ECOLOGICAL LANDSCAPING

Beautiful, Productive and Healthy for People and the Planet

MY WORK IS CREATING AND CARING FOR OUTDOOR SPACES THAT SERVE PEOPLES' NEEDS FOR BEAUTY, COMFORT, AND FOOD PRODUCTION WHILE SUPPORTING A HEALTHY AND RESILIENT ECOSYSTEM. THESE OUTDOOR SPACES EMPHASIZE PLANTING FOOD CROPS AND NATIVE PERENNIALS, CONSERVING WATER, BUILDING SOIL HEALTH, AND PROVIDING WILDLIFE BENEFITS.

HOW CAN I HELP YOU?

I have over a decade of experience in organic farming, gardening and landscaping. I am the designer and builder of the ecological gardens at my home (described here on this website) and I'm helping many satisfied clients maintain and improve their own landscapes.

I am available to serve locations throughout Sonoma County, CA for weekly, bi-weekly or monthly maintenance and care of existing landscape plants, including fruit trees, vegetable beds and irrigation systems and I offer consultation, design and green-scape installation services for upgrades and enhancements.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT ME:
by phone at 917-885-8910 or by email at jason@windhorseorchard.com

In addition to general landscape maintenance, I can help you with the following ecological improvements:

HARVESTING FOOD AT HOME

Purchasing produce from local farmers is a great step to reducing our carbon footprint, and growing food at home is even better. Fruiting trees and shrubs and vegetable beds typically require more water than most native plants, but they give back ample returns in the form of an ultra low-carbon food supply. Collecting food grown at home puts us in touch with the natural cycle of growth and introduces seasonality to our diet. We can also have more confidence in the quality and safety of food grown at home.

CHOOSING NATIVE PERENNIAL PLANTS

Surround your fruit trees with native plants and shrubs. Native perennials do much more than supporting pollinating insects with nectar when in flower. Local animal and insect species have adapted over thousands of years to use specific native plants for sustenance. Just as Monarch butterfly populations depend upon the availability of Milkweed, so do thousands of other moths, butterflies and other insects - as well as the birds that consume them - depend upon native plants. For the same reason, avoiding non-native plants, particularly "invasives" that outcompete native plants without providing much sustenance, is an important step in balancing our local ecosystem.

CONSERVING WATER

Native plants and trees in California have adapted to survive periodic drought conditions and require much less water than many plants imported from other regions of the world. Some native plants require almost no additional watering after becoming established. Perennial natives extend their root systems deeper into the soil which makes them more resilient and also helps prevent soil erosion. For native plants that do require water over their lifetime and for our fruiting trees and shrubs, choose drip irrigation over sprinkler systems and operate your irrigation system in the early morning hours. If you replace a lawn with an orchard or vegetable garden, and incorporate greywater irrigation where appropriate, you may actually reduce your overall outdoor watering budget.

BUILDING SOIL HEALTH

One of the best steps to keeping plants healthy is improving the richness and quality of the surrounding soil. Applying locally produced compost and mulch around plants adds nutrients, conserves moisture (compost can hold as much as eight times its weight in water), prevents soil erosion and builds organic matter over time. Manufactured fertilizers on the other hand are often mined from sensitive ecological areas, shipped long distances to stores and provide only a short-term boost in plant growth without long-term soil benefit. Choosing to use local compost in place of bagged fertilizers lowers our garden's carbon footprint and leaves ecosystems in other regions of the world more intact.

PROVIDING WILDLIFE FORAGE

As mentioned above, native plants are critically important to the survival and sustenance of local animal and insect populations. However, some native plants and trees are far more helpful than others. Certain "keystone" species are like nutritional superfoods for wildlife, trees such as oaks, willows and members of the Prunus genus like plums and cherries, and California native plants like Lupine, Ceanothus, and Buckwheat. You can add keystone species to the garden but keep diversity in mind. You can select from among thousands of other native plants to provide varying bloom times for pollinators and berry and nut production for birds and mammals. For more information, browse publications by American scientist and author Doug Tallamy.