Revolutionizing Outdoor Spaces with Innovative Tech for Sustainable Living
By Rose Morrison, managing editor of Renovated.
As climate change awareness increases, gardening for sustainability gains popularity. More homeowners and landscape architects want to create spaces that coexist with the natural world. Smart landscaping leverages an array of digital systems and physical nodes to enhance eco-friendly practices during design and planning.
How Landscaping Can Protect the Environment
Eco-friendly landscaping practices can conserve natural resources, preserve biodiversity and combat climate change.
The Definition of Sustainable Landscaping
Environmentally friendly landscaping considers and counteracts the impact of outdoor design, modification, and maintenance. For instance, a landscape architect working in a drought-prone climate may use a rain harvesting system and hardscaping to minimize water waste. Native plant selection, erosion control, wildlife habitat creation and pollution mitigation are prevailing design principles, but an eco-friendly garden ultimately considers the immediate environment’s needs.
How It Prevails Over Traditional Practices
Conventional landscaping is wasteful. While green, manicured lawns are an American staple, they are resource-greedy, wasting tons of water. Often, harmful chemical fertilizers and pesticides are required to keep them healthy because many turf grasses are nonnative. They also provide no hiding places or nutritional value, contributing to habitat destruction.
Sustainable practices prioritize native plant selection and resource conservation, mitigating those issues. Whether professionals leverage smart landscaping lights for energy efficiency or build shelters for backyard birds, they help the environment.
The Benefits of Eco-Friendly Landscaping
Urban areas become microclimates due to the massive amount of steel, glass and concrete. They are 10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than surrounding vegetated areas, while areas with greenery have the opposite effect, mitigating the impact of climate change.
While carbon sequestration is among the main benefits, it is not the only one. In addition to regulating the climate, greenery reduces noise pollution, provides habitats for pollinators and purifies the air. One acre of tree cover can eliminate approximately 80 pounds of air pollution. Those near green spaces also experience happiness and stress reduction.
An Overview of Smart Landscaping Technology
Smart landscaping technology uses digital, interconnected systems to virtualize or automate conventional design, planning, and maintenance practices. While solutions often rely on mobile devices or computer dashboards for centralized management, they are typically custom-built for this field. One example is a sprinkler system that connects to underground sensors.
Dozens of technologies used in smart landscaping exist, ranging from drones that create aerial maps to digital twins that keep project managers informed. While some are entirely software-based, others have physical devices that must be placed on-site to work.
Regardless of what type of solution landscape architects use, the objective is the same — to foster vegetation and climate resilience through automation and digitalization. The more informed industry professionals are, the more optimization opportunities they have.
Dan Gordon — the founder of Dan Gordon Landscape Architects — creates functional landscapes that exist in harmony with their surroundings. He believes professionals can achieve natural, effective pairings by considering context. Sustainability goals “do not need to be at odds with landscape design” but rather require designers to be more thoughtful.
Gordon continues, “Thoughtfully designed and crafted landscape gardens are going to last over time.” Despite embracing classical design principles, he is cognizant of climate-change-related pressure. “It’s important to look at both past precedent and new technologies to foster sustainability in the designed landscape.”
Utilizing Landscape Management Software
Smart landscaping often starts with landscape management software — a digital platform that centralizes administrative functions like scheduling and payroll. Professionals can use it to send invoices, communicate with clients, track projects and assign work.
Some landscaping software can render three-dimensional models, helping clients visualize designs. They often come with plant and material libraries, which assist them in selecting the best blend of sustainability and aesthetics.
Say someone is hardscaping. They want a patio because it blends functionality, aesthetics and sustainability. For example, retractable shade walls can save energy, lowering air conditioning expenses by around 25% to 40% because they provide passive cooling. The software could simulate the shades blocking the sunlight at various times of day to get a precise read on the savings.
Depending on the software, professionals can access everything from project management to resource tracking. Whether a client wants to see what a custom patio looks like or how much water they would need to maintain their plants, they can use this eco-friendly garden solution.
Benefits of Landscape Management Software
Landscape management software is proactive. It enables landscapers and property owners to find the most resource-efficient, sustainable layout for their specific climate. When both parties can remotely view project logs and design changes, progress moves faster. While paid garden technology typically offers the best, most comprehensive toolset, free and demo versions are generally suitable for freelance landscape architects, intermediate gardeners and DIYers.
Smart Irrigation for Resource Conservation
Most plants need irrigation. While drought-resistant species can often go without artificial water sources because they thrive on minimal rainfall, they cannot survive outside of specific climate zones. Hardscaping eliminates the need for watering but does not offer air purification or habitat preservation like greenery.
Technology-driven irrigation is becoming increasingly common in smart landscaping because it helps homeowners passively reduce water usage. Instead of standing in the sun with a hose or turning on — and potentially forgetting about — the sprinklers, they can rely on automation.
The two prevailing smart irrigation solutions are soil moisture sensors and weather-based controllers. While the former uses real-time readings to determine whether plants need more water, the latter uses local weather forecasts to determine whether an irrigation cycle should proceed or be skipped.
Benefits of Smart Irrigation
Across the United States, households use 8 billion gallons of water outdoors daily, mainly for landscape irrigation. Experts believe up to 4 billion gallons are wasted due to inefficient systems that overwater. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the country could save an estimated 1.06 billion gallons daily if every home had a water-efficient controller.
One real-life example is the Madinaty smart irrigation system in Egypt. It leverages Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and microcontrollers to water green zones in urban areas, saving around 50% of the water consumption irrigation typically uses. Also, it enables real-time monitoring of crop growth metrics, including soil, hydrological and meteorological data.
Besides resource conservation, the best thing about this technology is it promotes growth within eco-friendly gardens. Watering as needed can improve plant health to optimize growth without fertilizers. It also makes them resistant to pests, eliminating the need for pesticides.
Flying Drones for Landscape Management
Generally, drones are remotely controlled with hand-held controllers. Some high-end models come with field-of-view headsets and motion controllers. Their high-definition cameras can capture images and information from above.
In agriculture, people are transitioning from tractors to drones. Jim Fry — a sixth-generation farmer — believes drones will increase yields and improve pest management. He said reducing greenhouse gas emissions, avoiding heavy-machinery-related compaction and increasing spraying efficiency convinced him to get one.
Their introduction into agriculture has made them more appealing in the landscaping sector. When gardening for sustainability, information is key. Professionals can use drones to gather details on weather, square footage and existing vegetation.
Benefits of Landscaping Drones
With drones, rapidly collecting large amounts of accurate information is relatively cost-effective and easy. These aerial devices can access hard-to-reach areas and cover expansive properties in minutes, informing planning and monitoring during major projects.
In one case study, unoccupied aerial vehicles (AEVs) outperformed manual site mapping techniques. At a flight altitude of 164 feet, their elevation models achieved vertical accuracy down to the inch. They even identified patchy early plant growth. These fast-moving devices with high-definition cameras were efficient enough to cover a 61-acre site.
Leveraging AEVs for a technology-powered garden or acreage enables precision planning and efficient resource allocation. During the building stage, it can help project managers reduce labor costs and minimize disruption to the surrounding environment.
Embedding Smart Sensors for Soil Monitoring
Not all vegetation is the same, but gardens generally need a pH in the 6.0 to 7.0 range, which is primarily neutral. While some plants prefer more acidic conditions — around 5.0 or under — most need a neutral or slightly acidic pH to absorb nutrients properly.
IoT sensors can track humidity, temperature, pH and volumetric moisture content, among other aspects. These readings are important because plants need a delicate balance of water and nutrients to thrive.
Sensors work by wirelessly sending optical or electrical signals. Whatever they track, they send real-time to a centralized dashboard, enabling homeowners to know precisely what their plants need to stay healthy.
Since the IoT enables interconnectivity, homeowners can set it to trigger specific actions when metrics reach a predefined threshold. For example, they can automatically start the sprinklers if the volumetric moisture content drops too low.
Benefits of Soil Sensor Systems
Since the IoT is designed for interoperability, users can make remote adjustments with their mobile devices. While this futuristic solution seems expensive, a sensor costs just 4 cents on average as of 2023. It is incredibly scalable, making it suitable for projects of any size.
Sensors offer granular growing metrics, promoting informed decision-making that facilitates eco-friendly practices. For instance, this garden technology can prevent overwatering, eliminating nutrient runoff and root rot issues.
While soil monitoring is generally beneficial, some models are better than others. In one 2019 case study, moisture and pH sensors were placed in loamy sand, sandy loam, clay loam and clay in urban areas. Those using time domain reflectometry — a technique that measures the time between the release and return of a low-voltage pulse — performed the best.
Improving Backyards With Smart Landscaping
With a technology-centric garden, homeowners do not have to worry about overwatering or damaging sensitive ecosystems. Instead, gardening for sustainability becomes a simple, largely passive pastime. Communities should adopt these smart landscaping solutions to enhance their yards while preserving nature for future generations.
About the Author
Rose is the managing editor of Renovated and has been writing in the construction, landscaping and sustainable building sectors for over six years. She’s most passionate about improving environments, reducing carbon footprints and incorporating resourceful methods to promote well-being in the planet. For more from Rose, you can follow her on Twitter and connect on LinkedIn.