Lawns, Weeds, and Good Reads

It's the end of the summer and you have a little bit more time to read something inspiring before the pace picks up, but you've got this expanse of grass that needs attention. After all, the neighbors are starting to notice that you've fired the landscaping service, ditched the chemical enhancements, and started pushing that reel mower around for exercise, giving up half way through after making an interesting circular pattern through the knee-high dandelions. Well, Nancy Gift knows how to inspire you to think even more creatively about that expanse of green that stretches from your front door to the sidewalk. Environmental Studies professor and acting Director of the Rachel Carson Institute at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, Gift has written a lovely paean to those other plants we tend to vilify. A Weed by Any Other Name: The Virtues of a Messy Lawn, or Learning to Love the Plants We Don't Plant is a great place to start thinking about how we shape our outdoor environment, what we believe when we create categories of good and bad plants, and how we want children to relate to the larger natural world.

What can you do with a lawn other than plant grass? Vegetable, herb, and other kind of edible gardens are not only beautiful but productive. Stone walkways and patios with thyme or sedum make yards more interesting. Consider a meadow full of cosmos or high grasses. For a great start, The Wild Lawn Handbook is a good guide to reinventing your front yard. Another terrific resource is Marc Carlton's Gardens for WildLife website.

While many landscaping services and garden centers are starting to provide plants, advice, and materials for alternatives to monoculture, high-maintenance lawns, Gift's approach is for us to re-think the whole idea of weeds and cultivars, since such distinctions rest on cultural ideas of what we think we need in any given spot rather than environmental interests such as promoting wildness and diversity, allowing people to enjoy nature in less managed states, and reducing our impact on the entire eco-system. Some plants can stand to be eradicated (poison ivy really has to be removed where people dominate spaces), but others can be encouraged and coaxed to take over some of the expanses now covered in uniform, chemically-managed greenness. Gift's book is a great read, partly personal narrative, part in-depth exploration of a few plants in context of a larger botanical landscape. In her blogs, Gift also helps us think about the outdoors as a place that's becoming less and less important to people's every day lives. For children in particular, this seems like a great loss of knowledge, physical memory, and engagement with living things. Luck for us, Gift also takes the time to think and write about what to do when you can't push mow or when your children are spending too much time indoors.

So, as summer winds down, pull up a lawn chair, pour yourself a big glass of dandelion wine (okay, well, if you're not THAT into Euell Gibbons, lavender iced tea will do), and let your kids run wild with clover between their toes.

photo credits: Nancy Gift, Beacon Press, Gardens for WildLife.

Empowering the Planet with the Beauty of Sunflowers

Sunflowers are bright, colorful, and beautiful - but they're also an eco-friendly fuel source, a crime deterrent, and a community builder.  How can a delicate flower be so powerful?  Through the vision of GTECH, fields of sunflowers are making a huge impact that will echo throughout the nation.

About GTECH

What began as a graduate study thesis is now an innovative, earth-changing nonprofit organization that is improving communities, creating new jobs, and producing renewable fuel options.  

Growth Through Energy and Community Health (GTECH) is the brainchild of Carnegie Mellon University graduates, Chris Koch and Andrew Butcher.  GTECH's goal is to reclaim vacant land, lots that have often turned into breeding grounds for criminal activity, and transform that space into flourishing renewable crops for biofuel and green opportunity. 

Greening Urban Land

GTECH's strategy is unique because it goes beyond simply planting.  Each location is carefully chosen to bring the most benefit, not only to the crops that will grow, but also to the community it represents.  Each project begins with site stabilization, cleaning and reviving abandoned land to improve the soil and add value to the surrounding neighborhood.  The projects also engage the community with active involvement, offering educational and training programs, and expand opportunities for social enterprise through new green jobs and community outreach.

Current Projects

GTECH began their mission at home, in the Pittsburgh area where more than 4,000 vacant lots are located within the city limits.  Planting in Larimer was underway in spring of 2008 - a gorgeous bio-energy sunflower garden on a 3/4 acre lot.  Harvesting in the fall was a community event with widespread participation.

The Almono Brownfield was the second GTECH project, transforming an abandoned and pollutant-causing steel mill into fields of sawgrass, sunflowers, canola, and poplar trees.  Project plans also include restoration of an 8-acre community park and educational opportunities  to teach area youth about robotic green space maintenance.  Similar projects are also planned for the East Liberty community and Lawrenceville.  

 Images and Additional Info: GTECH Website