Rethinking lawns and gravel

In traditional gardening, the value of a particular plant is judged by the level of care it demands. The more difficult it is to grow, the more valuable it is in the landscape. Such garishness is clearly seen in the stereotypical landscape of suburbia, a grass lawn ill-adapted to its surroundings bordered by butchered European shrubs. Such a landscape requires immense amounts of labor, fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides to look its best and offers very little ecological value in return. Well manicured lawns offer no habitat for the birds, insects, and other wildlife native to the area and can become boring monocultures. In contrast, a landscape influenced by the plants and patterns native to the area requires less maintenance, uses fewer resources, is beneficial to the wildlife in the area, and can remain at least as aesthetically pleasing as a lawn.

In my hometown of El Paso, Texas, the model of the typical American landscape is largely maintained, but the lawn is often replaced with gravel mulch laid over black plastic. While less demanding in terms of labor, water, and fertilizers, this gravel mulch is even less beneficial than the lawn it replaces. For all their faults, lawns cool a landscape both physically and visually, capture and filter storm water, and filter the air. A gravel mulch offers none of these benefits; its value is almost entirely based in establishing the visual uniformity that for whatever reason has been deemed aesthetically pleasing.

Last week I began the process of converting the gravel mulch in my front yard to a landscape more pleasing and useful to both people and wildlife with the planting of several native shrubs. Future posts in this blog will discuss the overall garden plan, give profiles of the individual plants I selected, and give a preliminary review of the mail-order source from which the plants were obtained.