Your Guide To Green

Our friend, colleague and Green Landscaper extraordinaire, Kristen Battafarano, responded to “Yahoo Answers� when Penelope Cruz asked, “What are some inexpensive tips to turn my house green? Her response was so well done we requested permission to share it with you!

There are so many ways!

I'll start outdoors, because that's where I make my living designing "green" landscapes! Outdoor living spaces in temperate locations are truly... well... decadent. Find a landscape designer or architect who knows green lingo, and uses words like "passive solar gain", "sustainability", "xeriscaping" and "permaculture". If you want the challenge of doing-it-yourself, visit your county's agricultural extension office (this is usually managed by a university in your state).

Use native plants, which grow easily with very little maintenance. It's their home - they're adapted! If you live in a hot climate, shade south-facing windows by planting deciduous trees in front to shade them in the summer and let in light in the winter. This is one way to take advantage of "passive solar gain". Also, plant tall trees on the west side of the house to shade it from the hot, western sun.

Minimize or replace your lawn with ground covers that don't require mowing, like clover, dichondra, and lippia, or put down wood chips from a local tree-trimmer. You wouldn't believe the waste involved in keeping up green lawns, especially in areas where lawns are not native (like the Southwest). Lawn mowers use gas, cut grass is usually transported to a dump (more gas), and the petroleum-based chemicals used to maintain a lawn are not environmentally friendly in their manufacturing, use or disposal. And don’t get me started on all the water they require.

Well OK I’ll get started…investigate using "greywater" to water your landscape. This can be as easy as setting up your shower outside with the hose hung over a tree branch! Talk about decadent! Or you can get a lot more technical and replumb your house. As a general rule though you don’t want to store greywater - it is best to put it directly in the ground where it will be added back to the water table and used by plants. Plus rainwater harvesting systems are easy to install and understand. As a general rule if you have 1000 square feet of collection space (roof, driveway, tennis court) for each inch of rain you get you can collect 600 gallons of rainwater. That is enough to grow some significant trees even in the desert.

Replace the concrete around your home, as much as possible, with green and brown: plants and mulch. Concrete creates a heat-sink holding the heat during the day and releasing it at night. This is called the heat-island effect. In Phoenix, where I live, the temperatures get to well over 100 degrees regularly. Over the past 20 years, with the significant impact of the heat island, our nighttime temperatures are 10 degrees hotter at night. You would be amazed at how using plants properly can affect the ambient temperature around your house. This means you'll use less energy to heat and cool your home, and have a comfortable space to enjoy outside as well. I could go on and on just about the outside of your home, but let's step inside.

Indoors, you can start by: replacing regular light bulbs with compact fluorescent or LED light bulbs, hanging laundry out to dry, covering your water heater with an insulative blanket and installing recycled blue-jean or cellulose insulation in your attic.

When it's time to replace appliances, look for the Energy Star logo for more energy efficient appliances. If you can't afford dual paned windows, choose insulative window coverings like those with "cellular" or multiple layer construction. Choose a digital, programmable thermostat for your home heating/cooling system so you can set it to work less when you aren't home.

When remodeling use green products, which are low in toxicity (during production, use and disposal), and are locally manufactured instead of being quarried somewhere and carried across oceans (keeps transportation impact down). Better yet, keep what you have and just fix it up! Repaint, refinish, embellish! There are a lot of green products on the market now - even for stripping and staining old finishes. Also check out American Clay paints and wall finishes. Yep clay. It's gorgeous! Think modern Venetian plaster.

If your carpet is worn out or dirty check out the concrete underneath! One of the easiest ways to green your floor is to simply stain the concrete foundation in your home. There are soy-based stains and sealers, but the muriatic acid stains are still better than the petroleum-based glues and binders in other types of flooring. Floor stain is beautiful, comes in almost any color you can think of, and can be scored to look like pieces of stone or tile. Concrete counter tops are beautiful as well.

For a softer flooring check out Marmoleum. It's inexpensive, maintenance free, and comfortable under your feet. There are slightly more expensive options, like bamboo and cork. So have fun going greener!

Kristen Battafarano has had been passionate about environmental issues since her first environmental science course in 1990 at Northern Arizona University. She graduated two years later with a Bachelors degree in Fine Arts, and an unfulfilled desire to do something of importance about preserving the diversity and health of life on planet earth. In 1996, she put her hands into the soil of an organic farm, and has had dirt on her hands ever since.