By Mark Vanderhoff
Mark Vanderhoff is a real estate agent and certified Environmental Consultant with Coldwell Banker Kasey & Associates. Visit him online at AshevilleAbode.com.

Many discussions about green building focus on the house and what's inside of it. The way homeowners landscape their home, however, can have just as big an impact on the environment.

The most environmentally friendly landscaping uses native and drought tolerant plants, and incorporates simple measures such as rain barrels and organic gardening methods.

Native plants have many benefits, from their important role in the ecosystem to their minimal maintenance needs.

Native vegetation creates the best wildlife habitat because local wildlife has evolved over time with those plants and learned to depend on them. Many introduced species look great, but provide no food or shelter for animals and insects. That doesn't mean that all non-native, exotic plants contribute nothing, but homeowners can rarely go wrong when they go native.

Some exotic plants can be downright nasty to the local environment. Kudzu, Japanese privet and oriental bittersweet are just a few examples of non-native plants that smother everything around them, including beautiful gardens and pristine lawns.

Ironically, native plants may actually be coming back in vogue because they have become so rare in suburban landscapes. After all, avid gardeners are always on the lookout for something unique. Wildflower festivals and nurseries specializing in local species have started to see increasing popularity.
Homeowners who don't want to keep up with watering, fertilizing and other maintenance chores can also turn to native plants for their natural tenacity. Normal requirements such as sunlight and drainage will still be a factor, of course, but these plants have adapted to local conditions over centuries and millennia. That means fewer natural resources will be required to cultivate them, plant them, and keep them alive.

Best of all, many native plants are inherently drought tolerant. Although recent rains have helped the Western North Carolina's drought, the past year has highlighted the need for each and everyone one of us to be conscious of our water usage.

A home may have low-flow faucets and a water-efficient washing machine, but those strides can be wiped out by irrigating lawns and gardens.
Gardeners who need to water their vegetables might consider investing in rain barrels. A few 50-gallon barrels connected to the downspouts can go a long way towards putting some homegrown food on the dinner table. Some nurseries and websites also sell kits to pump the water from the rain barrels. A simple lid keeps the mosquitoes out.
Many lawns and landscapes will require some type of fertilization and pest or weed control. Synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, however, have been shown to harm wildlife and pets and contaminate groundwater, among other things.

Organic gardening methods address these problems. Solutions range from composted household garbage used as fertilizer to corn byproducts that can be used as natural herbicides. A cottage industry of books, magazines and websites have sprouted up for homeowners who want to learn more.
All of these strategies will take some research, trial and error to learn and perfect, but the result will bring everything outside the house into harmony with the green home itself.

For more information on native and drought resistant landscaping contact the WNC Green Building Council information hotline at 828-254-1995, email info@wncgbc.org or visit our website at www.wncgbc.org