Energy-smart landscaping for your garden
Just as the design and structure of your home can have a significant impact on its energy use, so too can the way you landscape your garden.
Where you place fences, plants and other garden elements can impact the amount of energy that your home uses.
Sun shading
Strategic placement of trees and plants can provide an essential sun shield that reduces the amount of cooling your home needs in the summer months.
This not only shades your home but also reduces the ground temperature around your house.
When planting trees, choose deciduous trees with a wide canopy and plant them on the side of your home that gets the most sun. This will shade the house in winter but let the sun in during the winter months.
Insulation
Plants can be a great insulator for your home. By planting vines on the outside of the walls and around windows, this can help further insulate walls.
The space left between the wall and vine in summer can help reduce the amount of summer heat absorbed by the walls of your house and reduces the amount of heat lost from your walls in winter.
Windbreaks
Planting rows of evergreen trees in an appropriate location can provide a windbreak for your home from cold winter winds.
Strategically placed rows of trees can also help deflect desirable cooler winds in summer into your home.
Fencing
Fencing can also provide a windbreak for a house affected – or those houses that are likely to be affected – by cool winter winds.
If you’re designing your garden or considering how you can minimise the energy efficiency of your home, consider these smart landscaping tips, and help reduce the longer term energy costs of your home.
What about you – how do you use your garden to reduce your household energy costs?
David from AP&G offers simple tips to help plan for their energy needs, including tips on energy efficiency, savings and green energy tips.
This is so important … with a little planning and thought, one’s yard can really help make energy use efficient. And if one is lucky enough to be building their own home, paying attention to solar orientation will make a huge difference. But I digress. 🙂 I live in an apartment and the management pretty much controls the landscaping around our building. There are still things we can do, however. In the summer, I plant vegetables vertically. By July, my veggies block out the sun which would be coming through my windows … so we stay cool. In the winter, when I’ve taken all the plants down, the sun streams through and warms our home. I rarely use heating or cooling. It’s amazing how well it works. So people who live in condos or apartments can still use landscaping to improve energy efficiency! Thanks, Mrs. Green!
I agree this is so important! What a wonderful post!