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Gardening as a Subversive Activity - Part One
First, rip out your lawn. That?s the first rule to GreenScaping. If you can?t buy into that, don?t bother reading any further. A nice green lawn has an insatiable appetite for water and fertilizer. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection estimates that nearly 50% of all water used by the public goes to watering their lawns?an estimated 900 million gallons a day! That?s crazy! For what? So you can look out over a nice green lawn? Forgedabouit! Really. You must start thinking in terms of the bigger picture. Rip that lawn out now and replace it with plants that were there before developers bulldozed them into oblivion. Or tried to. Although it is still difficult to find native species available at local nurseries, it is not impossible. Start with the Yellow Pages. If you come up short, hit the Internet. You?ll be surprised how many nurseries specialize in native plants for your region of the world. And, although many organizations frown on this, if you can?t find them through nurseries, look for them just outside of your development or just outside of town, on roadways carved through wilderness. Walk deeply into that forest so what you take isn?t missed by the prying eye of man. It may require digging them up but that?s called exercise and it?s good for you too so take along a shovel and something to carry back your piece of saved wilderness. Make it a family outing. If you Google your state?s agricultural departments to find the best environment-friendly native plants, you can make a game out of who can identify the most varieties. You?ll discover most of them need little or no watering, fertilizing, or insecticides because they reside in harmony with nature. Once you?ve replaced your chemical dependent lawn with a ?free-range garden? you?ll notice your quality of life has gotten better. Why? You?re spending more time relaxing with the ones you love instead of fretting about finding the time and money for mowing, weeding, and watering. Your goal should be to watch your garden?not water it. And let?s not forget the things with a heartbeat. Butterflies, bugs, critters, and more will come back to entertain you and to remind you of your interconnectedness with them and this one and only beautiful but hard scrabble world. Finally, besides saving money and finding more free time to relax, your self-esteem will rise because you?ll know you?re doing something positive for the environment. This kind of thinking will make you healthier. In fact, you may even discover a spiritual connection with the earth you didn?t have before. Slowing down and smelling the wild flowers in your harmonious garden has that kind of effect. Who knows, with enough people ripping out their feed-me-work-me-lawns and replacing them with harmonious gardens, maybe it could save the world-- one neighborhood at a time.
This article courtesy of http://www.garden-talk.com.
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