Beyond beauty
The not for profit organization Communities in Bloom has a problem. Many people look at what they do and assume that they merely encourage beautification of communities across Canada. The truth is so much more interesting.
There is much more to plants than their beauty. Here is what we value most about plants:
1. Curb Appeal: A well landscaped house is more valuable. It is important to make a good first (and second) impression.
What a creative garden design and a well-maintained landscape says about the house and the home owners is that they care. Like a well-designed logo or masthead where good graphics say a lot about the standards of the company, your front yard does the same.
2. Tree huggers: Studies prove that well placed, mature street trees slow traffic down.
Planted around your home they can slow you down too, encouraging you to sit more, absorb their cool shade, reduce air conditioning costs, filter toxins out of rain water, slow rain run-off and generally improve the quality of life in your immediate out-of-doors. Other than that, they are nothing special.
3. Food: Remember, most Canadian cities were settled for their proximity to good farmland. As they sprawled, those fields became backyards. It’s amazing how much you can produce in a small to medium sized yard: Vegetables, berries, herbs and some fruits are obvious choices.
However, there are some edibles that you may overlook.
Crabapples, if you add enough sugar. Dandelions for salad greens or making bad tasting wine (our opinion).
There is a whole movement across the country of embracing foraging. In any case, the value of the food that your garden can produce is often overlooked.
4. Good bugs: 99% of bugs are not invasive or measurably damaging to your garden.
Good bugs are encouraged when you design native plants into our garden scheme.
Even some non-natives are effective at attracting pollinating bugs and seed foraging song birds. Look for pollen-rich flowering plants when you shop.
We need to encourage pollinators as they help produce up to 30% of what we eat.
5. Health and Wellness: We have written much in past columns about the health benefits of plants and garden activity. Here is a reminder that kids love plants and need them as a distraction from electronics.
LEED building standards are teaching us that incorporating plants creates biophilia in humans. Biophilia is our attraction to other forms of life. Green plants in an office boosts productivity and helps to create a calm work environment.
6. Social interaction: Imagine two people chatting over a fence. What are they talking about?
We will never know, but what brought them together in the first place likely had something to do with their properties, more specifically, their lawn or garden. Questions are answered about how to get the greenest lawn on the block, the earliest tomato, the biggest blossoms.
Those two people having a conversation over the fence are a metaphor for the many links between neighbours. They are an essential part of community-building.
7. Oxygen: All the oxygen we breath comes from the green, living world around us. Try living without them. It is true that a hanging basket dripping with colour emotes certain feelings within us, all good.
With something this good looking, it is easy to forget that it has many attributes that extend beyond esthetics. As we enter a new season, this is a reminder that there is more to life than mere beauty.
Even in the garden. Communities in Bloom describes themselves as “focused on environmental stewardship through enhancement of green spaces” and is a great place to start if you are looking for ways to promote these benefits in your own community.
Visit www.communitiesinbloom. ca and find how out you can get involved.