Sustainability

Top 10 Benefits of Urban Trees

Top 10 Benefits of Urban Trees

Many people enjoy looking at trees, using photos of them as desktop backgrounds, or even occasionally planting one on Arbor Day (or when Keep Indianapolis Beautiful hosts a community tree planting in your neighborhood). While the general opinion is in favor of trees, we are sometimes hesitant to have them in urban or suburban settings near our homes and streets because we're intimidated by the damage they can cause or the effort they can require to maintain. In reality, a properly chosen and placed tree requires little maintenance after establishment.

Keep Pollinators Around All Season Long

Keep Pollinators Around All Season Long

If you’ve been following our blog for a while, you have probably picked up on the fact that I’m a big fan of pollinator-friendly landscaping. Pollinators like bees, butterflies, moths, and hummingbirds are responsible for reproduction in many of our favorite landscape and food plants, and they’re fun to watch. Nothing says “summer” to me like watching a garden buzzing with all kinds of pollinators. But summer isn’t the only season these critters are out and about, and one of the keys to ensuring that they maintain healthy populations is to make sure that we’re planting pollinator-friendly plants for the full season.

Happy Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day!

Tomorrow is Earth Day, and here at 317Grow we are always looking for new ways to do our job in a way that respects the environment. Our blog posts over the past few years have reflected that. Today we have collected several posts from the past that teach about how to take better care of the world around you. I hope you learn something!

25 Native Plants You Can Find at Your Garden Center

25 Native Plants You Can Find at Your Garden Center

Native plants improve our lives and the environment in ways that non-native plants can't do quite as well (or at all, in some cases). Despite the fact that more people are interested, I still hear fairly often that it's not getting much easier to find native plants at local garden centers. Here I'm going to share 25 native plants that are usually pretty easy to find along with the conditions where they grow best and a few notes.

Indiana Flower & Patio Show Through the Years

Indiana Flower & Patio Show Through the Years

The Flower & Patio Show is right around the corner! We start construction next week, and the show opens March 11th. We've made a habit of pushing the traditional boundaries of landscape design and doing something new and unique each year. In preparation for the reveal of this year's design, we're going to review our designs from the past six years and end with a hint about this year. Click on any image to see it larger.

Turning Old Leaves into New Soil

Turning Old Leaves into New Soil

In the maintenance department, one of our two major tasks this time of year is leaf removal (the other is decorating for Christmas - come back next week to see some of that). Today you'll get an in-depth look at how we turn leaves into quality compost every year. First, we collect all the leaves. Leaf removals usually start in late October and continue through December. In that time we keep piling the leaves higher and higher.

Planting for Your Favorite Pollinators

Planting for Your Favorite Pollinators

I sometimes get asked for recommendations for plants that attract butterflies, hummingbirds, or bees. Not only do we love the sight of these colorful, joyful creatures, they are also pollinators that are vital to our survival. No doubt you've heard about disappearing honeybees in the past few years, and why it's essential to American agriculture that they stick around. The same is true for all our other pollinators.

Singin' in the Rain with the TF Publishing Bio-Swale

Singin' in the Rain with the TF Publishing Bio-Swale

The bio-swale at TF Publishing is one of our few non-residential projects. Ordinarily you wouldn't think of commercial landscaping as something to get excited about, but this site is special. The building is in an industrial/commercial complex on the Northwest side of Indianapolis. We started with an existing drainage swale along the entire front of the building, some outdated and overgrown landscaping, and a tiny concrete landing in front of the building entrance, and we transformed it into a environmentally-friendly, native-plant-filled, bound-to-be-gorgeous bio-swale and paved entry patio.

Green for People: Real-Life Impacts of Nature

Green for People: Real-Life Impacts of Nature

Today we look at the big picture effects of nature on our bodies, minds, and communities. Some of these ideas can be traced back to the active ingredients we talked about last week, and others are more difficult to explain, but all are backed by solid research. People who live in greener environments experience such an extensive list of health benefits, I could dedicate an entire post to it.

Green for People: Why Nature Is Good for Us

Green for People: Why Nature Is Good for Us

People need plants. We learn from an early age that we need them to create oxygen and food. As it turns out, we also need them for healthy bodies, minds, and communities. Earlier this year a few of our employees went to a lecture organized by Keep Indianapolis Beautiful called "Green for People: The Essential Nature of Greenspace for Urban Residents". The speaker was a pioneer in the field of human interactions with the environment and has produced an impressive body of work.

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