Winter can be a grey and dreary one in the Northwest, but not if you have plants that provide year-round interest. Some of our favorite plants, such as daphne and sarcococca, put on their best show during this time.

If you’re looking for suggestions or just want to see these winter plants in action, head to the Washington Park Arboretum to see what’s blooming this time of year. The J.A. Witt Winter Garden is filled with witch hazel, hellebores, mahonia and sarcococca that peak in the winter months. Click here for a map and list of plants (PDF). From January through March, you can enjoy dogwood, rhododendron, flowering cherry, camelia, forsythia, heather and many other plants.

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The Ontario government’s new lawn pesticide ban -which should come into effect in early 2009 -will do much to protect human and environmental health. But it’s also becoming clear the legislation will be a boon to our economy -boosting business and creating green jobs.

Communities across Canada which already have pesticide restrictions have enjoyed a major expansion of their lawn care sector. For example, in the five years following a pesticide ban in Halifax the number of lawn care firms in the city grew from 118 to 180 -an increase of 53 per cent, according to Statistics Canada. The number of employees in the sector also grew. Stats Can also reports the number of landscaping and lawn care businesses in Toronto has grown each year since its ban.

Why does the non-toxic route help the economy? For one thing, it relies less on chemicals and more on workers -meaning it creates local employment. It also requires some specialized knowledge of plant and soil ecology which homeowners often lack -hence their increased reliance on organic professionals.

Ontario’s organic lawn care providers are booming. Barriebased Turf Logic Inc. will be doubling its business by next spring. Oshawa-based Environmental Factor has grown its business 10- fold over the last eight years.

It’s also the case that many organic lawn products (such as corn gluten meal, horticultural vinegar, compost, and beneficial nematodes) are produced right here in Ontario -which means more business for our manufacturers. (By contrast, many of the toxic lawn chemicals are made in the U. S. or Europe.)

Two questions often raised during discussions of market change are, “Will the transition happen smoothly and will the new services be affordable?” In this case, the answer to both is yes.

More than five million Ontarians live in municipalities which already require non-toxic lawn care, Peterborough among them. So the industry already has the know-how and products to provide pesticide-free services province-wide. As well, major retailers are now committed to the non-toxic approach, meaning do-it-yourselfers have everything they require.

What about costs to the consumer? A recent survey of Ontario lawn companies showed the price of pesticide-free services is competitive with traditional services and is sometimes exactly the same. (One company charges $159.88 to treat a 2,500 square foot property – whichever service the customer picks.) And as more firms go organic, prices will drop. Non-toxic lawn care not only produces beautiful properties -just look at the Stratford Festival lawns, the campus of Trent University, or the grounds of the Ontario legislature -but is also very cost-effective.

Scientists have long told us that pesticides are associated with cancer (such as non-Hodgkins lymphoma), neurological illness (such as Parkinson’s disease), and birth defects. Health authorities – including the Canadian Cancer Society, the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, and the Ontario College of Family Physicians -have long supported cosmetic pesticide bans.

But now we know that, in addition to its health benefits, going pesticide-free also makes good economic sense.

GIDEON FORMAN Executive Director, Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment

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From U.S. EPA Pesticide Environmental Stewardship Program

The National Lawns and Environment Initiative began in 2002 with the goal of encouraging environmentally-responsible lawn and landscaping practices in residential landscape design and maintenance. The U.S. EPA is a member of the steering committee, along with USDA, the Center for Resource Management, the San Antonio Water System, the National Gardening Association, the University of Florida, Audubon International, Professional Landcare Network, and Golf Course Superintendents Association of America.

In 2005 the Initiative produced the Environmental Guidelines for Responsible Lawn Care and Landscaping (28 pp, 428 K, about PDF). These practices include appropriate uses of pesticides, fertilizers, water, plants, and stewardship principles that will enhance the value and benefits of residential landscapes to homeowners, communities, and wildlife.

The Initiative’s mission is not only to develop consensus-based guidelines, but also to encourage the public to adopt them. It has supported demonstration projects in EPA’s Region 3 and the San Antonio Water System. These projects will measure their success in comparison to neighborhoods that do not undergo public education campaigns.

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Outdoor landscape lighting has many benefits. A well-designed landscape lighting plan will increase the aesthetic appearance of your home and garden and highlight the features of your property. Landscape lighting expands your living space by allowing you to enjoy your outdoor environment after dark. It also improves the safety of your home or business.

For years the only choice for landscape lighting was incandescent or low-voltage halogen. More recently, LED landscape lighting has become a viable and cost-effective option for outdoor lighting.

LED landscape lighting has several advantages over traditional outdoor lighting options:

1. Longevity. LED outdoor lighting has a useful life of up to 100,000 hours. If you operated your LED landscape lights for an average of 8 hours each night year-round the lights would last for 30 years or more. This means that you can enjoy your outdoor lighting rather than having to spend countless hours changing damaged or burned out bulbs. Traditional halogen replacement bulbs are also expensive so you will save a significant amount of money over the lifetime of the lights.

2. Energy-Efficiency. LED landscape lights are 80% more efficient than traditional outdoor lighting solutions. Over the long life of the LED light this will translate into substantial cost savings. Utilizing an energy efficient lighting option is also the sustainable and environmentally responsible choice.

3. More Lighting Options. Because of the size and longevity of the LED light, several luminaire designs are available that simply were not possible with traditional landscape lighting.

4. The Green Choice. Because of its super-efficiency and long-lasting bulbs, LED landscape lighting has much less of an impact on the environment than traditional outdoor lighting options. You’ll use less energy and create less waste.

If you would like to obtain more information about LED landscape lighting, or would like a free estimate for installation, please call (206-770-7879) or email us (info@ecoyards.com).

Incandescent lighting has been the standard in holiday and Christmas lighting since it replaced candles over 100 years ago. However, in the last 3 years LED holiday and Christmas lighting has become increasingly available to consumers through the internet and retail stores. Although LED technology has been around since the seventies, until recently its use was largely limited to applications in commercial instrument display panels. Recent improvements in LED technology have made LED lighting viable in other applications such as LED Christmas lights.

LED lighting is preferable to standard incandescent lighting for several reasons:

Environmentally Friendly – Because LED lamps use so little energy and are longer lasting they environmentally responsible choice in Christmas or holiday lighting.

Energy Efficiency – LED lamps use approximately 90% less energy than standard incandescent lights.

Safety – LED lamps operate at approximately 1 degree Fahrenheit above room temperature and are safer than incandescent lights which are responsible for over 300 home fires each holiday season.

Longevity – LED lamps will last for 50,000 hours or more compared to about 2,000 for standard incandescent lamps.

Durability – LED lamps are more durable because they do not contain a fragile filament and are covered in hard plastic not glass like incandescent lamps.

Although LED holiday and Christmas lighting is more expensive than standard incandescent string lighting, LED lights will pay for themselves in a few seasons. A household which illuminates an average size Christmas tree with LED lights will save approximately $12 per year in electricity compared to incandescent mini lights. The savings jump to over $70 per year for those who like to use the larger C9 model lights. The cost savings can be even more significant for those Christmas lighting fanatics out there.

A 2003 report conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated that the U.S. consumes about 2,220,000 KWh of electricity each year to illuminate miniature holiday lights. (*2,220,000 KWh is enough electricity to run approximately 200 homes for an entire year.) Based on these figures, the EPA report concluded that a 20% market shift to LED holiday or Christmas lights would reduce annual electricity consumption in the U.S. by 400,000KWh. These figures are especially compelling when one considers that this report only took into consideration miniature holiday lights used for a period of approximately 30 days.

HolidayLEDs.com offers LED holiday and Christmas lights suitable for general home use and a professional grade suitable for larger installations. Both types can be purchased online through HolidayLEDs’ website at www.holidayleds.com.

Fall is here and that means one thing for gardeners and homeowners: leaves and lots of them.

What should you do with all those fall leaves?

Before you bag it and leave it on the curb, consider ways to recycle the leaves on your property. You can use the leaves as a mulch around your plant beds or add them to your compost pile to create rich fertile soil that you can use in several months.

Here’s what you can do:

1. If you use the leaves as mulch, which helps suppress weeds, be sure not to pile them on too thick. Too thick a layer on the grass or around your plants can smother it, lead to pests and rot your grass or other plants.

2.  Use a mulch-lawn mover to shred the leaves into tiny pieces (no thicker than 1-inch) and leave them on your lawn to decompose, returning nutrients to your lawn without smothering it.

3.  Leaves can also be composted by simply leaving them in a pile in your backyard. This is a simpler, but longer compost process.

4.  Mix the leaves with other organic matter in a compost pile, the leaves will break down faster. Good compost piles need a balance of nitrogren and carbon, which creates good conditions for microbes that decompose the plant materials.  Leaves, shredded newspapers, dead flowers and corn stalks all provide needed carbon — the “brown” — to balance out the nitrogren-rich “green,” including grass clippings or plant clippings.  The smaller the pieces are, the faster they’ll compost. The pile will need a proper amount water and air. If it’s too wet, it’ll become anaerobic and start to smell. Too dry, and the pile won’t do much.

5.  Be sure to rake up and remove leaves from fruit trees and roses as they can harbor diseases.

For more information about composting —

http://www.seattle.gov/UTIL/Services/Yard/Composting/index.asp

http://www.seattletilth.org/resources/compost