What is ecological horticulture?

Horticulture is the art or practice of garden cultivation and management. The mulched beds in your landscape can be considered small gardens. Ecological horticulture is simply horticulture through the lens of ecology. Ecology being the study of the relationships among living organisms, (including us), and their environment.

When we landscape our properties using ecological horticulture, instead of just plopping in plants with a pretty flower or other eye-catching feature we consider how the plants relate to the world outside of our property lines. What can the plants we choose offer our local environment? (e.g. food for pollinators, ecosystem services, etc. ) How will they relate to the soil we put them in? Instead of amending soil to suit a plant that wouldn’t thrive otherwise we can choose to use plants that will likely thrive in the existing soil. You’d be surprised how many of our native plants can thrive in lean, sandy soils! Do you have marine clay soil? You can find plants that will do well in that also, like our native Iris. Iris versicolor

Luckily, many of our native plants are stunningly beautiful. But in addition to providing us wonderful moments in the garden the plants are also offering an important part of the solution to some of our current environmental crises.

Another benefit of using our native plants is that many of them are very adaptable. Once established they can survive with minimal inputs like water & fertilizer. In fact you can forget fertilizing in general when putting plants in conditions that favor them. Plants in conditions they enjoy can pull all of what they need from the soil.

Have you heard the term ‘'work smarter not harder’? Ecological horticulture is a richly rewarding way to do it.