How Dry It Is

Sustainable Landscaping For Calgary’s Arid Climate

By Jackie Swartz

Have you ever struggled with how to get your garden design ideas implemented in your yard in an environmentally friendly way? Getting a landscape design plan is an essential first step for homeowners. Choosing an environmentally conscious professional landscape designer with horticulture certification will not only save you wasted money at the garden center; it allows you to have a working set of blueprints to implement your projects all at once or you may choose to implement your projects into stages. Your final blueprints should display a sustainable landscaping design that conserves resources. Also, your final blueprints should be completed to scale and should include the hardscape, softscape, and planting plan. The hardscape includes walkways, decks, patios, retaining walls etc. while the softscape includes trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals, groundcovers, vines, and limited lawn areas. The benefit to choosing a landscape designer who has horticulture certification will know the plants that work in your yard. The common and botanical names of the plants will be placed on your design plan.

A sustainable landscape designer will begin by analyzing your whole site for sunny and shady areas, slope, erosion, wind direction, and available water. Consideration will be given to how the yard is used and will be designed to be functional, maintainable, cost effective, visually pleasing and environmentally sound. It is important that the designer understands how to make the design functional for the homeowner. For example: maybe a quiet seating area is needed, a place for a vegetable and herb garden, or an entertainment area for guests. An inventory list will be made from existing materials in the yard and will be reused and recycled into the landscape design plan. Also, a wish list is made and many or all of the homeowner’s wishes are incorporated on the landscape design plan according to the homeowner’s budget.

Next, soil quality and maintaining soil quality is considered. Soil is a fundamental natural resource. Maintaining healthy soil is critical to having healthy plants and beautiful looking landscapes. Soil evaluation usually includes soil testing, analyzing slope and erosion, drainage and potential leaching. There are so many factors that affect soil quality; however, a sustainable landscape designer will suggest soil amendments to be added to help maintain the organic levels in the soil. Typically, the soil in Calgary is low in organic matter and high in inorganic matter. A composting area is usually incorporated into the design plan to allow the homeowner to recycle their green waste that is collected from their property. The well decomposed, relatively stable, and nutrient-rich humus that is achieved from composting is a great soil amendment for the garden.

Plant selection is really important in a sustainable landscape design. The plants selected for the design plan will be low maintenance and be low water using plants. The landscape designer will use groupings of plants according to their water, sun, shade, and soil requirements. Lawn areas will be kept to a minimum since they are high users of water, fertilizers, and herbicides. Disease and pest resistant plant varieties are usually selected so fewer chemicals are required. Your landscape designer/horticulturist will recommend organic and cultural methods of pest and disease controls if problems were to develop. For example: Ladybugs (Hippodamia convergens) can eat over 5,000 Aphids and other soft-bodied pests during their one-year lifetime. Ladybugs are one of the few beneficial insects found in an environmentally friendly landscape. Also, low maintenance plants will be selected so they require less pruning which decreases waste removal. Trees that are selected will be placed on the landscape design plan, near the homeowner’s residence, to help with indoor temperature control and heating costs.

One of the most important issues in the world today is water conservation. It’s kind of scary to think that, in Canada, the residential sector uses more than half of the municipal water. Residential uses 52%, commercial uses 19%, industrial uses 16%, and leakage is 13% according to http://www.ec.gc.ca/water/images/manage/effic/a6f2e.htm.

A few more facts are:

On the Prairies, irrigation is the largest consumer of water
Many homes lose more water from leaky taps than they need for cooking and cleaning
During the summer, about half of all treated water is sprayed onto lawns and gardens
A single lawn sprinkler spraying 19 litres per minute uses 50% more water in just one hour than a combination of ten toilet flushes, two 5-minute showers, two dishwasher loads, and a full load of clothes. http://www.ec.gc.ca/water/en/e_quickfacts.htm.

These are some of the reasons that water conservation is becoming an important part of the sustainable landscape design planning.

Water conservation is becoming an important part of Calgary’s overall management program. Calgary’s limited water resources and increasing urbanization, periodic drought, and Chinook zone are placing greater demands on water supplies. For these reasons, nursery growers, landscapers, and homeowners should be conscious of water use and should strive to minimize waste and consumption of water. One of the best means of conserving water is to design or modify the landscape to reduce its water requirements using sustainable landscaping methods and practices.

In Calgary the traditional residential and commercial landscape consists of large areas of lawn, trees and shrubs. The traditional landscape is typical of the cool regions of western Canada. Traditional landscapes in Calgary require large amounts of water and maintenance.

In response to drought and limited water resources in Calgary a number of new landscaping ideas have evolved to reduce water and maintenance requirements while still providing aesthetically-pleasing landscapes. Landscaping concepts that reduce water requirements and can be considered sustainable are called xeriscaping. Xeriscaping was originally conceived in the southwestern U.S., although it was inspired by the gardening traditions of Spain, North Africa, and the MidEast and by the natural landscapes of the Southwest.

Another component of water-conserving landscapes is the concept of natural landscaping. Natural landscaping is much like sustainable landscaping in that it involves indigenous, low water use and drought tolerant plant material that is based on climate and environment of the area as well as site characteristics of exposure, sun/shade, soil quality, slope, and site drainage and irrigation water quality.

Whether your landscape is new or old, a thorough investigation completed by your landscape designer/horticulturist of your property can reveal ways of implementing water-saving practices for sustainable landscaping. Simple site-specific information that helps the landscape designer in planning for a more water-conserving landscape might include the following: climate and seasonal changes in sun angles, summer and winter wind patterns through the property, drifting snow patterns, microclimates, monthly rainfall amounts, flat and low wet areas, plant material type, location, and condition, and site drainage.

Your sustainable landscape designer will implement water-conserving design features into your plan. They may include the following elements:

Locating deciduous (trees that lose their leaves) trees to provide shade to planting beds and outdoor seating areas.
Placing fences or shrubs to provide privacy, shade, spatial definition, winter wind protection, or to funnel summer breezes towards patios, decks or porches.
Locating service-oriented features (dog run, trash containers, compost pile, etc.) in areas that are easily accessible, least desirable for planting beds and out of sight from windows and outdoor seating areas.
Limiting the amount of lawn area and using drought-tolerant seed mixes (turf is the biggest water use in the landscape). As an alternative to turf, use mulch and drought-tolerant groundcovers.
Using surfacing materials for patios and walks that allow water penetration into the ground and that reduce sun glare and heat build up. Examples are wood decks; brick or stone on a sand base for patios; and wood chips, pea gravel, or stepping stones on a sand base for paths and walks.
Grouping plants with similar cultural requirements (sun, moisture, soil, etc.)
Using native drought-tolerant or drought-resistant species of plants.
Grouping together and limiting the use of water-loving plants. Place these plants in shaded, moisture-conserving areas or where they will have high visual impact. For color in the landscape, use flowering trees, shrubs and perennials and groundcovers and plants with variegated foliage as an alternative to annuals that require more acre and water.
Matching the plant’s water requirements with the soil moisture-holding capacity; for example, drought-tolerant plants under eaves where soil is always dry.
Mulching planting beds to conserve soil moisture, control competitive weeds and improve soil conditions as the mulch decomposes.

Your landscape designer will be implementing at least some of these ideas into your sustainable landscape design plan; by doing this your designer will be practicing water conservation while providing beautiful and functional landscaping. This will set a good example for your friends and neighbors. With the real threat of a shortage of useable water, it is time that we all create more appropriate, pleasing and water-conserving landscapes for our homes and businesses.

Last of all, your landscape designer should leave you with information about maintaining your new sustainable landscape. Careful planning helps, but all landscapes require some maintenance. Prune carefully, recycle clippings, and mow lawns higher (compost grass clippings), water wisely - adjusting according to weather patterns. Consider using slow release fertilizers (use organic if possible) which reduces the possibility of runoff.

In summary, there are many factors affecting sustainable landscape design planning, but the most critical factor is maintaining the landscape once your projects have been completed in your yard. It is a good idea to hire an environmentally conscious professional landscape designer with horticulture certification to do periodic environmental site inspections.

Jackie Swartz has a Bachelor of Applied Horticulture Technology Degree (BaHT) from Olds College and owns and operates Woodpecker Landscape Design Co. in Calgary, AB and a branch-office in Phoenix, AZ. She specializes in the horticultural planning, design, and ongoing life of urban and residential environments." you can contact Jackie at jackie@woodpeckerlandscapedesign.com