Creating a Healthy Backyard

Creating a Healthy Backyard
Our backyards are our private spaces, but also part of a larger landscape we share with our human and wildlife neighbors. With the right tools and information, we all can do simple things to create a healthier place to live for our families, our communities, and birds, plants, and other wildlife.

Reduce pesticide use
Nearly ¾ of all U.S. households use some type of pesticide, often unnecessarily.

Pesticides are designed to kill, repel, or otherwise control perceived pest organisms – they are intentionally toxic substances. It is critical to realize, furthermore, that the vast majority of pesticides are toxic to organisms beyond the targeted pests. Whenever we use insecticides (for insect control), herbicides (for weed control), fungicides (for fungus control), rodenticides (for rodent control), or other pesticides, we must recognize that we are potentially exposing birds, beneficial organisms, pets, and people to risk. It is estimated that seven million birds die each year because of exposure to lawn pesticides. In a recent study of pesticide exposure among children living in a major U.S. metropolitan area, traces of garden chemicals were found in 99% of the 110 children tested. Remember, because children and pets have smaller body sizes, a tendency to play and roll on the ground, and frequently put in their mouths things that they find, they have a greater risk of exposure to applied pesticides do than adult humans.

Pesticide use is rampant in this country – homeowners apply an estimated 78 million pounds of insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides per year to their homes, lawns, and gardens. And, this does not include applications made by pest control and lawn care professionals. Herbicide use is growing at a particularly rapid rate with homeowners using over 50% more than they did 20 years ago. According to the most recent data reported by the EPA (1999), 74% of a total 103.9 million U.S. households use some type of pesticide – 58 million households using insecticides, 40 million using herbicides.

As a consequence of such widespread use, pesticides have become pervasive in our environment. A U.S. Geological Survey analysis of 20 major river basins and aquifer systems reveals that commonly used lawn and garden pesticides are routinely found in surface and ground water throughout the country. Many can also persist in soil and in our gardens, and can be carried on our feet into our homes.

Beginning in your backyard you can do your part to reduce the amount of toxins that can potentially end up in streams, soil, food chains, and on children’s hands. Before even contemplating pest control – make sure you have a pest problem. Learn your enemies. Equally important, learn your natural allies in pest control and welcome these beneficial organisms such as dragonflies, parasitic wasps, and lacewings into your yard.

In the healthy backyard, less-toxic alternatives are used to deal with common pests and weeds should a problem occur. In many cases, the only “active ingredient” you'll need is some elbow grease; hand-pulling weeds, for instance, can eliminate the use of herbicides and the risks they pose to the broader environment.

Before reaching for the spray, dust, or turf builder, consider the many available alternatives. Encourage your neighbors to do the same since what they spray on their yard can drift to yours. If repeated infestations of your plants have you bugged, consider native plants – they're more resistant to pests and are adapted to withstand attacks.

Conserve water
Nearly 8 billion gallons of water are used daily in the U.S. for outdoor purposes, mostly landscaping. Read more about the role you can take in water conservation.

Water. We all need it. It defines life on Earth. Yet too many of us, for too long, have taken for granted the quantity and quality of our water supply. We Americans are gluttons for water – collectively we use an average of 26 billion gallons each and every day. On a per capita basis, we are the world’s largest consumers of water.

Former EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman has identified the availability of clean water as the biggest environmental challenge we face in the 21st century. Growing numbers of us are recognizing this challenge and the fact that many day-to-day decisions we make influence our water needs – and our potential for wasting water. As landscaping alone accounts for 20–50% of all residential water use (and even more in some parts of the country), through our landscaping decisions we have a great opportunity to conserve water at home.

Our choices of plants, landscape materials and design, and garden practices have an enormous impact on our outdoor water use. Lawns require two-and-a-half to four times more water than shrubs and trees. Indeed, it is estimated that in the course of a single year, a typical suburban lawn uses 10,000 gallons of water over and above that provided by rainfall. Consequently, one effective way to curb water consumption is to limit lawn area to only that amount we truly need for playing, picnicking, and other purposes. Replacing unneeded lawn with native plants which seldom need supplemental watering once established and using drought-tolerant grass varieties where turf is desired are water-wise decisions. What mulches we use and how we mow and irrigate also determine our landscape’s water requirements.

It is important to realize that water conservation entails not only reducing our landscape’s need for water, but also minimizing the amount of precipitation that runs off our land instead of seeping down to recharge groundwater supplies. Depending on design, plant choice, soil health, and the type of walkways, patios, and other hardscapes that are installed, landscapes vary dramatically in the amount of runoff they generate. Not surprisingly, a city block generates about nine times more runoff than a wooded area of the same size, but are you aware that a typical suburban lot generates about three times more runoff?

Protect water quality
Stormwater runoff is a leading cause of pollution of our nation’s waterways and water bodies. Did you know 1 quart of oil dumped down a storm drain can cause an oil slick 2 acres in size?

The nation’s waterways are in trouble. According to the EPA, approximately 40 percent of recently surveyed rivers, lakes, and estuaries have water quality problems. Runoff from water flowing over the land and picking up contaminants, known as non-point source pollution, is a leading cause of water quality degradation - tainting drinking water supplies, swimming holes, fisheries, and the health of native habitat and wildlife.

Agriculture, forestry, grazing, urban runoff, and construction, are all contributors to water pollution — and so potentially is your yard. The pollutants that find their way into streams after a rainfall, or after you wash your car or water the grass, include excess fertilizers, herbicides, and insecticides from lawns and gardens. In addition, sediment from eroded banks and slopes, salt, engine oil, spilled gasoline from driveways and other impervious surfaces, leakage from septic systems, pet waste, and any other substance that falls in our yard can contaminate local rivers, streams, lakes, estuaries, and coastal waters.

Each individual household may not produce enough pollution to force a beach closing or cause a fish kill, but the combined output of all the homes in a community can be severe. And, consider that about half of the U.S. population lives within 50 miles of a coastline where runoff flows quickly to the ocean. This is why watershed protection — attention not only to the body of water but the area that drains into it — is important.

Learn which watershed you live in, and begin doing your part to prevent runoff pollution.

Remove exotic plant pests
Purple loosestrife, English ivy, kudzu, Japanese honeysuckle... Did you know that these and other familiar plants pose a growing threat to native wildlife?

Unless you have been diligent and actively managing your property, you probably have invasive plant species in your yard, a Tree of Heaven, perhaps, or Japanese honeysuckle, or a patch of garlic mustard. In fact, you probably see them in most open spaces as well — the multiflora rose growing along the road, the acres of purple loosestrife at the nearby wetland, the field of leafy spurge at the local preserve. An area twice the size of Delaware is lost to invasive plants each year in the United States.

Invasive plants are typically defined as non-native species that compete vigorously with other species for space and resources, and consequently spread rapidly and take over habitat. Non-natives are also known as “non-indigenous,” “introduced,” “exotic,” or “alien,” and are species that are not naturally occurring in a particular ecosystem. An estimated 5000 introduced plant species now in exist in natural ecosystems in the United States, compared with a total of about 17,000 plant species. It is important to note that not all non-native plants are invasive species. Indeed several non-invasive non-natives are important food crops (corn, wheat, rice) or garden favorites (peonies, roses). Of the non-native wild plants in the country, at least 900 have become invasive.

Invasives are a growing problem. Approximately 42 percent of the plants and animals federally listed as endangered or threatened species are considered at risk primarily because of invasive plant, animal, or microbial species. The increase of non-native plants has recently been linked to the decline of songbirds; robin and thrush nests located in non-native shrubs and trees appear to suffer higher predation rates than those situated in native species. The researchers suggest that characteristics of the native plants in question, such as the presence of thorns or less branch strength, better deter predators.

Invasives cause economic as well as ecological impacts. Invasive species of all types, not just plants, are estimated to cost $137 billion annually in losses to agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and the maintenance of open waterways in the United States. Leafy spurge, which has taken over 5 million acres of the Great Plains, displacing native grasses in prime pastureland, has cost ranchers in the Dakotas, Montana, and Wyoming more than $144 million a year in losses — cattle will not eat it.

Some of the invasives came to the United States unintentionally. Others were brought in for a purpose, such as for ornamental reasons, and then seriously got out of hand. Despite the growing understanding of the detriment to native ecosystems, some invasives are still being propagated and planted, such as purple loosestrife, which continues to be widely sold in nurseries in several states. More than half of North America's invasive plants arrived here as garden or horticultural introductions.

The federal government has recognized the problem and is working toward finding solutions. In 1999, President Bill Clinton established the National Invasive Species Council “to prevent the introduction of invasive species, provide for their control, and to minimize the economic, ecological, and human health impacts that invasive species cause.” The council has since developed a national invasive species management plan.

Plant native species
Your local nursery or garden store carries a large variety of attractive plants that boast an array of desirable qualities: vibrant colors, bright green leaves, interesting shapes and textures, hardiness, evergreen growth, spectacular blooms. Most nursery plants, however, are exotic cultivars - plants that have been cultivated from species that grow naturally in other parts of the world to provide ornamental value to landscapes in North America.

What might not be immediately evident are the demands of exotic plants: high maintenance (pruning, shearing, etc), the potential to become invasive, greater dependence on water, and little or no wildlife value — the food, shelter, and nesting sites provided by plants that have co-evolved with native wildlife. Native birds and wildlife have evolved to use, and often require, the resources offered by plants native to the same region.

But what exactly is a native plant? There are varying definitions. Because early settlers in North America brought with them a variety of native European plants, some consider the plants that were growing prior to the arrival of Europeans to be native. A broader definition that is widely accepted is that offered by the Federal Native Plant Committee: “a native plant species is one that occurs naturally in a particular region, state, ecosystem, and habitat without direct or indirect human actions.”

Land that is cleared for buildings or roads displaces countless organisms. Developments become further isolated from natural land by virtue of being landscaped with “reliable” cultivars, which do nothing to contribute to or restore environmental health. Using native plants closes the circle, helps restore a previously fragmented ecosystem, and offers a welcome place for birds and wildlife.

Today, people everywhere are discovering the benefits of “going native,” and native plant sources are becoming more numerous. Natives, after all, offer many of the benefits of exotic cultivars without the exhaustive requirements. By establishing native plants in your yard, you will decrease water dependence, reduce the need for fertilizer and pest control, and create a renewed sense of place for birds, other wildlife, and you.

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