Creating a Sustainable Water Smart Landscape With SPV Soils’ Grower’s Mulch!
by Craig Kolodge Ph.D. (aka Dr. K)
Did you know that creating a sustainable water smart landscape is easy to do with our Grower’s Mulch? Just follow the steps in San Diego County’s Sustainable Landscapes Guidelines and see how amazing it is to save money on your water bill while also having happy plants and a beautiful yard. Learn more about the program below.
Sustainable Landscapes Program
In 2018, the City and County of San Diego along with 4 other partners including the Association of Compost Producers (which SPVSoils is a member of) launched and published the Sustainable Landscapes Program. This program provides guidelines on how to design and create a landscape that is optimized to thrive in our region while protecting our most valuable environmental resources supporting plant growth … WATER & SOIL!
This watershed approach to landscaping relies in large part on the wise and responsible use of recycled compost in the form of soil amendments and mulches. San Pasqual Valley Soils’ Grower’s Mulch is our composted landscape mulch which meets all the attributes and requirements the guideline so clearly describes including conserving valuable irrigation water which lowers the over-all surface transpiration rate of the landscape by 25% or more. This promotes healthy soil development and weed control beneath the mulch layer and it prevents soil erosion. It also filters surface contaminants from storm water, increasing the water infiltration rate which replenishes the ground water. Using our Grower’s Mulch provides all of these great benefits while also lowering your over-all water bill!
Enrich Your Landscape
Mulching bare soil, garden beds, slopes, etc. is the single biggest thing you can do to easily and inexpensively protect your watershed and enrich your landscape! And yet, few people take advantage of this marvelous resource because they don’t understand just how important and valuable composted mulch can be.
For those that have lawns or struggling turf areas, there are incentive programs available to help you pay to replace your lawn with a sustainable landscape consisting of drought tolerant plants and composted mulch.
To create your own sustainable landscape, download a copy of the Sustainable Landscapes Guidelines and start changing the way you landscape to be more aligned with our climate and growing conditions. And while you’re at it, stop by and pick up some of our quality composted Grower’s Mulch and discover the power of this natural product for transforming your home garden and landscaped areas into truly sustainable environments.
Fight drought by improving the health of your soil!
Lack of water has become an issue globally and a huge challenge for gardeners and the agricultural community in the past few years in the San Diego area. Climate change and catastrophic weather events are wreaking havoc on the world’s food supply chain. This recent trend has inspired us to develop new products that will better combat drought while also improving soil fertility. Research has shown that the best way to do this is by improving the health of the existing soil. This has become our focus as we work to do our part to combat climate change and create products to help you live a greener, more sustainable life.
“Improving soil health, on a large scale, is one key way forward. Nutrient rich soils store carbon better than degraded, overworked soil. Plus, healthy soil helps farms stay productive… a win-win.”
-Daisy Simmons
Yale Climate Connections
To learn more about the effects of climate change, check out the article by Daisy Simmons on Yale Climate Connections, “A brief guide to the impacts of climate change on food production”.