Imber Akse House – Burlington’s LEED home

The landscaping has begun. We had a run of beautiful warm days last week and knocked off the front yard with the assistance of a bobcat artist named Wayne.

The landscape plan we developed hopes to maintain our goal of energy conservatism and sustainability but as usual with a large degree of pragmaticism. To follow LEED landscaping to the letter, we would have had to be way more diligent with our plant and material selections than we could as DIY’ers as well as provide the signature of a landscape architect for full points. In our case, we’re happy to use native (central Canada and Ontario, not exclusively Southern Ontario) hardy and drought resistant plantings along with locally sourced stone, screenings and soil as well as recovered mulch from local saw mills and fallen trees.

In addition, we designed the landscape to coordinate with our roof water run-off and site drainage so as to avoid site storm water run-off into the city municipal sewer system. We integrated berms, plantings, kitchy catch basins and mini-creeks or French trenches to keep water moving away from the foundation but with the goal to have it absorbed by plantings and the natural water table. We filled the catch basins and trenches with drainage tubes and covered with river rock for filtering, evaporation and simple clean aesthetics.

The main thing we wanted was a natural easy unstructured feel of the yard to balance the purposely structured building. This unstructured format will also be forgiving of a more wild result when the grasses and native plants start to mature and get slightly unruly – allowing us the grace to not use too much energy in maintenance.

The check list we achieved
+ minimal costs for max results (cost means more money through the wasteful industrial engine)
+ native species of plantings (creating habitat for native wildlife & suit local conditions to avoid artificial support)
+ low energy and efficient use and distribution of site rain water (gravity waters our plants)
+ drought resistance (but the plants don’t need it)
+ low mechanical maintenance (no grass to mow or trim, no fertilizers, no watering from municipal)
+ encourage or restore water table (moist soil is more absorbent and adds to natural plant moisture evaporation cycle)
+ minimized hard surfaces on site (most of our hard surfaces are porous or have cracks for drainage into site)

In the end, we have a natural and pro looking landscape design that works in conjunction with the house and ecology in a practical and achievable way without breaking the bank — though it did my back.

Resources

Native Plant Species Planning — Jason Pepetone (email)

Native Plant material — www.connon.ca

Stone — www.limberloststone.com

Recently part of our water collection and grey water re-use scheme was installed. Bushman Canada supplied our 2 x 1980 gallon cisterns that will collect our rain water from the home as well as shower greywater, post filtering and treatment from the greywater recycling unit, from the house. The water collected in the cisterns will be used around the home; irrigation of young plantings and trees, washing cars, topping up the pool and various maintenance needs.

Not only is collecting rain water for reuse a cost saver as you pay for both municipal water in and out, it is also an environment saver. Rain water that runs off a property to the street via hard surfaces and drain pipes simply fills storm sewers and heads to the lake, taking with it a broth of chemicals and particulate that chokes the aquatic ecosystem. Collecting the water and using it for irrigation slowly and responsibly means it gets used by vegetation – converted into natural air cleaning and air conditioning. Furthermore it is slowly released into the water table after being filtered by the soil and plants.

The installation, though seemingly invasive for the massive holes you require for such large tanks, was quick and painless with minimal disturbance of the site. The only downside following the install are the protruding vents and man covers that are necessary for maintenance of the units. With a little planning – which was not entirely afforded to us by surprise – you can do a lot to hide what can’t be avoided. We’ll simply extend the rear patio to cover what we can while building a box/bench to cover the remainder.

Next, the greywater recovery unit will be installed in the house. This unit will filter, treat and temporarily store shower water making it available for our low flush volume toilets and laundry machine. Overflow from the system will head to the cisterns. Eventually, once municipalities come to grips with ecological technologies, we will be allowed to cycle the cistern water back into the house for non potable household needs like laundry.

If anything was largely affected by LEED it was our preconceptions of our landscaping. It was our original intention to approach the landscape design in a logical and practical way with regard to conservative design, native planting, local availability, and elimination of thirsty water use. Our criteria didn’t impact the look of the design though as we still had idyllic pictures in our mind of wild meandering gardens using native species; as if the original Burlington ecosystem hadn’t been scrapped clean to make room for farms followed by subdivisions and our house simply shot up out of the wild kingdom without harming a thing.

Well of course this isn’t the case, the damage is done and we can’t restore our ecosystem in Burlington starting at our small portion of an acre. What we can do though is lesson the negative impact our manufactured landscape has on the ecology. Replacing a dynamic diverse landscape with a designed and manufactured one lacks diversity and creates the need for artificial sustenance – support at the cost of dollars, energy and ecology resulting from investment in non-native species that need assistance to survive outside their natural range; excessive watering, fertilizing and feeding and pesticides to support an artificial arrangement that wouldn’t survive together naturally. Therefore rethinking how we design the built environment has to be the number one objective.

So in giving the LEED points more thought, we arrived at a new outlook: modern restraint and a natural conservatism coupled with the idea that perhaps if we aren’t to replicate nature with a faux version, we can at least look at the landscape as a system in the same way we did with the house.

This is the shift in thinking from the landscape as being an aesthetic to being a mechanism for reducing impact of our built environment while also facilitating various functions for the home. LEED requirements are not restrictive or leading toward our solution, rather we are taking an approach that suits us while also providing LEED points.

So the objective is to create a landscape plan with the following goals:

Reduce
- eliminate municipal water consumption for landscape; plants and maintenance of hardscapes
- reduce negative impact of watershed from property; water run-off into municipal sewers and erosion
- eliminate introduction of non-native species of plants
- discourage undesirable plants from growing using sustainable techniques; eliminating the need for chemical treatments or excess labour to maintain
- reduce the need for unnecessary plantings of greenery for sake of aesthetic
- reduce the heating of landscape and hardscapes from the sun; lessoning the need for air conditioning or irrigation

Promote
+ encourage self sustaining landscape; plantings allowed to grow with little to no maintenance and landscape materials chosen to age gracefully without maintenance or replacement
+ welcome more trees to the lot; design the aesthetic in such a way that trees are an asset or necessity not a liability or problem
+ utilize the positive attributes of trees and greenery for the system where they are most useful – provide shade and natural cooling in summer and sunlight accessibility in the winter
+ encourage wildlife to do what they wish with the landscape; without creating scenarios where wildlife is positioned as a problem such as birds over cars, nests in undesirable places, bees becoming aggressive around nesting areas, squirrels digging up flower bulbs

With these goals and criteria in mind we’ve been working on a landscape plan. We enlisted the assistance of the good people at Terra Greenhouses with regard to material selections and helping locate information on native species. Since part of our logic was to ensure all plants were easily found locally as well as being native, we we’re pleased to find out that Terra, like other garden centres, tend to have a resource for such plants.

We were also pleasantly surprised that Terra not only new what we were looking for with regard to our goals but most importantly, they respected our interests and shared a common desire for responsible landscaping practices.

So now with a plan in hand and a good handle on plants, trees and landscape materials we can finalize the drawings to submit to Branthaven as well as to the LEED people. A final note about LEED points and landscape design. LEED awards points for engaging a certified landscape architect or the like. For obvious reasons this is a recommended option for people who are thinking of undertaking a LEED project or simply wanting to landscape in a sensible and sustainable manner. Like other professional services, Certified Landscape Architects provide a great deal of value and experience especially when considering changes in common thinking which they stay abreast of. More often than not, these professionals will save you money in one way or another and make their services worth while as well as add that extra intangible higher level of execution that turn a good project into an amazing project.

Plan to be posted soon.

We’ve been looking for a turf solution that suits our criteria – aside from no lawn which might be a possibility except we have 2 children that love to roll around on a natural, flat and shaggy surface. Fine fescue turf grasses might be the answer if the info on this suppliers website is correct.

This cold climate fescue mixture from Prairie Nursery grows to only a short species height, is resistant to drought requiring next to no water and absolutely no fertilizers, enjoys sun or partial shade and only needs mowing twice yearly! If anyone has had experience with such a mixture or the like, please let us know.