Rally For The Right To A Naturalized Yard

I am lucky I only tend to get one lawn citation a year (or so) and all I need to do is talk my way out of it.

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Trudy Zaja is exactly the kind of person we need in government – sympathetic to the concerns of homeowners interested in naturalizing and restoring their properties, committed to her community and able to inspire people to follow her example.

I am proud to support Trudy in her bid for the office of Democratic Party Committeeman in my community. If you’re interested in signing her petition, volunteering or contributing to her campaign, you should contact the Trudy Zaja For Hanover Township Democratic Party Committeeman Campaign.

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I really wish the Natural Garden Inc., in St. Charles, IL, had a better website. As it stands, I’m looking at tables of their plant lists, trying to figure out what to plant this fall to restore my lawn to prairie. It’s a long, arduous process. On the plus side, Natural Garden is only about twenty-five miles away from me, and claim their native plant nursery stock is from seed collected within a 90 mile radius sometime in the seventies. We’re talking local genome here folks.

Prairie Nursery has always had an informative and well-organized website. I’ve ordered from them before when I was establishing my woodland garden a couple of years ago, and was happy with the result. The only drawbacks were that the plants reeked of smoke when they arrived and the Virginia Wild Rye (Elymus virginicus) was a bit more invasive and weedy than I would have liked.

Prairie Moon Nursery used to have a somewhat dis-functional site, but they recently re-vamped it and it’s now much better and more user friendly. So far, this is the only place I have found that sells native plants bare root (I haven’t been looking very hard…). This Spring I took advantage of their bare-root clearance sale and, though it was a bit late in the season for it, the unpromising looking twigs they sent me all took off quite impressively. This is the way to establish some really impressive stands of Prairie Blazing Star, Prairie Larkspur, and Sweet Joe Pye Weed. I will definitely be making a larger order this Fall and spend a good weekend in October planting. Spring 2010 should be spectacular.

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More and more people are opting for carpooling and the use of the public transportation system rather than driving their personal vehicles to and from work. Families are consolidating trips for everyday household errands and are even delaying or canceling family vacations. These changes have come about because of the price of gasoline in America.

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Read the rest of Hybrid Cars, The Next Generation… at Suburban Ecology

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1. Closing your curtains and blinds on the sunny side of your house will help keep it cooler when temperatures are high. You can also apply window film to your windows. This will cut radiant heat and still allow you to see the view outside. Painting your house a light color and using window awnings will also help reduce heat inside your house.

2. If you use a window air conditioner, put it in a window that is located on the shady side of your house near the center of the house. Cooler air outside means cooler air inside.

3. Make sure that your cooling system (and heating system in winter) is working efficiently. Have your systems checked by a reputable maintenance company at least once yearly. Change the filters on your furnace and air conditioner monthly.

4. Turn off your air conditioner or furnace when you leave home for short periods of time. Of course, if you live in a desert or severely cold climate, you would turn your thermostat a bit higher or lower than you would normally have it.

5. Plant trees and shrubs outside your house to shade it. Be sure that shrubs placed near air conditioning units are trimmed so that they have sufficient air flow.

6. Electronics that are turned off may still use electricity. Unplug them when going on vacation or when leaving your house for an extended period of time. For other electrical units like razors or hair dryers, plug them into a power strip that you can switch off when you’re not using them.

7. Use fluorescent light bulbs instead of standard incandescent bulbs. Incandescent bulbs use ten times the power of fluorescent.

8. When you are shopping for a printer, scanner or other computer equipment, look for those that will automatically go into “sleep mode” or turn off when they aren’t being used.

9. When you’re deciding between the microwave and electric stove to cook a meal, choose the microwave. Not only does it use 90 percent less energy, it will not heat up the house – thus using even more electricity to cool it.

10. Replace appliances that are older than ten years old. Older refrigerators and other major appliances cost more to run than newer appliances. Modern appliances must conform to “Energy Star” efficiency and are ten to twenty percent cheaper to operate.

11. If your electricity should go off during a “brown-out” or “blackout,” turn off or unplug as many appliances as you can. Otherwise, when everyone’s power comes back on at the same time, another transformer could blow out.

Using some of these ideas will help keep your electric power bills lower. The more ideas you use, the lower your costs will be. Save your pocketbook, and your environment, by conserving electricity.

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