eco-friendly backyard for summer get-togethers

How to Create An Eco-Friendly Backyard for Your Summer Get-Togethers

Eco-friendly backyard for summer get-togethers

Image by Giuseppe Lombardo via iStock by Getty Images

Once summer rolls around, everybody wants to get outside and enjoy the sun. Your backyard must be ready for another season of hosting gatherings and late-night cookouts. As a bonus, you could spruce up your yard with sustainable design tips. When redecorating, you want to keep the wildlife also calling it home in mind.

Do you need ideas for creating an eco-friendly backyard for your summer get-togethers? Here are a few ways to turn your yard into an oasis and keep the surrounding environment safe.

Try Xeriscaping

While it sounds like a scary word, it’s a simple concept. The Front Range Xeriscape Task Force of Denver came up with the term in the ‘70s when the city faced a significant drought. Xeriscaping means efficiently using drought-resistant plants to reduce the amount of water lost to evaporation or runoff. While areas with little access to water often utilize this landscaping trick, you can do it too to prevent wasting finite resources.

Some of the most common plants for xeriscaping are juniper, cacti, lavender, agave, thyme and sedum. However, before running out to buy them, you need to research if they will cause any harm if you include them in your yard.

Talk to your local garden center about what hardy plants grow in your area and plan how to xeriscape to create an eco-friendly backyard. Your guests will love the pops of color these plants add, and you’ll appreciate how they preserve water.

Clean up Your Pool

Your pool might need a bit of TLC when you’re getting ready for summer parties. You might even want to remove it and cover the space with grass and plants. Whichever option you choose, there are eco-friendly ways to get the job done.

There are plenty of pool maintenance options without harmful chemicals. Additionally, you could buy a robotic pool cleaner. These handy helpers can save money on electricity bills and use fewer chemicals to treat your swimming area. Robot cleaners filter pool water as they run while using 82% less energy than a traditional pump.

There are a few options if you want to remove the pool entirely. You could hire a company to remove it from the ground or drain the water and fill it in. The second option could become a DIY project, but you’ll want to ensure you’re draining the pool sustainably. Chemicals in the water could harm the environment.

You could also transform it into a natural swimming pool. Incorporate this attractive feature for partygoers and family to enjoy. The best part is that these pools don’t have any chemicals, and you can make them with natural products. If you want the feeling of having a private swimming hole, a natural pool might be just the thing for your backyard.

Create an Eco-Friendly Garden

You can follow a few guidelines to create a garden that nourishes the land and critters around it. These aren’t all necessary, but they’re great ideas for making a beautiful space for summer get-togethers and helping the local wildlife thrive.

Research Native Plants

You’ll want to find the right plants for your area. Non-native plants run the risk of becoming an invasive species. If you introduce them to the wrong environment, they can start to take over native plants and animals, cutting down their resources, starving them or spreading disease.

This is why it’s so vital to do your research. Try finding the information online or talking about native plants with your local garden center. You could even check with them after you’ve looked up what’s safe, to double-check what you’ve learned.

Give the Pollinators Some Food

As you may have heard, worldwide numbers of pollinators are dropping. Research indicates pesticides, a lack of flowers and destroyed habitats as reasons for this problem. These studies mostly look at bees, but populations of butterflies, flies and beetles have also started declining. You can help these insects out by planting some attractive flowers.

Bees have certain standards regarding what flowers they go to for food. Things like color, their tongue length and if a plant is native can all affect a bee’s decision to stop in your garden. It also depends on where you live — there are more than 4,000 species in North America.

Start Composting

Unnatural, store-bought fertilizers can cause long-lasting damage to the environment. Nitrogen and phosphate go into the groundwater and make it toxic. High concentrations of nitrates in food from this soil can harm humans. Synthetic fertilizers also damage previously healthy dirt, leading to produce with fewer vitamins and minerals.

Instead of using a fertilizer filled with chemicals, why not create compost with your old plants and food scraps? Composting reduces how much trash you produce, methane emissions from landfills and water waste. Farmers also love compost for its nutrient richness that makes it a very effective fertilizer. Using it will keep your plants happy and your soil contaminant-free.

Include Lighting With Renewable Sources

You’ll need some lights to keep things rolling as your party goes into the night. Consider revamping your outdoor lights if you want to keep things in your eco-friendly backyard sustainable. The average U.S. resident uses about 900 kWh of electricity a month, so reducing this number will cut back on the negative byproducts of energy production.

You could grab some torches or build a fire pit for softer lighting and a zero-energy solution. Get torches with citronella to keep away those pesky mosquitoes. Fire pits have the advantage of also being a great place to cook — after all, what’s a summer get-together without smores? Your guests will love cozying up with a blanket and some chairs in the light either of these options provides.

You could also find some solar-powered outdoor lights. More people want renewable energy in their homes, and companies have started producing string and wall fixtures powered by the sun. Let the lights charge during the day and turn them on at night for a comforting glow.

Update Your Backyard Sustainably for Summer Parties

There are plenty of ways to touch up your yard while making it eco-friendly and suitable for parties. Guests will love the improvements you’ve made, and you can rest easy knowing your updates can help the environment. Get your backyard ready for summer get-togethers while being sustainable.

1 Comment

  • Olivia

    If you’re looking to have a pool with fewer chemicals but you still want to keep it clean and sanitized, consider converting it to a salt water pool. Even though such pools still contain chlorine, which is generated by salt, there are still fewer of them. Plus, there are fewer chloramines, chlorine byproducts that cause a pungent odor and can cause irritation to the skin and eyes.

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