoxin, onto the ocean floor, where it persists for weeks. "The first signs
are often birds washing up on the shore or seals acting funny, aggressive and
twitching, looking as if they were drunk," says Claudia Benitez-Nelson of the
University of South Carolina.

Illustration Omitted
      Dead Zone.  Fertilizer running down the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers
create a so-called "dead zone," visible in this 1999 NASA satellite image.

Notoriously, fertilizer running down the Mississippi- Missouri river system
creates a "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico. Typically, around 20,000 square
kilometers of ocean forms a layer without oxygen or fish - killed by the
nitrogen fix.

The number of dead zones has "spread exponentially since the 1960s," says Robert
Diaz of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester Point. He counted
more than 400 in a study for Science last year. They now cover a quarter of a
million square kilometers, usually where rivers discharge large amounts of
fertilizers and sewage into relatively enclosed oceans.

You find these dead zones in the waters between Japan and Korea; in the Black
Sea, where an invasion of alien jelly fish in the 1980s wiped out most native
species; off the tourist beaches of the northern Adriatic; in Chesapeake Bay and
the ocean waters off Oregon; and in the semi-enclosed Baltic Sea, the largest
dead zone in world.

Nitrogen is a vital nutrient in soils, essential for growing crops. Soils
recycle nitrogen in organic waste, including animal dung. But before Haber's
discovery, the only way of adding more atmospheric nitrogen to soils was through
capture by the bacteria that live in a small number of nitrogen-fixing plants,
including legumes like clover and beans.

In the 19th century, densely-packed countries like Germany and Britain began to
improve the fertility of their soils by importing nitrogen in the form of guano
from the Pacific islands of Peru, and saltpetre mined in Chile. Geological
nitrogen was a geopolitical resource as vital as oil today.

Appeals were made for science to come up with a new method of producing nitrogen
in a form that plants could absorb. Haber won the race, filing his patent for
fixing ammonia, a molecule made of nitrogen and hydrogen atoms, from the inert
nitrogen gas that makes up 70 percent of the air.

Now, ammonia could readily be turned into chemical fertilizer and added to the
world's fields as easily as cow dung. German industrialist Carl Bosch opened the
first factory near Ludwigshafen in 1913. It was in the nick of time for Germany.
During the First World War, unable to receive shipments of guano from South
America because of a British naval blockade, Germany would quickly have starved
but for the Haber-Bosch process.

Outside Europe, few initially took up chemical fertilizers to intensify their
farming. It was usually cheaper and easier to expand farming - draining marshes,
ploughing prairies and clearing forests. But by the 1960s, as world population
soared, fertilizer manufacture took off, and plant breeders developed new lines
of high-yielding crops that responded best to the nitrogen fix. During this
"green revolution," there was an eight-fold increase in global production of
nitrogen fertilizer from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Today, of 175 million tons of nitrogen applied to the world's croplands in a
year, almost 50 percent is from chemical fertilizer. It has raised the "carrying
capacity" of the world's soils from 1.9 people per hectare of farmland to 4.3 -
and 10 in China, where applications reach twice anything seen in Europe.

This is a profound change to the biochemistry of life on Earth - and to our own
bodies. Today, much of the nitrogen in our bodies comes not from biological
sources but from giant chemical factories. We are, in a real sense, as much
chemistry as biology. Vaclav Smil, the distinguished Canadian researcher into
food and the environment at the University of Manitoba, calls the nitrogen fix
"an immense and dangerous experiment."

Besides fertilizer, we are also making biologically available nitrogen by
burning fossil fuels. Power stations emit nitrogen oxides that create acid rain,
the environmental scourge of industrialized countries in the 1980s and 1990s.
Nitrogen oxides in the air are also potent greenhouse gases, adding to global
warming, and even reach the stratosphere, where they join chlorine and bromine
compounds in eating up the protective ozone layer.

"Most of the world's biodiversity hotspots are receiving doses of nitrogen from
the air and in water at levels known to damage many species," according to
Gareth Phoenix of the University of Sheffield in England. Yet the issue has
never been addressed by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.

In temperate lands, this is turning heaths into grasslands, while grasslands
typically lose a quarter of their species richness. Within nitrogen-flooded
ecosystems, aggressive outside species outperform most natives. So nitrogen is
the hidden force behind invasions of alien species around the world.

The prognosis is not good. The scientists who wrote the Nature paper on
planetary boundaries argued that human nitrogen releases to the natural
environment should be cut by three quarters, to around 35 million tons. But on
current trends, global nitrogen use on farmland is set to double to 220 million
tons a year by 2050 - more than six times the safe threshold.

The danger is that nature's ability to process this excess nitrogen and return
it to the atmosphere will be overwhelmed, and we will end up inhabiting a
nitrogen-saturated planet, with nitrogen driving global warming, acidifying air,
eating the ozone layer, reducing biodiversity, and killing the oceans.

The Earth has nine biophysical thresholds beyond which it cannot be pushed
without disastrous consequences, the authors of a paper in the journal Nature
report. Ominously, these scientists say, we have already moved past three of
these tipping points, Carl Zimmer writes.

Nature Report a Reminder of the Limits to Growth

It has been more than 30 years since a groundbreaking book predicted that if
growth continued unchecked, the Earth's ecological systems would be overwhelmed
within a century. Bill McKibben writes that the new Nature study should serve as
an eleventh-hour warning that cannot be ignored.
What can be done? To meet the target cited in the Nature study requires a
transformation of the world's agriculture as profound as the transformation of
energy industries needed to meet targets for cutting greenhouse gases. There is
an urgent need, says Smil, to breed crops that are far more efficient at
absorbing the nitrogen in fields, and for developing farming systems that manage
nitrogen far better.

Luckily the potential is considerable. In China, where nitrogen application to
fields is among the highest in the world, a study by a group of scientists led
by Wilfried Winiwarter and Tatiana Ermolieva of the International Institute for
Applied Systems Analysis found that better on-farm management of nitrogen could
cut emissions to the environment by 25 percent without damaging farm output.

Galloway says the flow of nitrogen through the environment can also be reduced
by decreased emissions from burning fossil fuels - perhaps as a byproduct of
efforts against climate change. And better sewage treatment in cities could
convert nitrates that have passed through the human gut into safe gaseous
nitrogen.

If anything exemplifies humanity's growing impact on the planet's life-support
systems, it is the way we are overwhelming the nitrogen cycle. There are
solutions. But for now we are hooked. As Smil put it: "In just one lifetime,
humanity has developed a profound chemical dependence."

POSTED ON 05 Nov 2009 IN Oceans Pollution & Health North America


COMMENTS

On top of all of the problems created by fertilizer, 5 percent of the world's
natural gas production is being used to make it. We are running out of the easy
gas, and getting it out of shale in the midwest has huge environmental impacts.
When we run out of gas we are back to guano.

Posted by Lloyd Alter on 05 Nov 2009


How would nitrogen dependence be reduced if we stopped eating meat? Certainly
plants that feed livestock are fertilized. I lack the data to run the numbers on
that, but someone at Yale just might be able to.
Posted by Chris O. on 05 Nov 2009

Great piece, Fred. Just wanted to add that denitrification doesn't just produce
inert nitrogen gas but also nitrous oxide, a powerful GHG. So over-fertilization
loads the air with nitrogen as well as the soil/water.

Posted by niall dunne on 05 Nov 2009

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Fred Pearce is a freelance author and journalist based in the UK. He is
environment consultant for New Scientist magazine and author of the recent books
When The Rivers Run Dry and With Speed and Violence. His latest book is
Confessions of an Eco-Sinner: Tracking Down the Sources of My Stuff (Beacon
Press, 2008). In earlier articles for Yale Environment 360 Pearce has written
about the issues of overconsumption and overpopulation, and about the
responsibility of developing nations in any global climate agreement.

***   .










[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Dear Friends,

Just a few more days and a few more spots in the first Permaculture
Design Course happening in the U.S. Virgin Islands at the Virgin
Islands Sustainable Farm Institute, followed by Gaia University Degree
programs in December.

Info below.

-Living Mandala

____________________

Permaculture Design Certificate Course

   Virgin Islands Sustainable Farm Institute

November 9-22, 2009

U.S. Virgin Islands

For More Info & Registration Visit LivingMandala.com




In Association with

Virgin Islands Sustainable Farm Institute & Appleseed Permaculture

Facilitators & Instructors

Ethan Roland, Dyami Regan-Nelson, Ben Jones


Course Description

Learn how to create sustainable, productive, and beautiful human
environments using natural ecosystems as models. Permaculture is an
evolving and expanding design system for ecological living,
integrating plants, animals, buildings, people, and communities.
Through experiential, participatory, field-based, and classroom
learning, participants will explore the relationships between
personal, social, and ecological sustainability in the rich context of
life at the Creque Dam Farm, home of the Virgin Islands Sustainable
Farm Institute in St. Croix, USVI.


Course Components

This two week program focuses on design as an ecological process,
assessing natural systems, and weaving integrated solutions to local
and global problems. Faculty guide students through the design of
projects beginning with interviews of clients, needs assessment,
development of real solutions, and culminate in a formal permaculture
design and presentation.. The design course culminates with
presentation of design work to the class, community, and clients.


Topics Include

Site analysis of vegetation and wildlife, natural building, compost
and soil, water preservation, guilds, zoning, forest gardens, seed
saving, grey water, and tools for planning, mapping, and executing a
sustainable, abundant ecosystem and human culture


Cultural Mentoring

Woven throughout the weeks will be the principles of Cultural
Mentoring. Cultural Mentoring is derived from native teachings from
many lineages including that of Tom Brown and Jon Young, and creates
support for the development of a healthy individual and community.


Site Details



The Virgin Island programs will be hosted by the Sustainable Farm
institute, located in the Virgin Islands, U.S. The Virgin Islands
Sustainable Farm Institute is over one hundred acres of rolling green
hills and valleys nestled in the highlands of the northwest corner of
St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. VISFI promotes the development
of agroecology: an innovative field of agriculture that enjoins
productivity with resource conservation, using ecological and
indiginous management models to create sustainable life systems. We
believe local, organic agriculture and a practical educational
experience are the first steps toward building vital communities and
achieving long term sustainability within a healthy environment. These
beliefs led to the establishment of our Four Pillars: Education,
Sustainability, Community, and Environment. We use these focal points
to guide decisions that will promote our farm’s vision. For more
information om the Sustainable Farm Institute please visit: www.visfi.org


Tuition & Registration

Course tuoition is $1150 U.S. dollars. This includes all board and
camping. Cabana bunks are an extra $15/night. Queen Size cabanas are
an extra $50/night.
For More Info & Registration Visit LivingMandala.com


Upcoming Gaia University Degree Programs at VISFI

Integrative EcoSocial Design / Organizing Learning for EcoSocial
Regeneration / Open Topic

Dec 1 - 13, 2009



For More Info Visit LivingMandala.com

Integrative EcoSocial Design (IESD) BSc, MSc, GD*
For those wanting to integrate ecological and social aspects of design
into projects that focus on ecosystems, societies, communities,
technologies, and personal lifestyles.

Organizing Learning for EcoSocial Regeneration (OLE) MSc, GD
For those interested in applied organizational learning and design.
Some people focus on the development of a GU regional center as their
primary project.

Open Topic (OT) BSc, MSc, GD
For those who are working at a strategic level as world changers and
want to design their own program topic.

*GD  Post Masters Graduate Diploma

Dates

Orientation Workshop: Dec 1-8, 2009
Extension Workshop (IESD & OLE): Dec 9 - 13, 2009
Closing workshop year: Dec, 2010
Closing workshop year 2 & Gradutation: Dec, 2011

Stay in Touch About Future Courses & Updates

Visit us online at www.LivingMandala.com
Subscribe to the Living Mandala Newsletter

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Fescue doesn't create a sod, its a bunch type grass and doesn't produce rhizomes
( underground stems ) so I'm going to assume that you're trying to get a
established turf in the shade as fescues are usually used in shady situations.
Depending on your location and climate, a rule of thumb is to go deeper for dry
climates or a minimum of 4 inches of top soil. 2 inches is sufficient for moist
climates.
Frank Lawrence
Eco-Horticulturist
N. Illinois


--- On Wed, 11/4/09, skokie@... <skokie@...> wrote:


From: skokie@... <skokie@...>
Subject: [Landscape_Pro_Tips] How much soil for new sod
To: Landscape_Pro_Tips@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, November 4, 2009, 7:24 PM


 



Hello
How much soil depth do you have to have for new sod 90/10 fescue/kbg in
order for the sod to survive?

Thanks
Brad

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]











[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I usually till the exsiting soil first, roll with a small sod roller (you can
usually find at a rental store) and add about 1" of organic compost. Then lay
the sod and roll again.

Michael Quagliano

-----Original Message-----
From: skokie@... <skokie@...>
Sent: Wednesday, November 04, 2009 7:24 PM
To: Landscape_Pro_Tips@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Landscape_Pro_Tips] How much soil for new sod


Hello
  How much soil depth do you have to have for new sod 90/10 fescue/kbg in
  order for the sod to survive?

  Thanks
  Brad

  [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hello
How much soil depth do you have to have for new sod 90/10 fescue/kbg in
order for the sod to survive?

Thanks
Brad


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Many weed seeds will and can survive in soil for several years so you did more
harm than good when you stripped out soil and turned it over, by doing that you
only brought more seed to the surface where they were able to get the light in
order to germinate. You don't specific if your flowers are annuals or perennials
so if they're annuals than the other posters idea with cardboard and compost
will indeed reduce the amount of seed germination in the future. If your flowers
are perennials than your best bet is to plant more of them to crowd out the
weeds, try some Florida natives as they will thrive with almost no care and are
great colonizers.
Frank Lawrence
 Eco- Horticulturist
N. Illinois

--- On Mon, 11/2/09, Linda S <linda@...> wrote:


From: Linda S <linda@...>
Subject: [Landscape_Pro_Tips] Weeds Weeds Go Away!
To: Landscape_Pro_Tips@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, November 2, 2009, 7:16 PM


 



Hi there -

I'm new to the group - live in Central Florida (zone 9) and am finally at my
wits end with weeds. All of my flower beds are just overrun by weeds. I have
tried removing the top layer of soil, turning the soil over, putting down a
thick layer of mulch, etc. and nothing seems to work. Short of putting down some
sort of nasty chemicals (would rather not with young children and pets in the
yard) what can I do to get ahead of these weeds? Hoping to get it under control
during the winter months ... before the growing season starts up again!

I just posted on MasterGardening on Facebook also - hoping to get some good tips
there too. Are you aware of any other gardening groups on Facebook? I seem to be
better at keeping up with those than my Yahoo Groups!

Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated!
Linda



















[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sheet Mulching with Cardboard



Use compost or manure below, then add a THICK layer of cardboard
(overlapping every edge 6"), then a nice thick layer of mulch.  This should
reduce weeds and weed seeds significantly but do NOT be shy with the
cardboard.



You can google this also.



earthly sites

earth-wise garden design, build & care

www.earthlysites.com

415.407.9860 (cell)

CA #933506



Keep knocking, and the joy inside will eventually open a window and look to
see who's there.

-  Rumi





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi there -

I'm new to the group - live in Central Florida (zone 9) and am finally at my
wits end with weeds.  All of my flower beds are just overrun by weeds.  I have
tried removing the top layer of soil, turning the soil over, putting down a
thick layer of mulch, etc. and nothing seems to work.  Short of putting down
some sort of nasty chemicals (would rather not with young children and pets in
the yard) what can I do to get ahead of these weeds?  Hoping to get it under
control during the winter months ... before the growing season starts up again!

I just posted on MasterGardening on Facebook also - hoping to get some good tips
there too.  Are you aware of any other gardening groups on Facebook?  I seem to
be better at keeping up with those than my Yahoo Groups!

Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated!
Linda

Hi,

Keukenhof is the world's largest flower garden where approximately 7,000,000
(seven million) flower bulbs are planted annually. It's located in South Holland
in the small town of Lisse, south of Haarlem and southwest of Amsterdam. To
visit this flower paradise virtually, please visit my blog:

http://hortist.blogspot.com/2009/10/keukenhof-worlds-largest-flower-garden.html

Please read it critically and write your comments generously.

Best regards,

Saif Malik