Sustainable Landscaping
Whether you like to get your hands dirty or not, ensuring your property is managed with sustainable practices is smart for your family, your pets, and the planet. Sustainable yard care involves more than just ending the use of synthetic pesticides or herbicides.
Our lawns make up the single largest irrigated crop in America, but who’s eating it? That perfectly green lawn is actually a desert, void of nutrition, for many native insects. With sustainable landscaping, the soil, plants, and animals sustain each other.
Take a holistic approach to lawn care by incorporating native plants and trees, leaving your leaves, switching to electric landscape equipment, and more!
Introduce Native Plants
Native plants thrive in our region. They have evolved to coexist with local wildlife and have adapted to the regional climate and soil. This makes them uniquely qualified to be low-maintenance and supportive of our native birds, insects, and animals.
Visit our Native Plants resources page to learn about the benefits of native plants, how to tell the difference between native and invasive plants, and find out where to buy native plants locally.
Plant More Trees
Trees are vital. As the largest plants on the planet, trees are entwined with our lives in more ways than you can imagine. They create the air we breathe, soak up stormwater, and provide shade, to name a few.
Did you know The Municipality of Princeton owns and maintains over 18,000 municipal trees? When trees stay, they keep floods away. In total, these municipal trees have captured over 600,000 lbs of CO2 and have intercepted nearly 20 million gallons of water. The Princeton Climate Action Plan identifies multiple strategies to protect and enhance local natural resources and our tree canopy.
Here’s how to plant more trees on your property:
- Check out Princeton’s native tree list and bring it with you to a nursery. Avoid anything on the New Jersey Invasive Species Do Not Plant list.
- Get local planting and maintenance advice from the NJ Forest Service.
- Say no to “mulch volcanoes.” Mulch is important, but it should be spread around a tree — like a donut, not a volcano. Never allow mulch to touch the tree’s bark, and don’t pile it higher than 3-4 inches; it can cause rot and disease.
Want more info? Check out Princeton’s Shade Tree Commission’s webpage for more resources.
Leave Your Leaves
Every fall, leaves pile up in Princeton’s streets, creating safety hazards for bikers, blocking stormwater drains, and feeding unhealthy algae blooms in our waterways. In contrast, when leaves are mulched and scattered around the yard, your lawn has the opportunity to absorb and use these nutrients.
Leave your leaves where they can do some good for your soil. It’s easy to make the switch:
- Rake leaves into a compost pile in a corner of your property. Turn it regularly and add some vegetable scraps, to get rich compost a few months later. Learn more about composting in your backyard (LINK).
- Mulch leaves with a mower. They will disappear back into the lawn and provide needed nutrients. A mower with a mulching blade is optimal, but most power mowers (electric is best) should do an adequate job.
- Rake leaves aside, into a woodlot, if available, or into an obscured portion of your yard such as behind shrubs.
- Spread leaves on the garden. Leave them to hold in moisture and slowly release nutrients.
- Use leaves to control weeds. Rake them toward flower beds, the fence line, or other weedy areas.
- Create a leaf corral. Build a corral or circle of wire fencing to keep them from blowing around as they decompose.
Can’t keep leaves on your property? Instead, bag them and leave them out according to Princeton’s leaf schedule and rules. Place bags on the curb, not in the street, and only put loose leaves into bags (no sticks or brush).
Need mulch? Leaf mulch is an inexpensive mulch that you already have available. Skip the bags from the hardware store and use your leaves for moisture retention and weed prevention instead.
Start a Meadow
Consider converting a portion of your property to a low-mow area. Save time mowing, reduce maintenance emissions, and enjoy the beauty of flowering plantings.
Replace turf with native groundcovers, trees, shrubs, or perennial flower beds for a low-maintenance lawn. Visit our Native Plants resources page for where to buy native varieties locally.
Read about Princeton residents who have converted their lawns into meadows: Caldwell Park and Mercy’s Meadow
Additional resources:
- The University of New Hampshire offers a fact sheet about how to establish a wildflower meadow from seed.
- The Xerces Society‘s Habitat Installation Guide provides in-depth guidance on how to install and maintain habitat for pollinators in the form of wildflower meadow plantings or linear rows of native flowering shrubs.
- Check out Jersey-Friendly Yards for an interactive yard planning tool, a local plant database, and additional local resources.
Electric-Powered Lawn Equipment
Consider alternatives to gas-powered so we can all breathe a little easier. Battery-powered machines sharply reduce air pollution and are significantly quieter than gas-powered versions.
- Ensure any leaf blowers or mowers used on your property follow the rules stated in Princeton’s noise ordinance. This means no operation before 8 a.m. Monday through Saturday or before 10 a.m. on Sunday. In addition, leaf blowers must be equipped with mufflers.
- When possible, use rakes and brooms to move leaves around. This is especially true at the beginning or end of the season when there are relatively few leaves to collect.
- Manual reel mowers effectively cut grass and are practical for small yards. Numerous models are available, including newer light versions. They are also smaller to store.
- Go low-maintenance. You don’t have to spend so much time and money on your lawn. Replace turf with native groundcovers, trees, shrubs, or perennial flower beds for a low-maintenance approach.
- Hire a quiet landscaper. Refer to our Sustainable Landscaper Resource List for landscapers that provide sustainable landscaping services. Quiet Princeton also maintains a list of landscapers, that are willing to manage leaves without a leaf blower.
Working with Landscapers
No time to maintain your own yard? We get it. That’s why many residents hire a landscaper. Conversations with your landscaper are important to ensure your yard is as sustainable as possible and that the landscaping workers are treated fairly.
Landscapers should value sustainable services and the health and safety of their workers.
Hiring a landscaper? Here’s what to look for:
- Are they certified or trained sustainably? Review this list of certifications and trainings for landscapers.
- Are they registered? Every landscaper is required to be registered with the Municipality.
- Are they on our Resource List of Sustainable Landscapers? This is a list of landscaping businesses that offer a variety of sustainable landscaping services.
Resources:
- Download the Toolbook for Sustainable Landscaping Conversations to find numerous other actions to consider with your landscaper.
- Does your landscaper speak Spanish? Download our brochure, Spanish Phrases for Homeowners, to assist you in navigating these discussions with a Spanish speaker.
Healthy Yards = Healthy People
Landscapers and homeowners may encounter the following hazards while taking care of lawns. It’s important to know the risks and remedies to care for yourself, your landscapers, and your community.
Air Pollutants
- Fine particulates associated with gasoline engines are well-established risk factors for causing or exacerbating asthma, chronic lung disease, heart disease, acute heart effects such as disrupting heart rhythms, and stroke.
- What You Can Do: Switch to electric equipment or use low-tech methods like rakes and brooms.
Noise Exposure
- A single gas-powered leaf blower can create 90 or more decibels of noise, which has serious hearing implications for operators and neighbors.
- What You Can Do: Ask your landscaper to wear ear protection like earplugs or earmuffs.
Injuries
- Landscapers have an increased risk of injuries compared to other types of service workers. Injury risks can come from blades, clothing and hands or feet caught in equipment, eye injury from flying branches, plant particles, etc.
- What You Can Do: Make sure your landscapers wear gloves, masks, and goggles as needed.
Does your landscaper speak Spanish? Download our brochure, Spanish Phrases for Homeowners, to assist you in navigating these discussions with a Spanish speaker.
Yard Tips
If you do have a portion of your yard that is grass, consider these tips:
- Use natural organic fertilizers, compost, and grass clippings to bring your yard the nutrients it needs.
- Apply water infrequently but deeply. Allow the soil to dry between waterings to encourage stronger roots. Native plants often have longer roots, allowing them to endure droughts. Consider an irrigation audit to ensure best practices are being followed and that you aren’t overwatering.
- Strengthen your soil by increasing its organic matter, restoring proper pH, and reducing the application of fungicides and acidic fertilizers.
- Seed and mow correctly. Use the correct seed for your conditions. Mow grass with a sharp blade and as high as possible (3-4”). Taller grass helps keep out unwanted plants. Keep shredded grass clippings on your lawn.
- Frequent seeding is an effective tactic to prevent weeds in your grass. Late summer and autumn is the best time to aerate, apply compost, and seed.
- Keep turf dense to prevent weeds. Hand-pull weeds when they are young and use organic herbicides sparingly as a spot treatment.
- Proper soil health, as well as correct seed and mowing techniques, will help prevent pests. Organic pesticides should be used only as a last resort.
Want more details? Rutgers’ Organic Land Care Best Management Practices Manual dives into many of these concepts.
