Published on October 29th, 2009
3 Rivers Eco Lodge is an enchanted sustainable hotel encampment consisting of hillside terraced cottages. Rainforest preservation, indigenous tree planting programs and organic gardens are at the heart of this green resort.
Retreat features include:
- solar water heaters
- self composting toilets
- biodegradable, locally made soaps and furnishings
- environmental education through conservation
- a yoga studio
- indigenous tree planting projects
- green globe info
- organic gardens
- rainforest preservation
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Published on October 28th, 2009
Coco Eco is an award winning bed and breakfast named both after the area it is located (Coconut Well, Australia) and the ecological principles that it embraces such as:
- solar powered facilities
- black & grey water recycled and purified in Wastewatergarden®.
- plantation & recycled timbers
- solar passive design principles
- building footprints designed to minimize impact on local flora and fauna
- reduced use of chemicals & PVC products
- recycling programs
- organic vegetable garden & free range eggs
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Published on August 17th, 2009
City Dirt is a brilliant urban gardening blog. The founder will be publishing the book A Little Piece of Earth this coming winter. Don’t wait to start planting some seeds now and have fun experimenting with growing food in small spaces. It is truly possible! Read the rest of this entry »
Published on July 25th, 2009
There is a brilliant sustainability series on urban gardening (Alive Structures and roof garden tutorials will be featured) in New York City this summer put on by a non-profit called New York Restoration Project. There will be four talks, every other Thursday from 7 pm to 8 pm, in NYPC’s Toyota Children’s Learning Garden. All of them are open to the public.
Where? Toyota Sustainable Summer Series Toyota Children’s Learning Garden 603 East 11th Street, New York, NY
When? July 30, 2009 from 7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
What? Sarah Seigal, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates. She will give a short garden tour and speak about the garden design, specifically the shade tolerant planting palette she created for this garden.
What else? Refreshments at the end of each event.
NYRP works exclusively in New York City managing community gardens to help ensure their liveliness in each community. Keep reading for more details on the series in August and beyond… Read the rest of this entry »
Published on June 4th, 2009
Steel is just about the most recyclable building material on earth. You could be well reading this in an office building built with steel originally smelted from iron in Julius Caesars day.
So it makes good green sense to build eco prefab houses with steel…
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Published on May 3rd, 2009
Inhabitat shares a great set of stories on Alive Structures: a Brooklyn based green roofing collective. Together, with the most creative native gardeners in the city, Alive Structures will be giving tours of their rooftop gardens at NYC wildflower week. All those in the greater New York area make sure to stop by to explore this exciting dimension of the greening of cities.
City roof gardens create a nice natural habitat for pollinators and migrating species, and additionally “they provide open green spaces for property owners and the public to enjoy.” Green roofs are known to improve air and water quality, lessen storm-water runoff, lower building energy consumption, and reduce urban heat island affect.
Green roofs are constructed as a series of layers including:
- a waterproof membrane
- a root barrier
- drainage mat
- an erosion control fabric
- lightweight engineered soil, and vegetation.
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Published on April 26th, 2009
The GreenRoofs.org “Green Roofs for Healthy Cities” Conference is on the horizon in Atlanta this coming June 2009! It is just ideal for:
- those interested in creating Green Roofs.
- studying the future of Vertical Gardens/Green Walls.
- raising awareness for green roofs and living walls (vertical gardens).
- engineers, architects, landscape architects, landscape designers, property managers, developers, roofing contractors, and students.
- anyone interested who wants a 2-day crash course in green roofs and all the beautiful benefits they bring to cities.
- creative city gardeners of all sorts.
“Green roofs are an important component of green infrastructure. They provide valuable public benefits related to stormwater management, reduction of the urban heat island, improvement of air quality (including removal of particulate matter), and general improvement of the quality of life in communities.” ~GreenRoofs.org
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Published on April 21st, 2009
A project of SEA (Social Environmental Aesthetics) at Exit Art, “Vertical Gardens is an exhibition of architectural models, renderings, drawings, photographs and ephemera that depict or imagine a vertical farm, urban garden or green roof.” The exhibit features over 20 projects, both imaginary and real, by artists and architects envisioning solutions for building greener urban environments.
Details for the FREE two-day event (featuring eco architects, artists, professors, and poets) at Exit celebrating Earth Day 2009 are as follows: Read the rest of this entry »
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Published on March 25th, 2009
Part of the White House lawn is becoming a vegetable garden. For the first time since World War II, our First Family is setting the example of eating locally and sustainably. Lawns consume inordinate amounts of water and chemical fertilizers. Gardens produce fresh healthy food with far less inputs.
Suburbia can follow the example set by the Obamas. Vegetables fresh from the garden burst with flavor and nutrients. Kitchen gardens are enjoying a new popularity this season. With the renaissance of gardening, many Americans will “taste” vegetables for the first time.
The vegetables we find at the grocery store are attractive, but commercial varieties are selected to endure mechanical harvesting, storage, and transportation. Their flavors are a mere shadow of the more ephemeral heirloom vegetables grown by our grandparents.
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Published on March 24th, 2009
Summer fruits are appearing on grocers shelves. But are they locally grown? Are they sustainably grown?
Unfortunately, the peaches and plums that are now available have been shipped from Central or South America. Transportation gives these fruits a large environmental footprint and a high price. Although they may look enticing, these fruits were harvested green and have little flavor. The most delicious and the most environmentally friendly fruits come from our own gardens.
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