Everyone has a lawn, and the principles of regenerative agriculture work on it too
Ninety percent of the Earth’s precious topsoil is likely to be at risk by 2050, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. This is not 90 percent of farmland — this is 90 percent of all land, including home lawns. And practically everyone — even farmers themselves — has a patch of lawn they manage purely for aesthetic or leisure purposes.
At first glance, managing farmland and managing rural/suburban landscapes seem like completely different things. However, when you dig deeper, you will find that the core values of regenerative farmers and regenerative landscapers are closely aligned.
Ten years ago, when I set out to update our home landscape, there was one widely known process to create a beautiful weed-free landscape: cover the ground with weed fabric, cover that with a thick layer of mulch, and spray chemicals routinely. I knew this had to be wrong. The more I researched, the more it became clear just how damaging conventional practices are to all the living organisms in the soil. I found myself buying old, out-of-print books because they had the most valuable information to manage the land without chemicals. I started piecing together the best approaches, which eventually led me to regenerative agriculture.
The knowledge I learned from applying regenerative agriculture to my own landscape became a roadmap to start my business, Soil Shepherds Regenerative Landscaping. Regenerative practices require more labor up front but are more rewarding long term for homeowners, who are rewarded with lush, beautiful landscapes full of life, including birds, bees and butterflies.
When I share my experience with others, I always explain the key to success is applying the science and principles of regenerative agriculture to the unique needs of each landscape. Here’s are the six regenerative agriculture principles I use for home landscapes.
1. Use cover crops
Conventional landscapes vary by region but are typically comprised of evergreen shrubs planted symmetrically in beds with an abundance of wood mulch. This approach is in stark contrast with what occurs in nature, where plants quickly cover the ground.
Regenerative landscapes, meanwhile, mimic nature by covering the ground with closely planted native trees, shrubs and perennials. In nature, the ground is always covered — either you pick the plant or nature will. This is where regenerative landscapers have an advantage over farmers when it comes to using cover crops, due to our smaller footprint, averaging 1/3 acre, or 0.07% of the average 450-acre farm. Homeowners can use plugs planted approximately one foot apart to cover the ground more quickly than seeds. The quicker the ground is covered with plants, the fewer weeds will germinate.
2. Apply smart mulch
Cover crops are a form of living mulch, but mulch deserves its own section because it is often used improperly in the home landscape. Homeowners typically use mulch to achieve a neat, sterile appearance and to cover weed fabric that prevents weeds from using sunlight to grow. The most commonly used mulch in southeast Pennsylvania, where I live, is a black-dyed mulch made from recycled wood pallets coated with a carbon-black dye. The dye is made from oil heated to high temperatures, turning it into a black, flaky powder. Carbon-black is typically used in materials such as tires, belts, videos and electric motors, and as a pigment it is used as toner for paper copiers and printers, inks for newspapers and dark-colored paints — and in black-dyed mulch. Looking at this list, which of these doesn’t belong as a covering for living organisms?
The first step in selecting a mulch is to educate homeowners about the reasons for using mulch. The top three benefits are:
- Wood mulch insulates the soil, so it stays cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter, allowing the microbes in the soil to stay active longer.
- Fewer weed seeds germinate because they need sunlight to grow, providing valuable time for new plants to grow without competition.
- Nutrients are added to the soil along with organic matter as the wood mulch decays.
Our long-term goal is for plants to cover the ground and to become a living mulch. In the short term, though, we use a non-dyed, triple shredded bark mulch to capitalize on all the benefits of wood mulch.
3. Amend the soil
As a starting point, most homeowners’ soil is as poor, or worse, than most farmers’. I’m not aware of any studies to prove this theory, so I’ll just share my observations. New home construction involves large-scale excavation for the foundation and to ensure the ground slopes away from the home. Any quality topsoil is buried or hauled away, so homeowners start with poor subsoil. Pre-existing homes have the same problem as farms, since conventional land management practices that have caused deterioration of soil health.
Take the weed-and-feed model typically used in lawns. It’s so simple, anyone can implement it without prior experience. Simply apply pre-emergents to reduce weed germination in the spring, along with fertilizers throughout the year, and apply chemicals to kill weeds as needed. This leads to the neat and tidy appearance that many homeowners appreciate.
Unfortunately, nature prefers wild and messy over neat and tidy. The desire for clean, sterile yards further starves the land by removing valuable organic matter in the form of grass clippings, fallen leaves and shrub trimmings. Regenerative landscapers see the value in organic material and look for ways to recycle the nutrients back to the land by leaving grass clippings, shredding leaves and implementing composting systems so nothing goes to waste.
Capitalize on the homeowner’s smaller footprint and use high-quality organic compost to amend the soil. On the lawn we apply a half inch topdressing of compost along with grass seed in the fall, which does wonders to the lawn. In the landscape, we apply a thick topdressing covered with a light layer of triple-shredded wood mulch to ensure our compost does not wash away.
4. Minimize soil disturbance
Farmers and landscapers are obviously for-profit professions. Our livelihood depends on our ability to manage the land efficiently, so there is an appeal to using large-scale equipment to clear the land and till the soil. Regenerative land managers understand that convenience comes at a price. Farmers are faced with this challenge every time they sow seed. Landscapers, on the other hand, have an advantage, since planting perennials is a one-time event.
Here’s what I believe to be the most harmful soil management practice that takes place in home landscapes: core aeration, the process of removing small plugs of soil from the ground. This barbaric practice is intended to reduce soil compaction and to allow air and fertilizer to access the root zone easier. Sadly, the reality is that the conventional weed-and-feed model is so damaging to the soil that it causes the need for processes like core aeration. The high amounts of nitrogen applied to keep lawns green throughout the year kills or drives away the beneficial living organisms like worms that would aerate a healthy lawn for free. Core aeration is a form of tilling that releases stored carbon into the air. This practice contradicts regenerative farming practices. Better results can be achieved by not removing the plugs and topdressing with compost.
5. Provide plant diversity
I believe plant diversity in home landscapes is changing for the better. As a teenager, I worked for a landscaper and we planted evergreen shrubs surrounded by large areas of mulch, surrounded by larger seas of grass. These days, more homeowners are allowing nature to curate their lawns free from chemicals. There is a growing trend to help nature — and the birds and the bees — by planting native trees, shrubs and perennials. Fortunately, each year more nurseries add native plants so landscapers can mix and match, providing endless combinations for homeowners to add diversity to their homes.
The challenge with plant selection is knowing which of the hundreds of available plants you should select for the various conditions around your home. Developing this expertise is not just about experience and skill — it’s truly an art. Great artists know their subjects, and the same applies to landscape design. Do they prefer to live in full sun or part shade? Do they like wet feet or prefer dry, sandy conditions? Will they grow up to be tall or short and broad? These are just the basics. Other important considerations include identifying species that are native to your area. Do they keep their leaves in the winter, and do deer or rabbits want to eat them? These are some considerations we use to select the plants that will thrive. Each spring we purchase thousands of plugs and plant them closely together to mimic nature.
6. Smart, weed-free design
I intentionally merge “design” with “weed-free” because all homeowners have at least three goals: they want a landscape that looks beautiful, is low maintenance, and is free of weeds. The “free of weeds’” goal is one that any skill level can accomplish with the spray of chemicals. But not everyone can identify and change the conditions that cause weed seeds to germinate. Applying one or more of the regenerative principles can reduce, or change, the weed seeds that germinate. If your goal is to prevent weed seeds from germinating, then you must integrate all the regenerative principles into one design that a homeowner can easily understand.
The need for a design that incorporates all these principles is one of the challenges that regenerative landscapers face because it adds expense that customers are not used to paying for with conventional landscapes. Conventional landscapers select plants from a small list of evergreen shrubs and perennials that all grow to similar sizes and are readily available from multiple nurseries. As a result, conventional designs can be quickly created with little cost.
The regenerative landscape plans we provide, however, include three important categories.
- Key observations: We highlight erosion concerns, weed details and unsustainable landscape solutions, like using river rock for drainage or damaging practices that pile mulch around tree trunks (aka, volcano mulch).
- Design: The design starts with a scaled drawing of the area, including existing plants and new plants at their mature size. Additional functional diagrams are used as needed to illustrate drainage solutions, watering plans for maintenance and detail of complex areas.
- Plant details: The last section is one page for each plant, including plant preferences, mature size, deer damage rating, toxicity to pets, bloom time and pictures of plants, so customers know what to expect.
Land managers’ actions, whether on farms or residential landscapes, impact other living organisms on the planet. Nature doesn’t recognize property lines or manmade borders. Butterflies, birds and bees fly freely from property to property irrespective of human intentions. It’s important for all regenerative land managers to share our work with each other as inspiration and education.
Tim Sheppard is the owner of Soil Shepherds Regenerative Landscaping in Avondale, Pennsylvania. Learn more at soilshepherds.com or @soilshepherds on YouTube.
