Benefits of a more natural habitat

Now that research into the healing properties of gardens has gained currency in the medical field, it's triggered quite a movement. There's even a professional group of the American Society of Landscape Architects for those specializing in therapeutic garden design; it started with just 14 members in the late 1990s and has more than 300 members today, says chair Naomi Sachs.

It doesn't take research, though, to feel the calming effects of spending time in a garden or in nature—if only to enjoy a refuge from the constant sensory bombardment of urban life. Just being outdoors elicits more awareness of what's around us. Yoga in essence means relationship, and one of those key relationships is between the body and the environment, says Russell Comstock, a Jivamukti Yoga teacher and codirector of the Metta Earth Institute in Lincoln, Vermont. When we step outdoors to do yoga, it's like a portal to a new awareness. A hawk might fly by, or we might feel a breeze on our skin, and it becomes an interactive experience, awakening our senses and opening us up to a deeper understanding.
A healing garden needn't be expansive. Some of the most beautiful gardens are just pockets of space, says architect Sarah Susanka, coauthor, with Julie Moir Messervy, of Outside the Not So Big House (The Taunton Press, 2006). You can give the illusion of space by creating layers and textures.
No one knows exactly why gardens have such healing and stress-reducing properties; it seems to be at least partially a primordial reaction wired into our central nervous system. Researchers have found, though, that the more a garden engages the senses, the stronger its ability to distract us from the stressful whirlwind of our thoughts. The gardens that work best are places that facilitate awe and fascination, says Sachs. You want the garden to bring you in touch with yourself and your surroundings at the same time.

Studies back this up. Roger Ulrich, who's with the Center for Health Systems and Design at Texas A&M University, has spent decades documenting the effects of nature on people in health care facilities. He has found that those who have access to a garden experience dramatic drops in stress levels, blood pressure, and pain. Ulrich's research has prompted hospitals, spas, and other care facilities across the country to create therapeutic gardens.

Focus on Xeriscaping

Every year millions of gardening magazines and catalogs travel through the mail to locations all over the world. The covers of almost all of them feature a lush and beautiful garden. Gardens that are brightly green and very water intensive. This type of garden is fine for a great many gardeners unless you happen to live in a climate that sees very little in the way of rainfall. In dry climates, you would need to water such gardens deeply almost everyday. This becomes and even bigger issue when faced with the fact that many areas in dry climates already have some serious water rights and conservation issues.
What is a good gardener to do? All these magazines and catalogs make you believe that your garden should look a certain way, filled with green and exotic plants that need to be tended and coddled. But if you follow that stereotype, you are helping to support some pretty serious environmental problems.
These days, there has been a revolution in the gardening world. Gardeners in areas that are not within “traditional” climates have put their feet down and said, No More! Many of these gardeners are chucking the traditional magazine image of a garden for ones filled with native and local climate friendly plants. In drier, water limited climates; this style of gardening is xeriscaping.
Xeriscaping is the art of taking plants that need little water and using them in your landscape. The plants frequently used are succulents, cactuses and grasses, incorporated with a fair amount of hardscaping that bests accent the plantings.
Xeriscaping does take a little bit for the eye to get use to, especially if the eye is use to looking a lush green landscapes frequently seen in magazines and on TV. But if one take a few moments to study a xeriscaped landscape, one can come to appreciate the diversity and beauty that exists there. Plus, the xeriscaped gardener can enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that the landscape is much more suited to the natural environment.
Xeriscaping has benefits beyond just being environmentally friendly. There is also both a cost and energy savings benefit. A xeriscape gardener will spend less on replacing plants that die because they are not suited to the local climate and spend less energy pampering and watering non-native plants. This creates a much more enjoyable, low-maintenance garden.
So, if you live in a high heat, low-water climate, you should seriously consider moving your garden towards xeriscaping ideology. You will enjoy your garden more, and your water bills won’t look near so frightening.

Drought tolerant/low maintenance plants

These amazing drought tolerant plants are so hardy and bloom multiple times per season. Many people are really now taking to the idea of removing lawns and replacing with drought tolerant plants (natives) and mulch or pebbles.  Not only does it save on water bills, but gives more of a natural look and feel. We offer irrigation design, installation, maintenance, and reconfiguration of existing set-ups to maximize use of water, minimize waste, and to function at the most appropriate intervals.









 There are many native grasses and shrubs that are very attractive and drought tolerant. You don't have to just have cactus and succulents to have a beautiful drought tolerant landscape.

Once established, these plants don't need much water or care.