As a certified arborist in the Madison area, I’ve been thinking a lot about what small things we can do to improve the urban greenspaces we inhabit. Conversations I’ve had with co-workers, clients, and other professionals about soil nutrients and the environment flood my mind, and I’d like to share some of the best ideas I’ve run into. What follows are some simple, effective techniques I have observed from both my own yard and other yards as well. It all starts with encouraging, maintaining and retaining your backyard’s own nutrients.
Think of Your Backyard as an Island
Let ‘s go on a mental journey together… Imagine your yard as a literal island, waves lapping at the edges, detached and floating as its own independent ecosystem. The plants in your yard can’t call a lawn care service to get a fertilizer application, or an order of shredded bark mulch. Can this isolated group of plants possibly survive?
Yes! Of course they can. Plants, given the chance to recycle naturally, don’t really need our help. The yard care industry has created those needs. If you treat your property like an island, and keep all its nutrients onshore, your island will be healthier.
This area under a bald cypress had leaves 2-3’ high until the snow and rain smashed them down to 6”.
Your Yard Has All It Needs Already
Plants, woody or otherwise, have evolved to survive by creating food for themselves in the form of wood and leaves. By keeping your green “waste” onshore, you're feeding your plants. No money exchanged, no carbon burned, and no jumping worms imported. It is really that easy! The trees in your yard do not need you to survive; in fact, they really need you to leave them alone (unless they need pruning).
If you remove all the green “waste” from your island, get ready to open your wallet to import those same nutrients back onto your island in the form of mulch (ground tree parts aged in a pile), compost (ground tree/plant parts aged longer in a pile), topsoil (ancient tree/plant/minerals parts scraped off the top of another island *terrible*), and chemical applications when nature can’t keep up. Do you know what is being spread on your yard?
I recommend using external inputs only when absolutely necessary, and keeping all the green “waste” to feed your beautiful oasis through the time-tested decomposition process. Below are some ways to keep naturally recycled nutrients" “onshore” so you can minimize “offshore” inputs.
5 Ways to Protect Your Backyard Nutrients
Keep Your Wood Chips!
This is a way to return nutrients produced by your trees as tree food. We are looking into buying a backyard chipper (think wood chips blown at the base of the tree we just pruned!) to promote keeping wood where it is produced! We need demand to justify this purchase, so if you think you would be interested, please let us know if you would be interested in this service.
Place or Bury Logs to Build Soil Health
Split softer woods, like pines and spruce, and bury them in your yard (Hügelkultur). Softer woods will help retain soil moisture and support soil health through increased insect and fungal activities. This creates living soil through the active process of decomposition.
You can also leave logs above ground to start the process. Over time, they will completely decompose on their own.
Rotting wood and bark buried in the bottom of a raised bed.
Build Raised Garden Beds!
Over time, the lumber you use to build the raised beds returns to the soil as nutrients for subsequent trees to thrive, all the while growing plants to feed you and the animals on your island.
Make sure to bury some soft wood at the bottom of the raised bed instead of buying a dump truck of topsoil you will have to wheelbarrow around. Topsoil is mainly sifted clay and often lacks the living component that makes composted materials so amazing.
As an anecdote, I have dug holes in my yard to fill my raised beds with living soils from my island. I then filled the holes in with wood chips, leaves, and brush to break down and decompose, continuing the natural cycle.
My little tractors working on flattening the compost pile. It will be flat in no time.
Raise Chickens or Ducks
Poultry birds can process a lot of organic material (compost) with their talons and persistent nature to dig in everything. I call mine Little Tractors. I make compost piles full of food scraps, plant matter, sawdust, and manure. The chickens dig and spread it out repeatedly until it is fine enough to add to my garden beds.
Leave the Leaves
Even social media is onto this trend! Designate an area in your yard to hold fallen leaves so they can break down over the winter. Then, add them to your garden beds in spring.
A 10’x10’ space is ideal to pile leaves. I know not everyone has the space! But if you do, I strongly recommend it for the health of your yard.
My dream would be to shift all the tax money the city spends on leaf collection and put it toward another green initiative like tree planting! That would be amazing.
In summary, I urge you to lay off the gas and let nature do the work. Put your gloves on and get to work figuring out ways to protect the soil health of your island and work with nature, not against it. All that “waste” is the key to a healthier, more robust island.
Have questions or comments? Send me an email or leave a note in the comments below.