Benefits of lawn aka fake turf

http://www.greenlivingonline.com/article/why-lawn-care-green

This is quite a good article on why lawn is actually very good for the earth.
I think lawn deserves to get better press.

The Sustainable Gardening Australia also has a good page entitled
Turf Wars which is hugely informative.

The landscape mimicks the land

Blue-green algae in Gippsland lakes and elsewhere are making havoc for local fishing, wild-life, and of course tourism.  Blue-green algae is caused by excess nutrients entering the waterways, due to sewerage run-off and over fertilisation. Our lands grow barren as we turn over crops without practicing traditional crop rotation, companion planting or other permaculture principles. Meanwhile birds and other pollinators head off to greener pastures.  Hence pests become a problem and the bad cycle continues with pesticide use on the rise and land and habitat degradation compounding as a result. The land needs a bit of a rest. 

Similar things are happening at the local urban level, in our back-yards as we are turning them in to mono-cultures resulting from more streamlined gardens, which means the pollinators don't have much to attract them.  Again off the birds and bees go to greener pastures. Urban run-off leaves little water left in the ground, with the water-table needing replenishing after years of drought.  Run-off to creeks, and oceans is on the increase as we continue to build up our back-yards. Fertilisers high with nutrients (phosphorus, nitrogent) leach in to the ground and flow off in to creeks which lead to the sea, again causing blue-green algae blooms, and making eco-systems sick.  I wonder if it is a coincidence that  our Melbourne metropolitan beaches are being rated as 'fair' .

Remember, that our back-yards, though seemingly just our private domain are also an extension of the wider land and our waterways, and we should be much more careful as to how we use them.

Social marketing and ever-greening

As with any campaign position, there is the reverse psychology element, whereby if you tell people to do X, build a permeable garden or a smaller Outdoor room, that they will wish to do the opposite.   We need to look at the spin-offs of what we are promoting.  Designers of outdoor rooms may have started with good intentions, but found that by generating a market for outdoor rooms, they are generating a demand for cheap, unsustainable resources.    

As campaigners, we  need to be aware of the audience we are addressing.  Also be mindful that expressing an opinion against the opponent may come back to bite you.   I know that by writing this blog, I have learned to tone down the things I say, as I don't really want to get up any one's nose, so to speak.  (Some of my earlier blogs were a tad more cynical than necessary.)  Decide whether taking a more neutral or even-tempered approach you bring out more empathy from your audience, rather than getting too carried away, and scaring your audience away. 

For my other website, converseconserve.com I am reading a very comprehensive behaviour change article by the Australian Public Service Commission which is very enlightening.  Telephone calls = not effective.  Face to face communication = very effective. That's why sustainable landscapers need to be ever-present at community markets and festivals,   produce swaps, public forums, school fetes and kitchen gardens, shopping centre sausage sizzles, and mingling with all aspects of society where possible.  

All seasons greetings in a christmas day

5000 calls for emergency assistance later

Well, I got my wish for a white christmas (see last blog), but perhaps I should have wished for something else.   I was thinking how nice it would be to be in the northern hemisphere having a white Christmas.  The first photo shows we did have a white landscape in part, thanks to some severe winds 30 celcius plus hailstones.  Now, I don't get how these hailstones didn't melt when they hit the ground. Shows the lightening force with which they sprang from the sky.   And the next photo is a section of my front garden, showing what an eerie light these Christmas storms brought with them. Ten kms north, there was a twister heading their way.  Speaking of which the Northern Territory is being lashed by floods and Cyclone Grant. This is the season not only to be merry but to have your wits about you for cyclones, fires, rips at the beach, sharks, jelly-fish, snakes, poisonous spiders ... The Gold Coast has been closed due to high waves.  In Australia, we really do get the whole kitten kaboodle, for seasonal malaises. My next research project will be to see how the latest fad - outdoor rooms bear up with hail stones, heavy torrents, winds and other extreme events. 

This photo doesn't do justice to the eerie light brought on by
the storm in between 3 hailstone onslaughts. 

Dreaming of a non-arid christmas

It's late December, and low to mid 30s celcius time. The other day, 49 degrees celcius was reached, although I forgot which region.  

This is what Christmas in Australia is all about. Pretend snow, Agapanthus, white xmas trees and lights a flashing, too much food at lunches on days we refer to as 'stinkers' or 'scorchers'.

Christmas in Australia certainly beats being in the Maldives, the Phillipines, Africa,  Christchurch, NZ (repeat earthquakes!), Northern Japan, and most of the rest of the world, at the moment.

Also, the caterpillar which crawled out of the the corn which I placed under the Christmas tree is living proof that organic farming is critter friendly! See photos of caterpillar wishing everyone a merry Christmas.

Our cockatiels were enjoying a good soaking with the spray bottle.

Land-clearing national issue

Two of our more serious environmental issues affecting land-management in Australia, are land-clearing and weeds (both listed ie declared and environmental - not yet declared).   Some might even go so far as to say that Outdoor Rooms are a type of land-clearing, on the domestic scale. Perhaps this is a tad extreme, and we greenies have to avoid being too extreme.

But on the technical level, we can be mindful of what potentially gets cleared or disturbed when you build an outdoor room:

1. Top-soil -  see post of 31st October
2. Trees and plants
3. Biodiversity 
4. Potential for a carbon sink - see post of 7th September
5. Potential for cleaning of ground-water and storm-water - see post of 16th September
6. Rain-forests if imported illegal timber is used - see post of 8th October. 

Also, building outdoors can sit oddly with ol'fashioned gardening principles for biodiversity and 'martha gardner' (pardon the pun) type remedies.  I can't see antidotes against pests, snail and slugs such as crushed up eggshells, beer traps, coffee grains, twigs for small reptiles being used around the  built up garden.  But maybe, I stand to be corrected.

Outdoor rooms are definitely all about being tidy, and minimalist to match the latest stream-lined architectural style.