Sustainable Landscaping For Dummies provides hands-on, how-to instruction for realizing the benefits of a sustainable landscape, from selecting sutainable hardscape materials to installing a rain-water catchment system to choosing native plants.

While landscaping has the potential to be part of the solution to certain environmental problems, the quest for beauty can also produce effects that are harmful to the environment. Sustainable Landscaping: Principles and Practices examines landscape practices that adversely affect the environment, which occur in the process of constructing, impleme

Basic principles : "Sustainability" in context -- Principle 1 : Keep healthy sites healthy -- Principle 2 : Heal injured soils and sites -- Principle 3 : Favor living, flexible materials -- Principle 4 : Respect the waters of life -- Principle 5 : Pave less -- Principle 6 : Consider origin and fate of materials -- Principle 7 : Know the costs of energy over time -- Principle 8 : Celebrate light, respect darkness -- Principle 9 : Quietly defend silence -- Principle 10 : Maintain to sustain -- Principle 11 : Demonstrate performance, learn from failure -- Sustaining principles, evolving efforts.

Rain gardens are at the forefront of the green revolution. This environmentally friendly landscaping captures rainwater runoff rather than redirecting it into storm drains. The result is less erosion, less water pollution, and a beautiful, low-maintenance, sustainable garden. This is the first rain garden handbook for the backyard home gardener. Co-authors Robert Domm and Lynn Steiner draw on hands-on experience to help homeowners build beautiful rain gardens in their own yards. Illustrated with color photography, this instructive book offers specific advice about planning, building, planting, and maintaining your garden. Learn about city grants, how to calculate runoff, rain barrels, attracting wildlife, gray water recycling, and much more.

The full-color, practical guide to designing sustainable residential landscapes and small-scale sites "Going green" is no longer a choice; it's a necessity. Developed landscapes have played a significant role in exacerbating the environmental and social problems that threaten humanity; however, they can also be part of the solution. Designing the Sustainable Site: Integrated Design Strategies for Small-Scale Sites and Residential Landscapes gives site designers and landscape architects the tools and information they need to become a driving force in the quest for sustainability. Advocating a regenerative design approach in which built landscapes sustain and restore vital ecological functions, this book guides readers through a design process for new and redeveloped sites that not only minimizes damage to the environment but also actively helps to repair it. Designing the Sustainable Site: Assists designers in identifying and incorporating sustainable practices that have the greatest positive impact on both the project and the surrounding community, within a regional context Uses photographs, sketches, and case studies to provide a comprehensive look at successful green landscape design Illustrates how sustainable practices are relevant and applicable to projects of any size or budget Demonstrates how built environments can protect and restore ecosystem services Explains the multiple and far-reaching benefits that sustainable design solutions can provide Assists project teams in fulfilling credit requirements of green building assessment tools, such as LEED, BREEAM, or SITES With attention to six global environmental challenges including air pollution, urban flooding and water pollution, water shortages, invasive species, and loss of biodiversity along with guidance on how to meet these challenges, Designing the Sustainable Site is a practical design manual for sustainable alternatives to small-scale site and residential landscape design.

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