Materials
Choosing the right garden and landscape materials is essential for creating sustainable, functional, and visually appealing outdoor spaces.
Sustainable Materials
The materials you choose matter
Every material used in a garden has an environmental cost. Manufacturing, transport, and disposal all contribute to pollution and resource depletion. By reusing salvaged items, sourcing locally, and minimizing waste, gardeners can reduce their environmental impact while creating beautiful, functional spaces.
From manufacturing to disposal, garden and landscape materials consume energy and can release harmful pollutants. Thoughtful material choices and sustainable design practices can reduce these negative effects.
Salvaging materials or creatively repurposing discarded items minimizes landfill waste and decreases the need for new resources, lowering environmental impact.
Choosing materials produced nearby reduces transportation emissions while using standard material sizes helps avoid unnecessary cuts and excess waste.
Why is materials management important?
The manufacturing, selection and use of materials is often a consumptive and wasteful process. Each phase of a material’s life cycle requires energy and can produce harmful air, water and soil pollutants and waste products.
It’s best to start with the old adage “reduce, reuse, recycle” as a way of practice. Downsizing a landscaping project to reduce the amount of materials, redesigning the project to reuse previously used materials, or finding ways to recycle materials are all first steps in the sustainable design process. Another alternative solution is to salvage and reuse garden and landscape materials discarded by neighbors or friends, perhaps in a new and novel way.
The role of materials in a sustainable garden
Wood, metal or paving materials are those that most commonly make up a landscape, but plants, soils, rocks, material assemblies and product components are also considered materials in the landscape. All of these elements serve a specific role in the function of a landscape and should be carefully planned as to not cause any detrimental environmental, economic or human health impacts.
- Reclaimed materials can be used in whole form or deconstructed and dismantled to create a completely new object.
- Recycled materials lessen the need for virgin feedstock and avoid sending useful materials to a landfill.
- Locally sourced materials reduce negative environmental impacts and can create a sense of place.
- Garden features designed using standard material sizes avoid wasteful cuts and minimize labor.
- Reversible connections (e.g., screws, bolts) can be easily removed and reused for a future use.
Sustainable vs. unsustainable garden and landscape materials
| sustainable landscape | UnSustainable landscape |
|---|---|
| The life cycle of materials is a circular process where materials and products are reused or recycled to avoid the extraction of virgin feedstock and minimize energy and resource inputs. | The life cycle of materials is a linear process that begins with extraction and ends with disposal. Materials move through the cycle once and then become a waste product. |
| Materials represent the regional identity of the area and support the local economy. | Materials are not local and therefore do not support community businesses or the regional economy. |
| When selecting materials, consideration is given to the costs of human health and environmental impacts. | Little is known about the human health and environmental costs of the material. |
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