Opinion | Let your eco-garden grow front and back

Suggesting that eco-friendly gardening must be hidden away in the backyard sends a conflicting message. To really create eco-friendly landscapes, we need to embrace a new aesthetic for home landscapes, moving away from conventional norms dominated by a green lawn with maybe a tree or two and well-manicured shrubs and toward more natural landscapes based on native plants.

By all means, let’s embrace these practices and more, but, with the possible exception of composting and clotheslines, let’s include our front yards and side yards.

The writer is chair of Arlington’s Climate Change, Energy and Environment Commission and a volunteer with EcoAction Arlington and Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia.

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