Sustainable Landscaping
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Sustainable Landscaping --- Habitats for Living
Dr. M. Loehrlein
Professor of Horticulture
-School of Agriculture-
Western Illinois University
Professor of Horticulture
-School of Agriculture-
Western Illinois University
TO PLANT OR NOT?
Dr. Mari Loehrlein - Professor of Horticulture - School of Agriculture - Western Illinois University Macomb, IL 61455
It seems so simple – to offset your carbon footprint, plant trees! Trees fix carbon, and carbon emissions are wreaking havoc with the global climate. According to the Carbon Fund organization, a single American’s carbon footprint is about 24 tons per year. Since I’ve planted at least 50 trees in the past four years or so in my own yard, I figure I’m doing pretty well.
Once upon a time, I even contributed to an organization so they could plant trees to help offset my carbon footprint. I was feeling pretty good (read: smug). My carbon footprint must be somewhere close to zero at this point.
But then, I got some bad news about the practice of planting trees to reduce carbon. I learned that to offset current carbon emissions, we’d have to plant enough trees to cover an area the size of Spain. Every year. And not ever cut them down. There’s another problem, too. Trees that are planted in temperate climates have a warming effect of their own by trapping solar radiation under their canopy. To put it in the words of ecologist Govindasamy Bala, “in the mid-latitude region where the United States and the majority of European countries are located, the climate benefits of planting will be nearly zero”.
Well, at least trees planted in tropical areas can help offset carbon emissions, right? Well, maybe. Scientists have been looking at the limiting factors involved in carbon uptake and plant growth and have learned that nitrogen is a big limiting factor. If trees don’t have adequate nitrogen, they can’t grow, and therefore, they aren’t going to take up extra carbon dioxide, no matter how much is available.
The news just gets more depressing. In some areas, people are planting invasive tree species in an all-out effort to receive money for planting trees. Alien eucalyptuses planted in Brazil are credited with wiping out fish and wildlife, polluting air and water, and drying up streams and swamps. Specially-planted trees in many areas, including South Africa, Australia, Europe and Asia, are removing much-needed water from the local supply.
Does all of this mean that we shouldn’t be planting trees? The answer is: it depends on your desired outcome. Trees can still help reduce carbon emissions somewhat, although mostly they provide only temporary carbon storage. They also provide wildlife habitat and plant diversity, both of which are valuable resources – if they are planted in the correct manner as part of the existing ecosystem.
Trees can help shade the home and protect from winter winds, thus reducing the energy required for cooling and heating. One estimate is that the potential carbon avoidance from planting trees in energy conserving locations could be as high as four times greater than the carbon storage of trees alone. If your house is in an open area, then a windbreak is certainly recommended.
However, if its carbon reduction you want, then planting trees is not the answer.
BEANS, THE MUSICAL FRUIT
Dr. Mari Loehrlein - Professor of Horticulture - School of Agriculture - Western Illinois University Macomb, IL 61455
Are tough economic times hitting you hard in the wallet? Does the state of the global climate have you concerned? Are you more than a few pounds overweight? If you answered yes to any of those questions, it is just possible that the lowly bean can help with what ails you.
Beans are the Rodney Dangerfield of the food world. They don’t get any respect. They are even referred to as the “musical fruit”, a reference to the inability of our digestion system to break down the enzyme raffinose, found in beans and a few other vegetables.
When people look around for inexpensive food, they often think of the drive-through window at a local burger place. A quick check on www.nutritiondata.com reveals that a quarter-pound hamburger has 12 grams of protein, 280 calories, and 2 grams of fiber. Such a burger costs around $3.00. By comparison, a serving of Tex-Mex pinto beans has 15 grams of protein, 200 calories, and 16 grams fiber. Cost for all the ingredients in this dish is around $0.50 per serving. If it’s convenience you want, a large chili at one fast-food restaurant costs under $3.00, and has 25 grams of protein, 330 calories, and 8 grams of fiber.
This points up a couple of the more obvious advantages of beans: they cost less while providing an equivalent amount of protein, and they have a lot more fiber – around half the recommended daily amount in one serving.
Anyone who has adopted the practice of eating beans for breakfast can attest to the fact that beans are filling. From black beans and rice, the national dish of Costa Rica, to Mudammas (fava beans) throughout the Middle East, people the world over have discovered that beans can carry you well into the day. Maybe it’s the high level of carbohydrates they provide. There are 49 grams of carbs in that serving of Tex-Mex beans.
There is one other advantage to beans that isn’t always so obvious, and that is the acreage required to produce them, compared to another major source of protein in our diets: meat. According to Frances Moore Lappé, author of “Diet for a Small Planet”, “cows must be fed 21 pounds of protein in order to provide 1 pound of protein for humans.” She goes on to say that “an acre of legumes (beans) can produce ten times more protein than an acre devoted to meat production”.
However, a study done at Cornell University looks more closely at the balance of fat and protein in the diet, and compares the land available for growing meat and vegetables. Christian Peters, lead author of the research, found that a vegetarian diet is not the most efficient in terms of land use. The reason for this is that fruits, grains, and vegetables require higher quality land than pasture and hay that feeds ruminant animals that in turn provide meat and dairy products.
The Cornell researchers concluded that "The key to conserving land and other resources with our diets is to limit the amount of meat we eat and for farmers to rely more on grazing and forages to feed their livestock".
Even in light of the Cornell research, one must recognize that beef production is a far greater consumer of energy than vegetables – using sixteen times as much gasoline to produce an equivalent amount of food, while generating 24 times the amount of carbon dioxide emissions. This does not account for the methane or nitrous oxide emitted by cows and their manure. Pamela Martin of the University of Chicago and Gidon Eshel of the Bard Center for Environmental Policy suggest that if Americans would reduce their meat consumption by 20%, it would be the equivalent of everyone switching from driving a sedan like a Toyota Camry to the fuel-efficient hybrid Toyota Prius.
So, the next time you enjoy a plate of Tex-Mex beans, deliciously topped off with cheddar-jack cheese, consider that you are not only protecting your pocketbook and trimming your waistline, but you are also doing your small part in saving the planet. Call it reducing your protein footprint.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IS THERE A GREEN ROOF IN YOUR FUTURE?
Dr. Mari Loehrlein - Professor of Horticulture - School of Agriculture - Western Illinois University Macomb, IL 61455
Millenium Park, Chicago. The largest green roof in the world.
November 20, 2009
Green roofs are sprouting up everywhere. And I’m not talking about the color of the shingles! Upon hearing the phrase “green roof”, some people imagine a lush rooftop garden, complete with towering trees, blooming vines, a blanket of flowers - and themselves, reclining in a chaise longue enjoying a tall glass of iced tea.
What many people do not know is that green roof technology began developing in recent years – since the 1960s - under German engineering and ingenuity as a response to storm water runoff. Since then it has spread to other countries in Europe and North America, and beyond.
The Green Roofs for Healthy Cities organization (www.greenroofs.org) hosts conferences and gives out awards for research, design, and for contributions to the green roof industry through policy. Chicago is a leader among cities having green roofs, with over 500 permitted green roofs within city limits at the current time.
The city of Toronto recently passed a green roof law that mandates 20%-60% of the area of a roof be “green” on new buildings of 2,000 square meters or larger. While the idea began with a desire to reduce storm water runoff, the practice is now known to extend the life of rubber roofing membranes by 25 years or more, plus it adds to the insulating value of the roof.
Savings on summer cooling bills are a noteworthy side-effect. The Peggy Notabaert Center in Chicago has prairie plants, a small wetland, and in one area, an oak tree. Granted, the tree is not much more than a large bonsai and will certainly never grow to be a champion specimen, but what can you expect for a mere 8 inches of soil?
The typical green roof can have as little as 2 to 4 inches of soil, and the best plants for surviving rooftop conditions have proven to be those succulent plants, the sedums, or stonecrops. Not the big, showy Sedum spectabile, either, but the low-growing rock-garden variety of sedums. While these low-growing plants don’t provide the lush, brightly colored flower garden people may expect, they are beautiful - in their own way.
To survive well in a rooftop environment, a plant must be drought tolerant and must be able to tolerate very cold to very hot temperatures. Many owners of green roofs, including the new Wal-Mart inside Chicago city limits, report that the rain usually doesn’t begin running off the roof for an hour or more after it starts raining.
The second-story green roof at the Quaker Oats Building in Chicago has a large area covered by turf, certainly a sight for sore eyes to the office workers located above it. Most roofs wouldn’t be able to accommodate mower storage. The rest of the Quaker Oats green roof is planted in prairie plants that are contained in concrete planter beds around the perimeter. You can walk around up there, on top of the second floor. But, again, most green roofs wouldn’t accommodate foot traffic, either. Chicago’s Wal-Mart is designed to hold 125 pounds per square foot, but the average home is only designed for 40 pounds per square foot.
Green roofs usually have a low slope of 16-25%, whereas the usual slope on a residence can range anywhere from 25 to 60%. Because of their color, green roofs can help reduce the urban heat island effect. Proponents also point out the carbon-fixing ability of plants as a benefit.
With all the special requirements, most residential buildings won’t have green roofs installed any time soon, but perhaps new construction will be planned to accommodate more of them in the near future.
So, heads-up! A rooftop near you may be sprouting soon.
Dr. Mari Loehrlein - Professor of Horticulture - School of Agriculture - Western Illinois University Macomb, IL 61455
It seems so simple – to offset your carbon footprint, plant trees! Trees fix carbon, and carbon emissions are wreaking havoc with the global climate. According to the Carbon Fund organization, a single American’s carbon footprint is about 24 tons per year. Since I’ve planted at least 50 trees in the past four years or so in my own yard, I figure I’m doing pretty well.
Once upon a time, I even contributed to an organization so they could plant trees to help offset my carbon footprint. I was feeling pretty good (read: smug). My carbon footprint must be somewhere close to zero at this point.
But then, I got some bad news about the practice of planting trees to reduce carbon. I learned that to offset current carbon emissions, we’d have to plant enough trees to cover an area the size of Spain. Every year. And not ever cut them down. There’s another problem, too. Trees that are planted in temperate climates have a warming effect of their own by trapping solar radiation under their canopy. To put it in the words of ecologist Govindasamy Bala, “in the mid-latitude region where the United States and the majority of European countries are located, the climate benefits of planting will be nearly zero”.
Well, at least trees planted in tropical areas can help offset carbon emissions, right? Well, maybe. Scientists have been looking at the limiting factors involved in carbon uptake and plant growth and have learned that nitrogen is a big limiting factor. If trees don’t have adequate nitrogen, they can’t grow, and therefore, they aren’t going to take up extra carbon dioxide, no matter how much is available.
The news just gets more depressing. In some areas, people are planting invasive tree species in an all-out effort to receive money for planting trees. Alien eucalyptuses planted in Brazil are credited with wiping out fish and wildlife, polluting air and water, and drying up streams and swamps. Specially-planted trees in many areas, including South Africa, Australia, Europe and Asia, are removing much-needed water from the local supply.
Does all of this mean that we shouldn’t be planting trees? The answer is: it depends on your desired outcome. Trees can still help reduce carbon emissions somewhat, although mostly they provide only temporary carbon storage. They also provide wildlife habitat and plant diversity, both of which are valuable resources – if they are planted in the correct manner as part of the existing ecosystem.
Trees can help shade the home and protect from winter winds, thus reducing the energy required for cooling and heating. One estimate is that the potential carbon avoidance from planting trees in energy conserving locations could be as high as four times greater than the carbon storage of trees alone. If your house is in an open area, then a windbreak is certainly recommended.
However, if its carbon reduction you want, then planting trees is not the answer.
BEANS, THE MUSICAL FRUIT
Dr. Mari Loehrlein - Professor of Horticulture - School of Agriculture - Western Illinois University Macomb, IL 61455
Are tough economic times hitting you hard in the wallet? Does the state of the global climate have you concerned? Are you more than a few pounds overweight? If you answered yes to any of those questions, it is just possible that the lowly bean can help with what ails you.
Beans are the Rodney Dangerfield of the food world. They don’t get any respect. They are even referred to as the “musical fruit”, a reference to the inability of our digestion system to break down the enzyme raffinose, found in beans and a few other vegetables.
When people look around for inexpensive food, they often think of the drive-through window at a local burger place. A quick check on www.nutritiondata.com reveals that a quarter-pound hamburger has 12 grams of protein, 280 calories, and 2 grams of fiber. Such a burger costs around $3.00. By comparison, a serving of Tex-Mex pinto beans has 15 grams of protein, 200 calories, and 16 grams fiber. Cost for all the ingredients in this dish is around $0.50 per serving. If it’s convenience you want, a large chili at one fast-food restaurant costs under $3.00, and has 25 grams of protein, 330 calories, and 8 grams of fiber.
This points up a couple of the more obvious advantages of beans: they cost less while providing an equivalent amount of protein, and they have a lot more fiber – around half the recommended daily amount in one serving.
Anyone who has adopted the practice of eating beans for breakfast can attest to the fact that beans are filling. From black beans and rice, the national dish of Costa Rica, to Mudammas (fava beans) throughout the Middle East, people the world over have discovered that beans can carry you well into the day. Maybe it’s the high level of carbohydrates they provide. There are 49 grams of carbs in that serving of Tex-Mex beans.
There is one other advantage to beans that isn’t always so obvious, and that is the acreage required to produce them, compared to another major source of protein in our diets: meat. According to Frances Moore Lappé, author of “Diet for a Small Planet”, “cows must be fed 21 pounds of protein in order to provide 1 pound of protein for humans.” She goes on to say that “an acre of legumes (beans) can produce ten times more protein than an acre devoted to meat production”.
However, a study done at Cornell University looks more closely at the balance of fat and protein in the diet, and compares the land available for growing meat and vegetables. Christian Peters, lead author of the research, found that a vegetarian diet is not the most efficient in terms of land use. The reason for this is that fruits, grains, and vegetables require higher quality land than pasture and hay that feeds ruminant animals that in turn provide meat and dairy products.
The Cornell researchers concluded that "The key to conserving land and other resources with our diets is to limit the amount of meat we eat and for farmers to rely more on grazing and forages to feed their livestock".
Even in light of the Cornell research, one must recognize that beef production is a far greater consumer of energy than vegetables – using sixteen times as much gasoline to produce an equivalent amount of food, while generating 24 times the amount of carbon dioxide emissions. This does not account for the methane or nitrous oxide emitted by cows and their manure. Pamela Martin of the University of Chicago and Gidon Eshel of the Bard Center for Environmental Policy suggest that if Americans would reduce their meat consumption by 20%, it would be the equivalent of everyone switching from driving a sedan like a Toyota Camry to the fuel-efficient hybrid Toyota Prius.
So, the next time you enjoy a plate of Tex-Mex beans, deliciously topped off with cheddar-jack cheese, consider that you are not only protecting your pocketbook and trimming your waistline, but you are also doing your small part in saving the planet. Call it reducing your protein footprint.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IS THERE A GREEN ROOF IN YOUR FUTURE?
Dr. Mari Loehrlein - Professor of Horticulture - School of Agriculture - Western Illinois University Macomb, IL 61455
Millenium Park, Chicago. The largest green roof in the world.
November 20, 2009
Green roofs are sprouting up everywhere. And I’m not talking about the color of the shingles! Upon hearing the phrase “green roof”, some people imagine a lush rooftop garden, complete with towering trees, blooming vines, a blanket of flowers - and themselves, reclining in a chaise longue enjoying a tall glass of iced tea.
What many people do not know is that green roof technology began developing in recent years – since the 1960s - under German engineering and ingenuity as a response to storm water runoff. Since then it has spread to other countries in Europe and North America, and beyond.
The Green Roofs for Healthy Cities organization (www.greenroofs.org) hosts conferences and gives out awards for research, design, and for contributions to the green roof industry through policy. Chicago is a leader among cities having green roofs, with over 500 permitted green roofs within city limits at the current time.
The city of Toronto recently passed a green roof law that mandates 20%-60% of the area of a roof be “green” on new buildings of 2,000 square meters or larger. While the idea began with a desire to reduce storm water runoff, the practice is now known to extend the life of rubber roofing membranes by 25 years or more, plus it adds to the insulating value of the roof.
Savings on summer cooling bills are a noteworthy side-effect. The Peggy Notabaert Center in Chicago has prairie plants, a small wetland, and in one area, an oak tree. Granted, the tree is not much more than a large bonsai and will certainly never grow to be a champion specimen, but what can you expect for a mere 8 inches of soil?
The typical green roof can have as little as 2 to 4 inches of soil, and the best plants for surviving rooftop conditions have proven to be those succulent plants, the sedums, or stonecrops. Not the big, showy Sedum spectabile, either, but the low-growing rock-garden variety of sedums. While these low-growing plants don’t provide the lush, brightly colored flower garden people may expect, they are beautiful - in their own way.
To survive well in a rooftop environment, a plant must be drought tolerant and must be able to tolerate very cold to very hot temperatures. Many owners of green roofs, including the new Wal-Mart inside Chicago city limits, report that the rain usually doesn’t begin running off the roof for an hour or more after it starts raining.
The second-story green roof at the Quaker Oats Building in Chicago has a large area covered by turf, certainly a sight for sore eyes to the office workers located above it. Most roofs wouldn’t be able to accommodate mower storage. The rest of the Quaker Oats green roof is planted in prairie plants that are contained in concrete planter beds around the perimeter. You can walk around up there, on top of the second floor. But, again, most green roofs wouldn’t accommodate foot traffic, either. Chicago’s Wal-Mart is designed to hold 125 pounds per square foot, but the average home is only designed for 40 pounds per square foot.
Green roofs usually have a low slope of 16-25%, whereas the usual slope on a residence can range anywhere from 25 to 60%. Because of their color, green roofs can help reduce the urban heat island effect. Proponents also point out the carbon-fixing ability of plants as a benefit.
With all the special requirements, most residential buildings won’t have green roofs installed any time soon, but perhaps new construction will be planned to accommodate more of them in the near future.
So, heads-up! A rooftop near you may be sprouting soon.
My backyard habitat in Macomb, IL.
