Horticulture: Greener Gardening The stewardship of 250 acres of
landscape, gardens, living collections, and more than 30,000
trees benefits the environment in a number of ways, including by
sequestering carbon, cleaning the air, cooling temperatures, and
capturing and cleansing stormwater. At the same time,
maintaining these resources can also adversely impact the
environment. And so the Garden has adopted best practices for
horticultural care throughout the grounds, among which is the
use of integrated pest management, a method of protecting plants
from pests and pathogens with the least environmentally harmful
techniques available. The Garden has switched to using only
organic fertilizer, which is more beneficial to soil health than
synthetic applications, and also composts all plant-waste
materials—some 1.4 million pounds per year—and uses the compost
generated to keep plants healthy, a first line of defense. As
part of its carbon emissions reduction efforts, the Garden
purchases low- and no-emissions vehi