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Would you like to use recycled materials in your landscaping project? Recycling and repurposing items for your garden can help conserve natural resources, lower your carbon footprint, improve the soil, and preserve the wildlife habitats in your yard. Let’s take a look at the role recycling plays in landscaping and the best materials to use for your next gardening project.
The Role of Recycling in Landscaping
Did you know that you don’t have to go to the plant nursery or hardware store to buy all of your spring gardening supplies? When you purchase new items, you are increasing the demand for the Earth’s natural resources and contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. By contrast, when you choose to recycle items you already own and use items that were made from recycled products, you are lowering your carbon footprint, helping to reduce landfill waste, and saving money. You’re also imparting your creative touch to your outdoor spaces.
For example, consider how you might use leftover bricks, pavers, or pallets. The bricks can be repurposed to build dividing walls to separate sections of your garden. You could use the pavers to create dedicated walkways, and you might use the wood from the pallets to build raised garden beds or trellises for vining plants.
Related Post: How to Prepare Your Garden for Spring Planting
Recyclable Materials to Use
Take a look around your house and garage. What items do you have that you might be able to use as planters, raised beds, and sculptures? The truth is that you can use almost anything to create visual interest and separate the spaces in your garden, including empty wine and beer bottles, old wire, and leftover masonry. You’ll just need to use a little bit of creativity to turn your existing items into fantastic garden displays.
Concrete or Reclaimed Brick
Are there any construction sites around your home? Construction sites often have construction waste, like broken concrete, which can be used to make retaining walls and borders for garden beds. If you have some leftover bricks from other projects, you could build a planter for bushes or flowers, construct a DIY fire pit, edge a walkway, or create a new walkway.
Old Carpet
Do you have any old carpets or rugs lying around your house or garage? It can be difficult to dig through grass to prepare new garden beds. However, you can make the job easier by covering the grass with old carpets or rugs and waiting a few days. The carpet will kill the grass, potentially making it easier to dig a new garden.
Food and Paper Scraps
What do you usually do with your food and paper scraps? If you’re like most people, you throw the food scraps away and recycle the paper in the appropriate bin, but you can also use food scraps and paper to make compost. Items that can be used for compost include grass, tree and plant prunings, tea bags, coffee grounds, coffee filters, fruit and vegetable scraps and rinds, paper, eggshells, and weeds.
Old Wood
Did you know that wood can be upcycled, recycled, and reused? If you have old stumps or logs in your yard, consider turning them into firewood for your outdoor fireplace or fire pit. You might also consider renting a wood chipper and turning it into wood chips that can be placed around bushes and trees and in flower beds.
Old Containers
Do you have any old plastic totes, coffee cans, two-liter bottles, cloth sacks, or egg cartons? Small containers, like egg cartons and 20-ounce bottles, can be used to start seeds. Two-liter bottles can be used to grow upside-down tomato plants. Flowers can be grown in cloth sacks and coffee cans, and vegetables can be grown in large plastic totes, if you drill some holes in the bottom to release excess water. You might even consider making some hanging planters out of old coffee cans.
Related Post: 17 Essential Gardening Tools Every Beginner Needs
Perks of Recycling in Landscaping
Using recycled products in your garden is environmentally friendly. It helps conserve natural resources while reducing landfill waste, and it can help you create a garden that is uniquely yours while showing off your creative side. To get started, simply take a walk around your house and look through your garage and attic. You’re sure to find lots of items you can use in your garden.
Written by Taylor McKnight, Author for Gabion Supply
Guest Author Bio
My name is Taylor McKnight, and I am a Digital PR Specialist representing Gabion Supply. Gabion Supply is a company that offers geo-products to assist with landscaping, specializing in gabions.
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