Pretty, and edible. | Photo credit: Virginie Drujon-Kippelen

“Let me tell you ‘bout the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees…” and that incorporating the simple and sustainable principles of permaculture into your home’s landscaping will benefit all of the above, and more. Here, Brandy Hall, founder and managing director of Atlanta-based landscape company Shades of Green Permaculture, lends her wisdom about what permaculture means to a home’s landscape, a few ways you can create an eco-friendlier backyard and why you should care about doing so.

What is Permaculture?

Permaculture stems from “permanent agriculture,” a regenerative farming practice that fosters nutrients in the soil and biodiversity (the variety of animals, plants, fungi and microorganisms that make up our natural world).

“Every other species lives in harmony with its surroundings. We humans think of ourselves as separate for some reason, and permaculture takes it back to integrating humans with nature,” says Hall.

While indigenous peoples have been practicing this for centuries, the “modern world” founders of the practice were two Australian fellas who, in the 1970s, distilled it into 12 principles for the post-industrial humans to essentially live in better harmony with nature:

Observe and interact
Catch and store energy
Obtain a yield
Apply self regulation and accept feedback
Produce no waste
Use renewable resources and services
Design from pattern to detail
Integrate rather than segregate
Use small and slow solutions
Use and value diversity
Use edges and value the marginal
Creatively use and respond to change

So What Can Everyday Humans Do Better in Their Backyards?

The eco-friendly principles of permaculture translate to residential landscapes with a wide range of styles and budgets. Everything counts to making a difference in the environmental health of your property, community and the world at large. Here are a few options:

Plant native and “useful” plants and trees.
“‘Native’ means bioregionally appropriate plants that are indigenous to the area,” says Hall, who gives an example of the black-eyed Susan that is both indigenous to the Southeast and parts of the West. “And ‘useful’ means that it grows food and does well here but doesn’t naturalize and take over an area. In Georgia, for example, that could be fig, pomegranate, apple and Asian persimmon trees.” If you’re not into the idea of a fruit tree, the same thing can be accomplished in other ways, for instance with an herb garden.

2. Plant flowers and shrubs that attract pollinators and songbirds.

Both pollinators, such as bees and butterflies, and songbirds are losing their habitats. “Bees and songbirds are both keystone species—if they’re lost, other species will follow,” Hall says. A super easy way to support these essential populations is to plant flowers and shrubs that attract them and offer a beneficial habitat. If your backyard is paved or doesn’t allow for planting in the soil, containers are a great alternative to support pollinators.

3. Work with what you’ve got, not against it.

If you’re trying to grow something in a space that isn’t right for it, you’re going to deal with pests and other issues requiring chemical treatments, time and money—neither you nor the environment benefits. “We don’t believe in using fungicides or herbicides and instead tackle the reason behind why a planting isn’t working, usually because something in the ecosystem of your yard is out of balance,” Hall explains. She provides an example of a client whose Mediterranean herbs were planted in the shade and full of powdery mildew and aphids. “There was too much moisture and not enough airflow for these herbs. Instead of treating them with chemicals, we moved them to a sunny spot where they could thrive.”

The path leads to a happy environment…and a cute playhouse.
Photo credit: Virginie Drujon-Kippelen

4. Collect rainwater in a cistern for irrigation or create a rain garden.

This is all about catching rainwater and putting it to use on your property. When you think of water collection, you may think of rain barrels attached to a gutter, but Hall doesn’t recommend those. “The main challenge with the typical 50- to 75-gallon rain barrels is that the water often creates a bottleneck where you have more water coming in than can be let out [when it’s raining], which means water overflows out of the top, and that’s not great for your house’s foundation.” Instead, she prefers at least a 250-gallon cistern (aka rain tank) with a pump that can be connected to your irrigation system. Of course, this requires a spatial commitment but is a great way to save water—and on water bills.

Alternatively, you can bypass the need for a rain barrel altogether by creating a rain garden. To do this, your landscaper can bury a drain pipe or create a shallow swale (shallow ditch to carry water) to channel runoff from roof downspouts to the rain garden. “This is a great way to spread the rain out throughout the yard and hydrate soils instead of it running out to concrete and driveways. It helps people manage rain on their properties, and also helps rivers and streams by avoiding runoff.”

What’s a rain garden? This is a slight depression in the yard that is filled with recycled concrete gravel and compost/sand, then planted heavily with plants that can survive in both significant rain and drought. It is designed for rainwater to go into the soil, not live on top breeding mosquitos.

Reconsider the Manicured Lawn

Manicured lawns aren’t great for the environment and neither is artificial turf (don’t get me started on the latter—I recently went down a rabbit hole of research, and just stay away from it!). Lawns often produce far more carbon than they sequester because of fertilizer, weed eating and the fuel used during mowing and blowing. So if you can move past the “perfect,” grass lawn, consider a “lazy lawn” or “low-mow lawn” like an easy ground cover, such as clover. There’s also a lot you can do with stepping stones, pebbles/slate chips and more design elements for those hard-to-grow-grass areas that can look very beautiful, too.