http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/02/the-garden-party-redefined/#more-143702
The Garden Party Redefined
By LESLIE MACMILLAN
The mention of a “garden party” may conjure images of Victorian ladies sipping tea, the whisper of a breeze through manicured hedges and the clink of china. For a growing number of outdoor enthusiasts, however, it means something entirely different: a chance to rip up lawns, dig trenches and install bioswales, or areas with vegetation that can soak up water. All of these efforts are aimed at keeping runoff pollution from entering the oceans.
Urban runoff from gardens and hard surfaces like pavement and rooftops is amajor source of ocean pollution, the federal Environmental Protection Agency says. When rainfall flows over gardens, it picks up pesticides, herbicides, lawn fertilizers, oil, engine exhaust, dog feces and other pollutants before depositing them in storm drains and ultimately the ocean.
No one is more intensely protective of ocean health than a surfer. That’s why the environmental nonprofit group the Surfrider Foundation opened a campaign three years ago that encourages homeowners to remove water-guzzling invasive plants from their gardens and abandon manicured lawns in favor of “ocean-friendly gardens.”
The idea is to use native plants that require less water and to capture and disperse rainwater by using trenches and mulch, which, unlike grass, act like sponges and actually recharge groundwater.
Sustainable gardens, with their bursts of wildflowers and tall, swaying grasses, are very different from the cookie-cutter front yards that have become the American norm.
“The lawn, the fence, the house — it’s part of what we think of as the American dream,” said Paul Herzog, national coordinator of Surfrider’s Ocean-Friendly Gardens program. “But it’s a manufactured idea of beauty that comes from somewhere else.”
Wealthy Britons may have imported their love of manicured greenery when they arrived in North America centuries ago. The result today is that lawn care in America is a $30 billion industry. On the East Coast, 30 percent of the water used goes toward lawn watering, and on the West Coast it’s a whopping 50 to 60 percent. Americans use 70 million pounds of pesticides a year on lawns.
Surfrider has 30 ocean-friendly garden campaigns on both coasts, from Oregon to New Jersey. Homeowners can start a sustainable garden by contacting a local Surfrider chapter and checking out a state’s native plant society.
In California, where the program originated, a statewide mandate to reduce water use by 20 percent by 2020 neatly dovetailed with the goals of the garden program. “We’re beginning to get some momentum,” said Renee Roth, a volunteer with Ventura’s Surfrider chapter.
“I try to get people to look at their water bill,” Ms. Roth said. “When they realize that 50 to 60 percent of it is going toward keeping up a lawn — which we think of as just a right — it really begins to sink in.”
With money from a California state grant, Surfrider teamed up with the Green Gardens Group (G3) of Los Angeles to give free public workshops on the principles of sustainable gardening. G3 will conduct a site evaluation and works with the homeowner on plant selection and design. The final step is a “garden assistance party.”
The planting events, akin to barn-raisers, are advertised in local newspapers and usually get a good turnout, said Pamela Berstler, managing member at G3. “It’s very hands-on, and people learn a lot,” she said. “They leave knowing they’ve been part of something really cool.”
Dan Long, a city planning commissioner in Ventura, Calif., said he asked for plants he would see while hiking in the nearby Los Padres National Forest. A team of volunteers created two dry creek beds, or bioswales, that carry diverted water from downspouts when it rains, buttressed by two small mounds that look like miniature hills. “I am so happy I went with California natives,” he said in an e-mail. “It is like going for a little hike every time I go out and pick up the newspaper.”
Especially in arid states, “people are afraid that using native plants means their gardens are going to look barren or deserty,” said Morgan Vondrak, a landscape designer who volunteers with the Ocean-Friendly Garden program. “Usually, they’re very pleasantly surprised with how lush and decorative it can look.”
For Mr. Herzog, plants are mere eye candy, and the real beauty is being part of your environment. “I try to spend as much time as possible surfing and hiking instead of mowing, blowing and trimming,” he said. “Isn’t that part of having a beautiful life?”
An earlier version of this post misspelled the surnames of the national coordinator of Surfrider’s Ocean-Friendly Gardens program and a managing member of the Green Gardens Group (G3). Their names are, respectively, Paul Herzog and Pamela Berstler.
