When it comes to single family homes on city or suburban lots, the choice of landscape is made by the owners.  People who find a large expanse of grass dotted with a few evergreens appealing tend to buy homes where that landscape is the norm.  In the older neighborhoods, there is a lot more variety and surely much more tolerance for unusual styles as well as natural settings.  Keeping up appearances gives way to enjoying one's own yard as one pleases.

For home landscapes and gardens that work with nature instead of against it, look in the older areas of towns.  For the best views, ride a bicycle slowly down these streets during spring and you likely will see residents working in their own yards, not to keep up appearances, but to enjoy the outdoors and create their labor of love with the soil.  There is no public garden that can compete with the ingenuity and visual delights created by a resident home gardener with only modest funds to apply.  Without outside help to move earth, build walks and walls, buy expensive exotic plants, or install an irrigation system, these gardeners take their cue from nature.  The result is a happy collaboration.  No leaf blowers necessary.

In the USA there are far too many churches, schools, office buildings and light industrial buildings sited on large lots or even acreages, that still use the grass-and-token-tree landscaping mode.  These expanses seem to have no function and give no particular viewing pleasure, other than keeping a conventional appearance -- using land and space itself as an enhancement to status.  Cheap land and cheap gasoline have combined with a lack of valuing nature to achieve this look.  There are glimmers of change, however. 

It's not easy to restore land to its original ecosystem, including the nearly-extinct tallgrass prairie of the Middle West.  However, it is being done more frequently.  This is where the resources of a public or privately endowed garden or park are useful, to acquire numerous parcels of land and restore a contiguous expanse to natural prairie or other ecosystem.  Even preserved or reestablished prairie remnants matter, as symbolic reminders of what nature provided and we have replaced with corn and soybeans, homes and concrete.

An easier method to escape the grass-and-leaf-blower syndrome is to leave some land "in the rough", unmowed, removing only the truly noxious weeds and invasive tree starts. This step alone has many benefits in reducing labor, power tools, and chemical fertilizers for upkeep, and adding cover for birds and other small animals.  In time it becomes far more diverse and interesting to view than mowed grass, especially if helped along with seedings of prairie wildflowers. 

Preferences on landscapes are shaped by childhood experiences with nature.  For large numbers of people today, the link with nature is broken -- and not just for city kids.  Today's industrial farms are as sterile.  Too many people have no memories of wading in the brook chasing minnows, building a fort in the thicket, eating wild berries, or hearing the song of the meadowlark.  What they have never experienced, they do not miss, they do not value.

"Keeping up appearances" is the only rationale many people have for dealing with their home landscapes.  They do what is expected and what brings the "proper" degree of status.  In upscale neighborhoods, that will be professional landscaping maintained by professional gardners, not for the family to enjoy, but for the neighbors to see.  

We can find ways of changing what the community values in landscaping for both commercial and residential properties -- we can create a new norm.  And while we're at it, let's give young people more opportunities to experience nature on a daily basis close to home.   

Green Seniors notes that there are many ways societies 'keep up appearances' with respect to making anything natural within range of homes and offices conform to a certain standard of taste and tidyness.  Keith Farnish wrote the essay on this topic, below.  Joyce says she is eager to share her own thoughts on the subject soon.  Does Keith's perspective start you thinking about these happenings where you live?  Feel free to post comments or send in your own views.

Green Seniors don't necessarily have green thumbs when it comes to growing plants, yet many of them tend gardens, large and small, as a hobby and as a lifestyle choice. For some, it may be a financial necessity as well.

The modern environmental movement has witnessed a revival of backyard gardening that has only intensified as concern about global warming grows.  For people who have a bit of sunny soil and some time to spare, growing food is a countermeasure they can afford, using resouces already available.

New methods of gardening such as raised beds, no-dig, and permaculture offer seniors options for growing food that match the available space and accommodate the physical limitations some seniors may have.  These types of gardening have been explored in earlier posts to this blog.  A food garden does not require acreage and special machines, or backbreaking work in the sun, as many seniors recall from their youth.

Greengranny's blog, a companion site to Green Seniors, tells about her experiences in starting a small vegetable garden in her backyard at age 65.  Greengranny was inspired by other seniors already accomplished at backyard gardening, by articles by environmental activist Keith Farnish, and by books such as: "The Urban Homestead - Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City" by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen, "The Self Sufficiency Handbook" by Alan and Gill Bridgewater, and "The Backyard Homestead" edited by Carleen Madigan.  These books are overflowing with ideas for sustainable living.  

Striving towards sustainable living in urban environments has its critics. 

We can't possibly grow all the food calories we need for year-round sustenance that way; that much is true for most city-dwellers.  Well then, is it only a symbolic gesture, a feel-good deed that does little when all is said and done?  We don't think so and here is why.

1.  It provides some fresh food during summer and fall months that otherwise would need to be shipped long distances and often is grown in areas of irrigation with dwindling groundwater or mountain snow-melt.  Displacing just a few percent of such crops would make it uneconomical to irrigate the more marginal land, which would be of value to the natural environment.

2.  It provides a widely dispersed base of food growing which could be ramped up in case of food supply disruptions in areas producing most commercial foods, by local people with little outside assistance.  This is especially true for those who maintain home organic gardens and collect seeds year to year.  Even a small increase in locally grown food could counter commercial crop losses from areas hit by increasingly extreme and bizarre weather events. 

3.  Home gardening preserves essential knowledge for survival and helps pass this knowledge on from generation to generation.  Children can participate in gardening as well as in the preparation and consumption of foods that are much healthier than manufactured foods high in fat and salt and often lacking in nutrients, unless added back in artificially. Web sites like that of Sharon Astyk can be excellent guides to learning.

4. Home gardeners are an excellent resource for continuing the cultivation of vintage varieties of food plants, helping insure the survival of genetic diversity of our food plants.  There are not all that many plant species capable of providing humans with a substantial amount of nutrition, and we need to continue growing every one of them, to sustain the genetic lines that are the legacy of ten thousand years of plant domestication.  Genetic homogeneity of food crops makes the food supply more vulnerable to pests and plant diseases.

5. Home gardeners can more easily get along without pesticides -- for example, by picking Japanese beetles off of plants rather than spraying them, and relocating slugs to wild areas.  Home gardens with a variety of plants at varying stages of growth attract pollinating insects to their flowers and make the urban garden a refuge for these essential insects.

6.  Mental and physical health and well-being are enhanced by home gardening. This alone might easily justify engaging in small scale gardening. 

7.  Home gardening may cost a little to start up, but it returns great value for the investment.  Many families that could not afford organic produce from the farmer's market can afford to grow gardens.

8.  As small surpluses develop in home garden produce, it leads to learning storage and preservation methods that extend the benefit beyond the growing season.  Berries can be frozen a few handfuls at a time.  Small batches of tomato sauce or applesauce can be frozen with little extra trouble.  Some items can be dried, and root crops may be stored in a cool dry basement nook.

9. Home gardens lead to community sharing.  Neighbors share their surplus with friends and neighbors.  Even if each gardener has only one crop sufficient to share, by swapping with each other they maximize their variety and the use of available food.  Everyone in America has seen the fruit tree with the fruit on the ground rotting, unharvested, because no one had the time or inclination to do so.

10.  Most home gardening is recreation that is beneficial rather than harmful to the environment and thus may displace less helpful ways of spending one's time. 

We are sure you can think of even more reasons, but these ten would seem to make a pretty convincing case for utilising the space you have in a far more constructive way than for which it may currently be used.

Global warming was supposed to be a threat to our grandchildren.  Now the science tells us it is underway and has been for decades--while we burned increasing quantities of fossil fuel.  It is changing our world in many ways, and unless we act now, catastrophe lies ahead, if not for us, then surely for our children's generation.  It isn't only about our grandchildren anymore. 

A new report has been published about the impact of global warming on the United States and the probable impacts by 2050 and 2100 under two scenarios of emissions levels.  This report explains what is happening region by region, in details everyone can understand.  You can access this information at www.globalchange.gov.  At this site you may directly view information in the report, print specific pages of the report, or download the entire report as a pdf file. 

Under "Resources" you will find a photo gallery that you may download and use in your environmental campaign work.  We like this image of earth, a reminder of what we stand to lose if we are unable to make the necessary changes in energy, natural resources, and pollution.

This site is in the resources listed in the right hand column of this web page. 

Green Seniors began as an idea nearly three years ago, which seems like a long time when you consider the amount of Amazonion and Indonesian rainforest that has been removed in that time; the number of frog species that have become extinct; the rate at which the marine ecosystem has changed...and that is not even taking into account the direct effects of climate change. As a very eminent climate scientist recently stated: "By the time we see the real impacts of climate change, it will be too late to do anything about them".

So much change and so little time. Which makes you wonder what must be going through the mind of our latest Green Hero, Morag Parnell from West Lothian, Scotland, who has been campaigning on environmental issues for the last 37 years. It was upon reading the Club of Rome's 1972 report, "The Limits to Growth" that Morag decided that she needed to act, so spent much of the 1970s and 1980s campaigning on many issues including nuclear weapons, exposures to asbestos, and industrial chemicals in local microelectromics and clothing factories. In 1990, she joined the Women's Environmental Network in order to work on her key interest as a medical doctor -- the impact of toxic chemicals on the environment and in all aspects of human life.

Morag says: "Climate change is the most urgent and publicly acknowledged campaign. However, I think it is difficult to disassociate the many other aspects of what threatens us  from this. They are all related. In particular, our campaigning against the effects of exposures to toxic chemicals has a particularly strong link to climate change. Most of the suspect substances are derived from fossil fuels- mainly petroleum. While climate change is concerned about pollution of our external environment , our health campaigns are concerned about our internal pollution -- largely from the same sources. And our internal pollution is killing and maiming millions worldwide now."

Her 82 years shows no sign of slowing her down, and she continues to lobby heavily in the Scottish Parliament and campaign widely.

We asked Dr Parnell a few questions, which she kindly answered:

What motivates you to keep campaigning?

I think that everyone has the right to live in a clean and uncontaminated environment.

What makes toxic chemicals in the environment such an important subject?

Most, if not all, of the illnesses caused by exposures to such substances are preventable. Most of the substances are synthetics and were invented by human beings who are perfectly capable of inventing substances that do not kill or maim.

Do you consider your work to have been successful and, if so, in what ways?

I think what we have done in the communities has been well supported. Most "ordinary" people are receptive -- they already have some knowledge or have suspicions about this topic -- they know someone who has, or have themselves experienced adverse health effects from what they suspect may have been environmental or occupational exposures. In the political arena we have had a small amount of success, but still a very long way to go before real primary prevention and precautionary action are accepted as public policy.

What advice do you have for people who don't think it is worth trying to make a difference?

Never give up. It is only by the small cumulative efforts of people like us that differences are made!

Thank you, Morag, our latest Green Hero.

If you know someone who you think should be a Green Hero, please write to us at heroes@greenseniors.org and we will contact you to find out more.

Green Seniors helps seniors take action and find networks.  We're about planting the seeds of new ideas, of motivating and encouraging, of building communications among diverse environmental entities.  We're not an organization "on the ground" so to speak.  But it takes organizations whose members engage with the earth itself, to tackle certain missions.  "Great Old Broads for Wilderness" is one of those organizations.

Photo: Veronica Egan, Executive Director of Great Old Broads for Wilderness

A year ago Green Seniors was delighted to learn about Great Old Broads for Wilderness, an organization truly "on the ground," whose members hike out, camp out, and work out in the wilderness repairing damage others have done.  It boasts chapters in various states of the USA involving some 3,500 members, including some men*.

Recently our friends at Great Old Broads for Wilderness were featured in an article in the AARP Bulletin Earth Works: Why Mature Activism May Save the Planet.

Take a look, then pay their website a visit at www.greatoldbroads.org 

Even if wilderness preservation is not the mission for you personally, it will brighten your day just to see what this group is accomplishing and how it is growing.   

Great Old Broads was started 20 years ago.  As a non-profit organization, it now boasts a high degree of sophistication.  In the "About Us" section of their website you'll meet the paid staff who are helping the membership to make a difference. 

Green Seniors featured this group in a post on May 28, 2008 as a part of our promotion of environmental networking. Executive Director Veronica Egan answered some questions put to her by Green Seniors' Keith Farnish.  Green Seniors is thrilled to see this organization growing and thriving, and wishes them continued success.

*Note for non-US readers: "broad" is a colloquial term for a woman.

Last year the urgency of addressing global warming and climate change came home to David Hearne.  He jump-started his activism by taking part in 2008 Climate Ride, a five day, 300 mile bicycle ride from New York City to Washington, DC.  Four of the 100 riders, pictured below and facing the camera, were age 59 or over.  David is on the far right.  On the far left is Jim Rucquoi who was the oldest rider at age 72.  They are on a ferry taking them from Manhattan to Atlantic Heights.

David has been kind enough to provide Green Seniors with a detailed commentary on his experience. 

"The two women who initiated and organized the ride did an outstanding job.  We were very well supported and fed, and each night we had guests who spoke to various aspects of climate change or specific actions of theirs to mitigate climate change...."

"As well organized as the ride was, it was the fellow riders that left the biggest impression on me.  Take Alan Tinker of Focus the Nation as an example, who arranged for over 50 congressional meetings with climate riders right after the ride.  Or David Kroodsma who rode solo for 17 months from Palo Alto, CA to the tip of South America to call attention to climate change.  One of the older riders was also one of the lowest carbon footprint riders.  He rode the entire trip carrying all of his gear and a guitar with which he serenaded us at night."

"Some of the riders were well conditioned and some had not ridden very much at all.  But everyone who started, finished with determination.  And I left feeling very good about the next generation of leadership arising.  As typical for an event such as this we began the ride with many different backgrounds and experiences.  But after numerous conversations, both on and off the bike, we arrived in DC all united in a common objective of encouraging more to be done about climate change."