Photo Courtesy of Kristy Ranieri
Residents of South Orange, Maplewood and Millburn gather at the Elks Lodge in South Orange on Oct. 3 to learn about sustainable lawncare.
MAPLEWOOD/SOUTH ORANGE, NJ — The Green Teams of South Orange, Maplewood and Millburn officially launched an environmental certification program Oct. 3 that they hope will encourage residents to implement sustainable gardening practices on their properties.
The re:Yard program was kicked off with a gardening workshop and party at the Elks Lodge No. 1154 in South Orange, featuring lessons from experts on subjects such as soil testing and rain garden construction.
Attendees also had the chance to take part in giveaways of environmentally friendly prizes, including backyard composters and a free yard consultation.
Above all, the event raised awareness for re:Yard, an initiative funded by a Sustainable NJ grant in which participants earn points for following a set of guidelines to create a sustainable yard.
The more projects — which range from growing a food garden to composting to retaining storm water — community members complete, the more points they earn. And the more points they earn, the higher level of certification they receive, with signs placed in their yards designating the level reached. Residents can attain the following four degrees of certification: member level at 0 to 23 points, bronze level at 24 to 35 points, silver level at 36 to 47 points and gold level at 48 to 58 points.
According to Neil Chambers, a member of both the South Orange Green Team and Planning Board, re:Yard came about as a comprehensive way of addressing the fact that many yards in the SOMA and Millburn area are “all over the place” in terms of their sustainability.
Though many residents want to be green, Chambers said they simply do not know where to start. The Green Teams’ initiative seeks to remedy that with a detailed list of objectives, all of which he said are beneficial in the long run.
“I think so often sustainability is viewed as such an abstract concept,” Chambers told the News-Record in an Oct. 1 phone interview. “What re:Yard is trying to say is there are some really super practical things you can do that can have both close-to-home impacts that are positive and far-reaching impacts that are positive.”
Trustee Walter Clarke, another South Orange Green Team member, agreed that maintaining a sustainable yard is a win-win situation for everyone in the community. If one person constructs a rain garden in his or her yard, for instance, Clarke said that prevents 50 to 100 gallons of storm water runoff from contributing to flooding somewhere in town — runoff that can spread toxic pesticides carried from lawns along the way. At the same time, he said the homeowner could use those collected gallons to water a garden, saving a fair amount of money on water in the process.
The problem is that re:Yard needs more than one person to participate to fulfill its goal of environmentally impacting the community. So Clarke said the Green Teams are hoping as many people as possible will join the effort.
“It is kind of a numbers game,” Clarke told the News-Record in an Oct. 1 phone interview. “One person can have a sustainable yard, but it doesn’t really make a big difference. But if everybody in South Orange and Millburn and Maplewood cuts back on their fertilizer use, then it does mean something.”
But numerous residents use fertilizer — another hurdle the re:Yard program must overcome. Many people do not even realize that how they maintain their yard can have a negative effect on the environment. Chambers, who runs a sustainable-design company by trade, said too many people have been conditioned to think that a good-looking yard is one heavily manicured through the frequent use of gasoline mowers, pesticides and fertilizers.
In reality, the guidelines dictate that the healthiest yard for nature and human beings alike would include grass cut two to three inches high, depending on the month, with a hand-pushed mower; the growth of native vegetation; and maintenance through natural means such as mulching. This way, less carbon is emitted into the air from gas mowers while the native vegetation absorbs carbon in larger amounts than turf grass, subsequently creating much-needed biodiversity. Plus, the homeowners will avoid exposing people to pesticides and herbicides that could have significant health effects.
Chambers said the re:Yard program will ideally alter the typical idea of what a neighborhood yard should look like so that more people will pursue these measures and numerous others like them listed in the guidelines.
“We wanted to create something that would combat the status quo,” Chambers said. “Let’s create a standard — a new standard of awesomeness for yards in this area so people will see it and go ‘I like that more than what I have right now, and I want to switch over.’”
The re:Yard program is not just for sustainability newcomers though. In fact Chambers and Clarke, a longtime vegetable
gardener, both said they have learned a lot while researching what to include in the guidelines, such as the effects of invasive species and how to calculate one’s carbon footprint. And they are not the only ones.
Maplewood Green Team Co-Chairwoman Sheila Baker Gujral already composts and uses a push mower, but she said she never realized just how much else she could be doing. Gujral, who was not involved in writing the guidelines, said she has already registered for the program and is looking forward to discovering what other actions she can take to make her yard more sustainable.
“I’d be very interested in actually transforming my yard into something different that would require less water and upkeep as a traditional lawn does,” Gujral told the News-Record in an Oct. 1 phone interview. “I want to learn from this program how I can do that, and I want to see what other people can do. We can learn from each other’s experiences.”
Gujral said she knew of several residents who signed up for the program even before the launch event, and there may soon be even more participants. According to Chambers, Irvington and Montclair have both expressed an interest in joining re:Yard. Gujral said she has also spoken to a few West Orange residents who said they would love to have the program in their town as well.
Whether those communities follow through remains to be seen, but Millburn Green Team member Claudia Thornton said any expansion of the initiative would be welcome — individuals from outside townships are even invited to sign up. That is because the environment needs all the help it can get, Thornton said.
And the only way it can get it is if people are taught how to treat nature properly, which Thornton said is exactly what re:Yard was developed to do.
“It’s all about education,” Thornton told the News-Record in an Oct. 1 phone interview. “If we can connect all the communities one by one and we all learn and start participating, we’ll make a better world.
“It just takes a little bit of willingness to care and change,” she added. “It can be infectious once you learn about it and change your ways and see you have a better garden for it.”
To learn more about re:Yard or to sign up for the program, visit www.reyard.org.