I think that these days all of us are trying to go green in many aspects of our lives as we try to reduce our demands on the world’s resources. Gardening has the shiny green patina of communing with nature and being kind to plants and animals that make up this green earth. But so many modern gardening practices consume big piles of the resources that we depend on, and others contributes significantly to environmental pollution.

Since it’s early in the year, the time that we many of us make resolutions, I’ve outline some areas that I’ll be trying to work on in my own garden. I’ve gathered them together below and categorized them into the three big Rs of going green: reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Reduce

1. Fewer annuals: The semi-twisted logic of planting annuals, nurturing them for six months, and then yanking them out when they’re all bloomed out to replace them with other seasonal annuals to enjoy for maybe just a few more months is starting to bother me. It’s a certain amount of work on my part, and the energy that must go into the production of bedding plants adds to what guilt I feel. I doubt I’ll give up on annuals entirely. But I’ll try to rely on them less, mostly as temporary fillers until something with year-round interest can take over. Alternately, a lot of annuals reseed, so that you can plant them one year, and they’ll return reliably in future years. Allysum, zinnias, melampodium, celosia, poppies and many ornamental grasses are just a few of the plants that reseed reliably.
2. I’ll think twice before I pull out a plant. Is a plant really ill or dying? Or am I just bored with it?
3. When I do decide that a plant has to go, I’ll work on using more plants that are better adapted to my environment. Living in San Diego, this means using more Mediterranean-adapted plants and plants native to the area. This will reduce needs for supplemental water, plant food and insect control.
4. It’s more work, but I’m starting more plants from seed these days. Shipping a packet of seeds across the country takes way less energy than shipping the bed-full of plants that many packets will give you. Direct-sowing the seeds into the ground can save on transportation costs for potting mix and pots. Another bonus is that you can treat yourself to plenty more varieties than would be available at the local nursery.
5. In addition to buying more seeds to grow, I’m saving more seeds from the plants I already have. For species and open-pollenated heirloom plants, the seed should come true to the original. For hybrid plants, the seedlings can be an adventure, some of them coming looking like their parents, others coming out to be interesting mongrel mixes.
6. Grow more edible plants. There’s the push to buy locally grown produce, fruits and veggies that have been grown within a hundred miles of your house. Why not grow food yourself and drop the transportation costs to zero? I’ve got various herbs overwintering in the garden, and seeds for various plants are now in the ground or already germinating: kale, beets, amaranth, miner’s lettuce, plus whatever plants of romaine and New Zealand spinach will come back from seed. Several of these have terrific ornamental value, so they’ll get to live with the more decorative plantings.
7. I want to learn more about how to prepare the edible plants I already have. For instance, the cattails growing in the pond in the back yard are often listed as being one of the staples of the native American population in centuries past. Some of the local succulent population of the genus Dudleya also were used for food, and in fact one of the species is called edulis. (With a name like edulis, it’s gotta be good!) Maybe those and other plants in the garden could be relied on for occasional interesting meals. Even if some of them might be a little too weird for regular consumption, eating, like gardening, ought to be an adventure.

Reuse

1. It’s not perfect horticultural hygiene, but I try to reuse pots whenever possible. Unfortunately I usually end up with more gallon pots than I’ll ever be able to use a second or third time. Many nurseries will take them to reuse. And then I found that our almost-local native plant outfit, Las Pilitas Nursery, will also donate 10 cents to the California Native Plant Society for each pot that is returned for them to reuse. (That would explain the Lowes and Home Depot pots that I’ve seen at the nursery!)
2. For those situations when I decide a plant isn’t right for one spot, I’ll try to see if there’s another location in the garden where it would work better. Or may I know someone who’d be dying to do some plant rescue…
3. When I buy seeds, I sometimes end up with more than I need. I’ll share them with interested folks, and it could be an way to get more native or drought-tolerant plants into people’s gardens.

Recycle

1. Stores often have last week’s bulbs on sale for not much money. If they’re bulbs adapted to the climate, this is a great way to save some of these plants from the dumpsters. And if you’re into dumpster-diving or cruising the back alleys of garden centers, you might pick these up for free. Most of the narcissus in my yard came through these mark-downs.
2. I’ll have to admit that I’m a failed composter. I just don’t have the magic combination of time, space and discipline (in all honesty it’s mostly the discipline where I’m lacking). But the city fortunately has a greens recycling program for those of us who don’t have this down. Kitchen scraps are already making it into the bins, and I’ll try to be be even more fanatical with anything green in the garden that would compost.
3. If you’re not doing it already, recycle lawn lawn clippings into mulch. Last summer I convinced John to put the onto the veggie garden instead of dumping them in the city greens recycling. This way they’re still getting recycled, only they don’t have to be trucked to the landfill to be turned into mulch.
4. Even if you can’t find someone to reuse your plastic pots, there are some emerging uses for them that might become available to more parts of the country. I’ll keep my eyes open in case there are interesting local recycling opportunities, like the one where pots would be melted down for “landscape timbers.” (The link goes to an great program in Missouri.)
5. Broken clay pots make great covers for drain holes in pots around the garden. They allow the water to drain out, but also reduce the amount of potting soil that you lose.

Like many new year’s resolutions, I know I won’t stick to them fanatically. One of the things that draws me to the plant world is the sheer variety in all the cool plants that I can invite into my garden. I’m a collector at heart, so saying no to a new and interesting specimen is one of the hardest things for me to do. I know that that’s going to be one of the hardest goals to stick to. Hopefully, putting it out in a public space like this post will provide me a little gentle pressure and reminder of what I intended to do.