Environment/garden

In this page I will share some of my core philosophies on environmental gardening. I learned many things from my journey through life.  Several years back I joined Lexington Living Landscape and Citizens for Lexington Conservation.   I am learning many important factors that my son Dr. Vivekananad Pandey Vimal and I was already applying.

The core philosophies are:

• Replacing lawns of grass with biodiversity

• Using many native plants

• Rescuing plants

• Keeping leaf biomass during autumn in the yard by composting everything

• Creating boarders from logs that also provide places for insects to overwinter

• Creating spaces for leaf litter for insects

• Planting pollinator friendly plants

• Composting

How it Started

I wanted a beautiful organized garden without spending a lot of money.  So I started with what already had.  In the front area I saw bunch of Yucca plant that looked like a trash.  I cleaned the area and they started thriving like crazy.  Next I stated digging them out and transplanting in different areas that created beautiful border. I found tiger lilies, lilly of the valley, foxglove, dafodil and moss in different parts of my yard.  Slowly, I started transplanting them in my front garden.   I received some from my children and friends.   It is a rescued garden.     

Without knowing about the movement regarding grass, I manually pulled them out because I did not like the untidy look and maintanace was difficult for me.  I replaced them with clover, moss and other hardy ground covers that I found.   

Growing up in India throwing unused food in the trash sincerely bothered me but did not know a proper way.   At that time my boss Dr. Elizabeth Hewitt showed me the compost area in her Licoln home and started my own.  Later my son created a proper compost bin.

I love borders. They highlight and define the area. I used rocks, shells, logs and actual plants like Yucca, Hostas, Tiger lilies and lily of the valley.

Archways surrounded by vines attracted me from childhood.  They are called 'lata-kunj' in Hindi.