Sustainable Landscape Design
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​A resilient landscape is fire-wise, water wise and promotes biodiversity by using California native plants. These gardens use sustainable practices, plant selection, and maintenance to reduce the risk of fire in the defensible space zone.
Resilient gardens save water, protect us from fire and promote biodiversity.
Sustainability: sus·tain·a·bil·i·ty
/səˌstānəˈbilədē/​
Learn to pronounce
noun
  1. the ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level.
    "the sustainability of economic growth"
    • avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance.
      "the pursuit of global environmental sustainability"
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Sustainable Landscape Practices will keep plants healthy and so less prone to ignition. At the same time, sustainable practices can lower maintenance needs, and encourage native wildlife to enter the garden to pollinate and provide other ecosystem services:
  • Keep plants well pruned and hydrated to reduce risk of combustibility.
  • Keep soil in place, and promote and support soil microorganisms, using compost and mulch.
  • Conserve water: Use drought tolerant (where possible, native) plants; where irrigation is needed, adjust seasonally; slow, spread, and sink water into the soil; mulch.
  • Minimize pesticides: use non-toxic pest control methods, using chemical pesticides only as a last resort
  • Support biodiversity: a more biodiverse landscape is more resilient, as bird species such as hummingbirds, swallows or bluebirds, for instance, provide services like pollination, and pest control.
  • Sequester carbon: Plants and soil absorb and store vast quantities of CO2, and soils alone are the most effective carbon sink. In fact, soils with a healthy microbiome can store more CO2 than the atmosphere and plants combined.
More information about sustainable landscape practices may be found here.
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