Brown and Green Look Good Together, and Make Sense Ecologically
To build a rich, living landscape for wildlife and water quality, some of us need to "Bring in the Brown" (i.e., wood chips and/or leaves)
This is the view from my back door in Kentucky. Allow me to explain how wood chips and leaves created an easy way for me to have an ecological backyard, one that conserves water and provides habitat for wildlife, while being reasonably attractive.
If I could wave a magic wand, I would like to see more of us grow more green matter in our landscapes. If we would just let things grow, then our landscape would absorb more rainfall and provide more habitat for wildlife.
But two problems arise. One is visual appeal. We want a landscape that is visually appealing to ourselves, our neighbors and our guests.
The other problem is weeds.
As for visual appeal, we want a look that is not completely wild or unkempt. We should be ready to tolerate more wildness, in my opinion. But humans need to see a little bit of order and a little bit of design. The eye needs to see something that makes sense and is not too busy.
As for weeds, we could stand to ease up just a bit in what we consider to be a weed.
“Weeds” include native trees, bushes, vines and ground cover that provide abundant food, water and nesting materials for wildlife. But weeds can also include invasive vines and grasses that we need to control.
HOW TO CONTROL WEEDS WHILE CREATING VISUAL APPEAL
In my context, wood chips and leaves are a solution to both problems: How to provide for visual appeal, while controlling weeds.
Most of the brown in this picture is a trail of wood chips. The trail makes my backyard landscape seem orderly and sensible. It gives the eye something to do. Not pictured here are all the places where I have laid down 3-5 inches of wood chips for mulch, i.e., weed control and moisture retention.
BROWN AND GREEN
I have become enamored with the contrast between brown and green. Both for aesthetic purposes and for ecological purposes, I seek to strike a balance between the brown and the green.
Green means plants, of course. And nothing is better for the soil than green plants. They pump carbon into the ground, and they jump start the soil food web.
The soil food web virtually defines healthy soil. Good soil is an ecosystem that includes bacteria, fungi, protozoa (amebae, flagellates and ciliates), nematodes (microscopic worms) and microarthropods (small insect like creatures, including mites and springtails).
This soil food web defines healthy soil, because without it, all you have is lifeless dirt that is no good for plants. Plants orchestrate and establish the soil food web by taking carbon out of the air and offering it in the form of sugars (CARBO-hydrates), which cause the bacteria and fungi to come running for “cake and cookies,” in the words of famed soil scientist Dr. Elaine Ingham.
So … every ecological landscape needs an abundance of GREEN plants. But the green plants need an assist from BROWN organic matter, like wood chips and leaves.
Brown organic matter like wood chips and leaves give you control over weeds. In my landscape, common violets and Virginia creeper (both pictured here), are good weeds, very beneficial ecologically. Burdensome weeds include vines like wintercreeper and Japanese honeysuckle, as well as aggressive grasses, like fescue and Kentucky bluegrass.
When these burdensome weeds threaten to dominate, I just throw wood chips on top of them. If they fight their way through the wood chips, I can throw more wood chips on top, or I can pull them, which is easier if they have to compete with wood chips.
The result has been that I have more and more of the desirable weeds and less and less of the undesirable ones.
MOISTURE CONTROL AND FUNGI
MEANWHILE … the wood chips provide great moisture control, such that my landscape is wet even when it has not rained. And wood chips are food for fungi. They attract fungi, which in turn contribute to a robust soil food web, which tends to control weeds and pathogens.
The moral of the story is … Balance the brown and the green in your landscape. Bring in the Brown and Grow the Green, for wildlife, for water quality and for aesthetic appeal.