Sunday, March 8, 2009

ECO-WATTLES

Eco-wattles are a landscape feature hard to photograph, difficult to describe & challenging to write about. And you want them!!

Eco-Wattles are landscape debris pulled together in serpentine shapes. 3.5' wide at the base, tapering to 3.5' tall. Don't haul off leaves, branches, grass clippings, prunings or your Christmas tree. Use Eco-wattles along woodland paths. Blow leaves off to the side and the wind can't blow them back. Above, my eco-wattle prevents neighbor's leaves from blowing into my woodland walk.

Everyone balks at eco-wattles until they see them in person. Above & below, line of brown is the eco-wattle.
I've created 2 types of eco-wattle: formal and informal. Informal eco-wattles have all sorts of garden debris. Formal eco-wattles have 1 type of garden debris and they're pruned neatly.
.
Eco-wattles: reduce maintenance, provide winter butterfly habitat, lead the eye aesthetically, enrich the soil, and more.
.
Mary Kistner, client-friend-mentor, grew up on an apple farm in upstate New York over 8 decades ago. She used eco-wattles on her 25 acres in Snellville, GA. Her land is now the Kistner Center, given to the Piedmont Land Trust when she died.
.
I took her idea and have applied it to residential landscape design for 15 years. No one else has been doing this. Why?
.
Mary Kistner got a job designing window displays for the largest department store in Atlanta during WWII. It had been a man's job and of course she had the job much longer than the war lasted.
.
XO Tara



4 comments:

v said...

Eco what? Didn't quite get it, Tara. Huh, this is something new.Blossom Blooms

Tara Dillard said...

Hi Lili, Wattles were made in Africa centuries ago. There is no 'name' for them that I know of. No one has done them that I know of but Mary Kistner. She took a practical idea and made it aesthetic. I took her idea and made it part of residential landscape design.

In the pics above the eco-wattle is the 'brown stuff' at the base of the azaleas.

I placed it there, along my property line, to keep neighbor's leaves from continually blowing into my garden.

If you're ever close please come see it. XO Tara

lawn concepts emg said...

Great ideas for all plant lovers. Nothing from the garden should be wasted. The circle of life. . . . .

Vera @ Cozy Little Cabin said...

Husband is so on-board with this idea. First read of wattle fences years ago, weaving twigs & branches. Will most definitely do this away from the house!