Tuesday 15 November 2011

Sustainble living and going green

With the new office open in Wellington New Zealand, House and Garden Design, as a division of Greenstone Design UK Ltd, is rethinking 'going green'. In New Zealand native planting has been trendy for some years. People choose natives not for their green credential so much as their easy care, low maintenance, good looks. This is true of native planting wherever you live.

Sustainable living is all about living more lightly on the earth. We need to use fewer resources if we are to manage a One Planet Living lifestyle in our lifetimes. This means that we need to choose how we design our homes and gardens carefully. Locally sourced materials, local labour, native planting suitable to our soil and climate all make a difference.

When we go green we need less fertiliser, less watering, less additives, less effort from us as the plants like the soil we have, as it is. An annual mulch of home-grown compost will provide all the additional nutrients the soil needs to stay healthy.

This is not to say that all exotic plants are bad, or that we must not water our gardens. The trick, as with all things, is to find the right balance. House and Garden Design.com explores the benefits of balance in our lives, and the potential for our homes and gardens to nuture us more fully.

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