Blades of Glory: Landscaping for Water Quality

About this episode

This episode explores how landscaping decisions impact local water quality and features insights from experts on sustainable gardening practices.

Spring is in the air. As the days get longer and plants emerge from thawed soil, big landscaping decisions loom ahead. What plants should you add or remove from your yard this year? Are there any big landscaping projects that you’re feeling brave enough to tackle? But for every landscaping decision you make, there is one thing you should consider: clean water. In this episode of Time and Tide, we’re following the journey of a water droplet to learn how landscaping decisions that you make on your property can affect the health of local water bodies. In this story, that water can either sink slowly into the ground as nature intended or attain a need for speed as it flows across hard, man-made surfaces, picking up contaminants along the way. Today, we're helping you make Spring landscaping decisions with clean water in mind. We’ll focus on a recent training hosted for landscaping professionals, called Landscaping for Water Quality, and the lessons learned about designing landscapes that are attractive, ecologically functional, and healthy for local water bodies. In Act 1, we speak with Amy Papineau from UNH Cooperative Extension who explains why blueberry plants are a delicious and…

People in this episode

Guests: Amy Papineau, Julia Peterson

Topics covered

• landscaping
• water quality
• sustainable gardening
• ecological function
• local water bodies

Keywords

• landscaping
• water quality
• blueberry plants
• sustainable gardening
• soil science

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: UNH Cooperative Extension, NH Sea Grant

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