A healthy landscape is more than grass. It is a space that gives you peace. It also provides an aesthetic environment and can even make your home more valuable. Are you looking to improve the health of your lawn? There are many benefits of a healthy landscape. This article will give you some tips on how to create a beautiful healthy landscape in your yard!
The Environmental Benefits of Healthy a Landscape
- Natural Air Conditioning – Grass is cooler than asphalt and cement. It serves as a “air conditioner” for the surroundings by lowering air temperatures. Lawns can be 31 degrees colder than asphalt and 20 degrees colder than bare soil. But there’s more: trees that shade houses may lower attic temperatures by up to 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Sound Barriers – Lawns and plants are effective in reducing noise pollution. In fact, they can reduce noise levels by 20% to 30% over hard surfaces like concrete and pavement.
- Turfgrass is another solution. It prevents runoff from reaching bodies of water. It does this by slowing and absorbing it into its root system.
- Air Purifiers – Grasses take up carbon dioxide and break it down into oxygen and carbon. A 50’x50′ lawn, for example, is capable of producing enough oxygen for a family of four.
- Water Protectors – Healthy lawns remove noxious runoff before it has a chance to filter into bodies of water.
- Environmental Cleaners – Grasses serve as a filter for dust, smoke particles, and other pollutants while also producing oxygen.
Even in areas where water restrictions are in place and drought is present, grasses and gardens must be maintained as a viable component of healthy communities. There are several sustainable techniques for cultivated lawns and gardens that help to reduce water consumption while also providing important environmental benefits.
The Many Benefits of Commercial Landscapes
Humans’ interactions with plants, trees, and grass have also been researched and documented. People experience stress relief and healing when interacting with nature or watching it from a window, according to research. When children with ADHD are outside, they appear to concentrate better (Harvard Health Publications). Workers become more efficient when working in areas with plants.
However, what people intuitively feel about the plants and green spaces in their lives–that they improve their lives and that they wish to make an effort to include it into their routines–goes beyond what science has to say.
“63 percent of respondents reported being willing to pay more for an apartment or home in a neighborhood with great green spaces, compared to 34% who were willing to pay more for a place with good shopping and 33% who were ready to pay more for a location with nice cultural attractions,” according to the Husqvarna Global Garden Report 2012.
According to Love Your Landscape, there are many organizations researching and documenting the affect of plants and green spaces on the environment and on our lives including:
- University of Washington, Center for Urban Forestry
- Nature Sacred
- Project Evergreen
- Green Plants for Green Buildings
- American Society of Landscape Architects
- The Lawn Institute
- Nebraska Agricultural Extension Station Research Bulletin
- Department of Interior
- National Park Service
For more information or to schedule and appointment, contact Paradise Landscape and Hardscape today. We have decades of experience discuss the benefits of a healthy landscape.
