Table of Contents
Gardening is the act of growing and cultivating plants as part of agriculture. In the garden you can grow flowers, plants, trees and vegetables. Gardening is also a hobby as many people like gardening in their free time.
Gardens and plants make good-looking the general condition in which we are living. Gardening is not just about making your house look good.
Caring your plants can also do interesting things for your own happiness and comfort, a lot of scientific observations suggest that physical exercise is also helpful for blood pressure and interacting with flora provides a good impact on tour mood and mental health.
Basically organic gardening means that we are using whole natural and organic materials and avoid the artificial and toxicant material.
Why Gardening is Good For The Environment
There are many reasons why gardens and plants are important for us, our health, our frame of mind, our community, and the environment in which we are living.
Even if we only consider our lives then we can not live without oxygen and if we do not plant trees and gardens we are unable to get oxygen. Plants clear out the ecosystem in which we survive.
Let’s look at the reasons HOW gardening help the environment.
Purifying The Air:
Plants can help you to be healthy and it is more beneficial when plants are grown outside. Growing plants increases the quality of the air that comes all round us. Without plants, it is not possible to live here on the Earth.
In this process of photosynthesis plants take up carbon dioxide and change it into oxygen. They take deadly, full of poisonous air in and convert it into clean and breathable air.
There are some trees which have the most capability to clean dust particles from the air:
- Eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana)
- Red maple (Acer rubrum)
- American elm (Ulmus americana)
- White poplar (Populus alba)
Studies show that there is a difference between plants as one plant is different from another in many ways. The number of plants and the size of plants is much more important than the variety of plants.
Reduce pollution:
Plants take in carbon dioxide and give out air through photosynthesis. Carbon dioxide is a glasshouse gas that gets up in heat and has an idea of being a mediator in weather conditions change.
Gardens are working well at purifying toxic and poisoned air. Plants take away damaging VOCs and other damaging toxicants like benzene and formaldehyde.
These plants and gardens also help to balance the carbon cost of both people and powering material, substance emissions. rooftop gardens are also a type of garden that helps our environment to decrease toxicants from our environment.
Making Cleaner Groundwater:
Taking in water is one of the most important roles that earths, lands play in our general living conditions. This process happens through the help of pores in the soil. plants that grow on and in the water take up CO2 and put out oxygen. In this watery environment, this process helps to improve the quality of water.
Gardens and plants have the surprising natural power to pull in dirty, poisoned water and then clean up it, and take it back into the garden.
This cleans up all the poisons and pollutants and benefits the garden. There are some weighty metals, bacteria, oil and other pollutants that can be better with these wet-land plants.
Plants that grow in these water systems also absorb good food, bacteria , metals, and many other chemicals. Use less water or get more out of it. It is observed that drinkable water in the U.S utilizes a huge amount of energy even than 30–60% of the water provided exactly to your gardens.
There are some plants that are considered best to clean groundwater
Cattail Mostly growing between 5 and 10 feet tall
Water mint grows up to 6 inches high
Soft rush, that grows up to 3 ½ feet high.
Water lilies is a great pond plant that filter soil water
Cabomba & hornwort are also two good species to plant.
Organic Gardening:
Organic gardening has intense benefits for our environment and our own health. By using fewer pesticides and chemical fertilizers, we can decrease the chemical burden in our environment By using some pesticides and chemical fertilizers in our gardens.
Chemical fertilizers look less harmful ,but they are also equally hard for our general environment. We need to get through knowledge that the earth’s natural ecosystem can tolerate itself without the interaction of human beings.
If we are producing our own fruits, plants (used for food), or basils, then we do not need to give money for these items from the food store. When we produce these things through natural processes, we do not need to spend much money on gardening supplies.
If we were going to grow a tomato plant, we went into our back space and selected one to take food instead of driving to the food store to buy tomatoes. We will not buy chemical fertilizers, in place of this kitchen wastage and garbage become black end products that replenishes nutrients and also provides important nutrients to the soil.
Planting your own plants used for food in your garden is also helpful for our surroundings. It is also a fact that natural products like animal waste are also good for soil and can be used with good sense so that they do not lead to nutrient-rich run-off.
ORGANIC GARDENING TECHNIQUES:
- If you are going to prepare a garden then the timing of water is an important factor. Water your plants in the morning or late after 12 in the morning. Most of the plants need water about 1 time in a week.
- Prepare your garden soil to be made well off and have a stable pH . If you are unaware about your soil’s pH, different types of soil tests are available at garden test centers and online. Home-compost masses are great usable materials, but if your home-made fertilizer is not ready, you can add all-purpose organic material on the top few inches of the soil. It is also a good alternative for the masses.
- Weed in the later part of the day. When you weed, you disclose the soil and make it more susceptible to evaporation.
- Harvesting is the essential and best part of gardening. Yearly produce leafy and fruiting plants used for food in the morning. If you need to produce root crops or winter crushes then do this late in the day
- Although fertilizers are not good, fertilizers also help trees and plants to grow and produce more. when we see the plants need fertilizer then it is better to use all purpose naturally-living fertilizers. Use a naturally-living fertilizers that is made well off with micronutrients that shows the best results
- Use Natural Insect Control enlisting the aid of nature.
Gives Wildlife a Home:
Here is another example how does gardening help the environment? and the answer is that gardens and plants give a home to many living beings. Beneficial wildlife such as pollinators have their food from the plants that they need to live on.
Lifecycle of a tree moves from seed to young plant from seed to tree to trouble to going bad to dirt. Along with this footway, animals in natural conditions and other plants are depending on the trees. Trees and plants are not only used for food. Almost all the wildlife needs plants to live, survive and also for reproduction.
Many animals also use trees for resting, putting together and for places from which to chase. During times of extreme summers or heat days and raining, animals can get shade and keep safe under these trees and they will not stay away from their food source.
Bacteria and fungi within plants and tree parts cause decay that makes nesting easy for some birds and increases soil richness. Here is another reason why gardening and plants are important as there are many fruits and plants used for food you would grow in your garden.
Including sort of summer plant used for food, fruit of plant giving strong taste, tomatoes, and egg-plant, which produce more for you when bees and other bugs their flowers and after that these insects helps birds to feed and provide food to many other living beings.
As we know different types of wildlife depend on trees for food, water and shelter.
There are some wildlife for whom you can plant trees and create shelter and food for those wildlife habitats such as:
- American Robin
- Bald Eagle
- Burrowing Owl
- Great horned owl
- Northern Mockingbird
- Black Rat Snake
- California Red-legged frog
- Wood Frog
- Spotted Salamander
- Earthworms
- Walking Sticks
- American Beaver
- Raccoon
- Bats
- Bears
- Snowshoe hare
- Red Fox
Rooftop Gardens (Heat Island):
A vegetative layer grown on the roof of a house or building is called rooftop garden. Rooftop gardens help the general condition by generating less heat. Rooftop gardens give shade to the plants on the roof of the building and take away heat from the air, which decreases the temperature of the surface of the roof top and also the surrounding air.
As cities grow, they are constructing buildings in place of plants. These building materials make the whole building air tight and dry, that is a reason why big cities and their environment is heated up. This is named as heat island. There are so many reasons for UHIs. When houses, buildings and stores are made close to each other, it comes into existence as a UHI.
Building materials are usually considered very good at controlling or making separate heat but this phenomenon makes surrounding areas of these buildings warmer. Rooftop gardens are now considered the only solution to get rid of these crises. This is a simple, not hard, cheap way to get rid of a building’s energy consumption as well as giving help to a range of other benefits.
Things have been noticed that a building that has a rooftop garden can be 30–40°F cooler than a roof without a rooftop and can also decrease our environment’s temperature. We can make our environment nature-friendly By growing more plants and green spaces in our surroundings.
There are two types of rooftop gardens
- Intensive Green Roof
- Extensive Green Roof
1. Intensive Green Roof:
In intensive rooftop greening, a thick layer of soil, often several centimeters thick, is often placed on a flat roof. Intensive rooftop greening is mainly found in commercial buildings for commercial use.
Intensive roof gardens have another reason to produce food in the heart of a big city. The intense roof garden supports everything from low-rise home gardens to public parks.
Here are some examples of Intensive green roof
Cruise Ships:
The rooftop greening of a cruise ship can have a 5-inch profile. Rooftop greening features a 1-inch drainage layer containing a 4-inch growth medium.
Peggy Notebeart Museum:
The Peggy Notebeart Museum features a series of green roofs ranging from a sloped extensive green roof to an intensive green roof. The intensive portion, features a 2-10 inch drainage layer and a 2.5 to 8 inch growing media layer.
Chicago City Hall:
The Chicago City Hall green roof profile ranges from 4 inches to 2 feet in depth on a Geofoam landscape. This 20,300 square foot Chicago City Hall rooftop garden has over 20,000 herbaceous plants installed as plugs of more than 150 varieties including 100 woody shrubs, 40 vines and 2 trees.
2. Extensive Green Roof:
Extensive roofs widely used on trading, business like buildings where owners need to have greatly sized green areas that cover all types of plants in it. These roofs have grasses, flowers, round covers, and even trees.
The growing distance down for an extensive green roof system is 6 inches or less. Extensive green roofs are very easy to grown and are often added to currently in existence roofs.
The extensive green roof is the of a certain sort selection for house-owners, but if you are building a home you can have special rights more selections offered by the existing green roof because it is included in trees and plants, made less costs of additions of new parts a currently in existence structure.
Here are some examples of Extensive Green Roof
Bronx County Courthouse:
The Bronx County Courthouse features a 1 inch drainage layer with a 2.5-3 inch deep growing medium profile
Swarthmore College David Kemp Hall:
Swarthmore College David Kemp Hall green roof features a 1 inch drainage layer and a 3 inch growing media profile.
Dansko:
Dansko Headquarters green roof is a basic extensive system featured as 1 inch drainage layer and 3 inch growing medium profile.
In the end if we say nobody can imagine his/her life without plants and trees then this will not be false. Plants and gardening are basic parts of our environments and our own lives.
Gardens leave a better impact on our mental health as well as wildlife is totally dependent on plants and trees. We can save a lot of money by harvesting our vegetables and fruits and making our environment eco-friendly.
- Gardens and plants naturally cleans the air and ground.
- Plants keeps our living space and environment cooler and reduces the use of fossil fuels
- Planting trees and gardens reduces the noise pollution.
- Plants also provide shelter to insects and birds.
- Organic gardening provides you with healthy and fresh food full of nutritions.
- Gardening is a collective effort. Many small gardens in our community can make a huge difference in our surroundings.
