Get grounded with holistic gardening

If the word “garden” conjures up images of organised flower beds, manicured lawns or ordered rows of vegetables, you may initially find a holistically run garden haphazard and disorganised. However, if you look beneath the surface of the teeming green mass present in any natural garden you’ll find it’s this apparently random style that helps create sustainability, diversity and animal habitats.

Your home garden is a mini eco-system unto its own; one that interacts with and is affected by the local gardens and natural settings around it. What you do in your own backyard has the potential to support sustainability or negatively impact on local plants, soil and creatures.

A holistic approach

Gardening holistically implies taking an all-encompassing approach. In the Garden, this shows you’re willing to consider how your desire for fresh flowers or home-grown fruit and vegetables may impact on the environment. It assumes you’re ready to consider that the natural features of your outdoor space are more suited to certain plants, herbs or shrubs than others.

Holistic gardening is less about imposing your will on your green space and more about working with what’s there for mutual benefit. While that may sound alternative, many sustainable gardeners refer to natural space as having its own energy and thus being responsive to the elements and influences around it. As a holistic gardener, your role is more like that of a caretaker.

Holistic gardening invites you to look at your green space through fresh eyes, noticing how the sun’s light and heat, local winds and water flow affect it. Consider the path of the sun across your garden or lawn, observing which areas gain direct or indirect sunlight. Watch how reflective sources shift light through the garden. Become aware of how stones or solid trees hold onto heat after the sun sets.

Notice what, if any, water sources feed your garden. Do you rely on the garden hose or are there streams or ponds whose run-off could irrigate your green space? Can you set up a greywater system to maximise laundry or shower run-off or do you have room to install a rainwater tank? Observe the wind or breezes typical of your area. Can you include pest-deterrent plants in certain spots so their scent is carried through the garden? Do you need to create a natural hedge or shrub to protect delicate plants or creatures from strong winds?

Taking the time to observe the elements in action in your garden arms you with necessary information for making sustainable and locally appropriate choices around plants and landscaping.

Gardening styles

There are unique styles committed gardeners often choose for their green spaces. Here is an overview of the main points of organic, biodynamic and permaculture gardening. Your garden may include some or all of these elements.

Organic
The organic approach focuses on managing your garden without any chemical or pesticide use. When you buy organic food, that’s how it has been grown. At home, you may opt for organic in some areas and almost organic in others, depending on your time and energy commitment to the garden. Organic gardeners understand that adding chemicals to the garden has a systemic, potentially long-term effect. Their choice to avoid pesticides in the garden helps reduce chemical contamination of soil and water supply.

Within Australia, pesticide regulation is managed nationally, through the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority. State governments set terms relating to code-of-practice and compliance issues regarding the correct use of regulated pesticides.

Biodynamic
First developed by Rudolf Steiner in 1924, this approach to gardening respects the energy within the garden space itself, honouring the interconnectedness of all things. Biodynamic gardening includes features such as composting, worm farming, manual weeding and mulching, but its defining feature is its use of astronomical/astrological influences, most commonly through using phases and signs of the moon to guide planting, weeding and watering routines.

Permaculture/polyculture
The key focus of permaculture is to consciously recreate natural ecosystems domestically. It involves gardening in such a way as to replenish rather than deplete your garden’s ecosystem. Pioneered by Bill Mollison (a Tasmanian) in the 1970s, permaculture approaches seek to manifest the “reduce, reuse, recycle” mantra naturally.

Companion planting and crop rotation are permaculture trends that emerged in opposition to large-scale monoculture farms (which deplete soil quality and reduce diversity through repetitive planting). Permaculture gardening also aims to rehabilitate the land. Read more about permaculture in Australia at permaculture.org.au.

Five steps for your garden

To help you begin creating your own holistic garden, sustainable gardener Linda Reid suggests these five steps:

1. Work to the rhythms of the moon. Treat the earth as a living entity that “breathes” to the rhythms of the moon.

2. Try to grow only as much produce as you need to feed your family and gladly give away any excess. Avoid waste.

3. Compost, compost, compost. This is nature’s way.

4. Have special plantings in parts of the garden to encourage predatory insects.

5. If it needs to be thrown away it is not sustainable. Recycle.

You can find out more about how to use the Moon’s cycle in your garden via Linda’s detailed and easy-to-use free blog: cosmicgardening.blogspot.com.

Growing food

One of the simplest ways to garden with your health in mind is to turn part of your garden or green space into a vegetable, fruit or herb garden. Depending on space, you can grow tomatoes or lettuce in pots on a balcony, or plant two or more fruit trees. Many fruits and vegetables taste best and offer maximum nutrition when eaten shortly after being picked.

Wattle and peas are key in any vegie patch as they release necessary nitrogen into the soil to help with vegetable growth. The yates.com.au website offers a handy list of what to grow and when, providing a guide based on temperature that can be easily adapted to your local climate. yates.com.au/garden-guide/videos/growing-vegetables

Variety and diversity

If you’ve ever taken a walk through the bush or had the pleasure of visiting a thriving vegetable farm, you’d have noticed the abundant variety of plants, from underfoot to well above your head. Home gardens often fail on the holistic side by focusing heavily on a small number of plants at just one or two heights.

Commonly, an Australian yard has a lawn and perhaps a couple of trees or shrubs, making diversifying your first step to improving its sustainability. Shrubs, hedges and native grasses build visual and natural interest at different heights. They also provide shade and contribute to improved water retention.

If you have a full sun area, think hardy fruit trees or herb and vegetable patches. Don’t forget to mulch to help prevent moisture evaporation. Vines such as passionfruit or kiwi cover a trellis or barren wall beautifully as well as providing nourishment for you and local birds and shelter for ground critters such as lizards.

Lawns and water use

Your prized green, weed-free lawn may be the most high-maintenance, environmentally impactful part of your garden, especially if, like many Australians, you use pesticides or other chemicals to keep your lawn in top condition. Most of the lush, naturally run gardens I’ve encountered have no lawn; instead, growing space is maximised by converting lawn areas into multi-level landscapes through a combination of rockery, water features, shrubs, native grasses and trees.

Your lawn is also one the thirster features in your garden, especially if it uses exotic or traditional grasses rather than hardier native alternatives. Maintaining a lush lawn is easier in climates naturally wetter than Australia’s, which, according to the Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management, is the world’s driest inhabited continent. This highlights how important it is to reduce water use in the garden.

Native grass lawns can initially cost more but are lower-maintenance long-term. Wallaby grass is a popular native alternative to imported options such as blue or rye grass. A lawn’s high water needs and potential reliance on chemical weed management mean reducing its size; or removing it altogether can help you create greater sustainability within your green space.

If you prefer green over stones or paving in your outdoor area, consider a hardy groundcover that tolerates drier conditions better than traditional lawn grasses. Alternatively, you can opt to mulch large areas, interspersing the mulch with native grasses, flowers such as the hardy wallflower or shrubs. Reclaimed stepping stones or slices of wood can be added to create or maintain walkways.

Outdoor areas

Converting or reducing the size of your lawn also means less maintenance (including mowing) for time-poor gardeners. While historically lawns may have been converted to outdoor areas through laying concrete slabs, environmentally friendly options today include semi-permeable pavers, stones, sturdy groundcover plants or gravel. Concrete slabs (such as driveways or outdoor areas) are the most damaging, preventing water absorption, radiating heat and contributing to erosion via encouraging heavy run-off into drains.

Semi-permeable pavers, pebble pathways or larger-sized mulched areas are friendlier to your garden ecosystem as these products allow water (from rain or hosing) to re-enter the ground. They also absorb rather than reflect heat, putting the warmth where you want it: into the soil, which is especially important for gardens where you plan to grow fruit and vegetables.

Applying the “reduce, reuse, recycle” principle to landscaping means opting for reclaimed wood or stone in design work (for steps, ladders or borders) and ensuring that when you do buy a new product, it’s been produced from recycled materials. The older the wood you can find, the less likely it has been treated with chemical products.

Pest control alternatives

Since pesticides are like antibiotics for your garden, indiscriminately killing anything they touch, learning more about how common garden creatures interact naturally can help you appreciate — and make the most of — the cycle of life playing out in your garden. Known as biological pest control, this involves actively encouraging certain animals into the garden to help reduce populations of less welcome bugs and insects.

Herbs are powerful pest deterrents. You can plant key herb bushes throughout the garden or in high wind areas. Focus on garlic, onions, chives, basil and rosemary for prime pest-fighting scents. A spray of oil and cayenne pepper or chilli can deter bugs from settling onto the leaves of plants.

The permaculture approach of companion planting can also help with natural pest management. You might try planting marigolds (natural aphid repellents), garlic chives or basil among roses or tomatoes. The fragrance from the marigolds and herbs acts as a bug repellent, helping reduce the need to spray. Marigolds are hardy worker plants, supporting the soil below ground as well as acting as a bug deterrent above ground.

For those instances when you are unable to avoid the use of chemicals in your garden, consider noting the environmental impact quotient of your pesticide choices. This rating system shows which chemicals have a lower environmental impact.

All creatures great and small

Your garden is a potential habitat for many creatures, some welcome and some not. Creating a holistic garden means understanding that native local animals will use your green space to forage for food and seek shelter.

Your garden can better support habitats for a variety of creatures if you consider your green space vertically as well as horizontally. Trees, rockeries, shrubs and groundcover provide ample shelter and nourishment for all kinds of creatures: lizards, birds, bees, worms, frogs and butterflies.

Creating habitats for benign bug-eating creatures also helps with natural pest control. Since frogs help control snail and slug populations, providing either a water feature, succulents or moisture to encourage frogs into your garden helps avoid the need for snail pellets.

Birds and lizards eat smaller bugs and insects, so providing plants with nectar or shrubbery and rocks helps encourage both to your garden. Butterflies (which originate as caterpillars) are essential, as are bees, for pollination and diversity. Encourage bees and butterflies with daises, pincushions and other mass-flowering blooms. If you’re planting fruit trees that require pollinating, having bees and butterflies helps, too.

Sustainable weed control

Weeds are often the bane of the home gardener’s existence. But what is a weed? Some define it as a plant that grows out of control; others might say it’s a plant growing in a location which you, the gardener, didn’t initiate. Still others may say it’s simply a plant for which you haven’t yet found a use.

The law of the jungle applies in your home garden: the strongest, best-adapted plants will grow abundantly, while those you try to plant that are unsuited to local climate or soil conditions will struggle. Empty garden space quickly fills itself, so if you have no groundcover or plants to replace the space currently occupied by what you consider weeds, clearing them only means they’ll grow back.

Manage weeded areas effectively by first thinking about what you’d like to grow in the space, then when you’re ready to plant, dispose thoughtfully of the plants you don’t want (previously known as weeds) via your compost or mulching system. The most sustainable way to manage weeds is to pull them out by their roots. It is more labour-intensive than spraying, but pulling weeds has no long-term impact on the soil, local water system or other plants.

As part of your re-visioning of weeds, you might consider the health benefits of many “weeds”. Dandelion is particularly prolific and is often the one plant that’ll break a chemical-free resolve. However, herbalists praise the benefits of dandelion, especially for liver complaints. The leaves can be included in salads or stirfries and the root can be made into tea.

If your garden is run organically, you may find you have chemical-free greens growing right out back. Seeing dandelion or other “weeds” as herbs for health rather than something to eradicate reflects the shift you may take as you approach a more holistic gardening style. For those interested in turning weeds into dinner, there’s a range of books on eating weeds to help guide you safely on your way.

Your journey to creating a holistic garden will evolve organically. Starting small and making incremental changes is more manageable and affordable than going all out. After all, one step at a time is the natural way.