Agenda - Parks and Recreation Commission - 09/10/2020

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Benefits of Naturescaping with Native Plants There are many benefits to naturescaping, whether practiced in place of or in addition to traditional landscaping. The benefits include, but are not limited to, the following: • Ease of Use - Native plants evolved to grow in local conditions and to predictable sizes. They do not require watering (except during establishment), chemical pesticides and fertilizers, or frequent cutting. • Public Health (lowers cancer rates)- Traditional landscaping uses large amounts of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, some of which are suspected carcinogens. During rains, these chemicals often run off into public water supplies. • Air Pollution- Landmowers, weedeaters and blowers use large quantities of fossil fuels, creating greenhouse gas and other pollutants. Lawnmowing may cause up to 5% of total air pollution, and an Exxon Valdez of oil is spilled by lawnmowers each year in the U.S. Traditional landscaping also contributes to noise pollution. • Saves you Money -The cost of maintaining a naturescape is dramatically less than that of a traditional landscape because a naturescape essentially takes care of itself. Naturescapes also save you time - and how valuable is your time? • Water Use- In the West, 60% of consumed water goes to lawns; in the East, 30%. This water diversion harms the environment, kills fish, and returns polluted water to our streams and rivers. It also costs you - on irrigation system installation and maintenance, and on your water bill. • Song Birds -Our song bird populations having dropped steadily - 5-10% per year, depending on the species - for the last several decades, and there is no end in sight. The loss is primarily due to habitat loss. Adopting naturescaping is critical if song birds are to find food and shelter. • Enhanced Livability -An ecologically functional landscape offers so much more than a sterile, static landscape. It stimulates our children with color, sound and wonder. It is cleaner, quieter and healthier, and may increase property values. Traditional landscaping attempts to create a landscape that "looks" the same regardless of location. This is, in part, pushed by nurseries that sell the same plant across wide markets, maximizing revenue through efficiencies of scale. (Nurseries aggressively market this limited number of plants through garden magazines, local newspapers, and radio and television programs, etc.) It is also driven by landscape designers who tend to use the same plants regardless of where the site is (less burdensome than learning new plants). Lastly, it is driven by homeowners and property managers who grew up learning one set of plants and understandably use those plants as a frame of reference as they move about the country. These and other forces have created an atmosphere that emphasizes using the same plants regardless of location and changing a site to accommodate these plants. Site changing often entails installing irrigation, bringing in new soil or soil amendments, regularly applying chemical products (pesticides, fertilizer, etc.), and frequently cutting, pruning and weeding. This is traditional landscaping. Resulting monocultures may cause extinction of many species. This page is adapted from a U.S. EPA publication. The Native Plant Society of Texas- Houston Chapter www.npsot.org