GardenDesignOnline: Home Gardens Going Green

Just think ... how nice it would be to have an entire suburban street with landscapes like this one ... entire streets without lawns! It's just one of the new ideas that could become a reality ... thanks to the Sustainable Sites Initiative (SSI), a collaborative effort to persuade homeowners, builders, designers and others to install landscapes that actually improve the environment.

SSI released its first rating system for sustainable landscapes, a four-star system for all kinds of landscapes, from single family homes to public parks, transportation corridors and corporate or university campuses. At a Washington DC news conference, Holly Shimizu, Executive Director of the US Botanic Garden, said sustainable gardens can "provide cleaner air and water, use less energy, and combat global warming."

Three years ago, the US Botanic Garden joined the American Society of Landscape Architects and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, TX, in an effort to develop landscape guidelines to conserve resources, regenerate damaged ecosystems, and promote designs that protect the surrounding environment.

ASLA CEO Nancy Somerville said the new rating system will be "an important building block for healthy communities." She explained that sustainable landscapes "sequester carbon... increase energy efficiency, restore habitats, and ultimately give back through economic, social, and environmental benefits."

Somerville announced that the Sustainable Sites Initiative is accepting applications through February 10, 2010, for pilot projects that will test the new rating system over the next two years. Any kind of designed landscape of 2000 square feet or more is eligible to become part of the pilot project. More information about that process is available here.

The Initiative is also planning to release a handbook for homeowners with easy-to-follow recommendations on how to make all front and back yards, of whatever size, more sustainable. The handbook will be available, free of charge.

(photos: Sustainable Sites Initiative)