Ladd and Mark talk about sustainable landscapes on TV

In Harmony co-owners Ladd Smith and Mark Gile were both on television last week talking about sustainable ways to garden.

Mark talked to a KING-TV reporter at the Seattle Home Show about In Harmony’s new initiative in urban food gardening. “One thing that’s been lost in this country is to know how to grow food,” Mark said. “There’s some savings there if you can start harvesting from your yard. And it’s organic too, so it’s wholesome, nutritional food.”

Watch the video on the KING-TV web site.

Ladd showed compost tea to a KING-TV reporter at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show. The compost tea that In Harmony brews and applies “can jump start the soils and create healthy soils for sustainable landscapes, instead of Mother Nature taking years and years to do it,” Ladd said.

Ladd also showed how to create sheet mulch with cardboard, leaves and compost. “We are building soil from the top down and suffocating all those weeds underneath.”

Watch the video on the KING-TV web site.

In Harmony-designed rain garden gets noticed

A rain garden is an attractive addition to a landscape, and it helps keep our Northwest environment sustainable. By collecting and slowly filtering rainwater, rain gardens help keeps our streams and groundwater clean.

In Harmony designer Malissa Gatton created a rain garden for Seattle homeowner Lyn Dillman that has gotten notice from the news media. The garden ended up both on the Ciscoe show and in Sunset Magazine.

Malissa used a copper rain chain to collect water from the roof. A perforated pipe is buried to carry water under a dry streambed. She chose a variety of plants for the rain garden that tolerate different levels of wet and dry conditions.

“It’s a win-win situation,” Malissa said. “The garden helps reduce this household’s environmental footprint. Anybody could do it.”

Click here to read the Sunset Magazine article.

Click here to watch the Ciscoe video.

In Harmony named Best Workplace for Recycling

King County’s Solid Waste Division named In Harmony Sustainable Landscapes a 2008 “Best Workplace for Recycling.” In Harmony is one of 50 local companies named—more than twice as many companies as last year.

To qualify as a Best Workplace for Recycling, companies must meet at least 10 criteria out of a list of 33 good business recycling practices—choices that range from placing recycling bins by every desk, to collecting food scraps for on or off-site composting.

To In Harmony, “sustainable” means a practice or a product that meets present needs without compromising the needs of future generations. In Harmony practices elements of sustainability in the office as well, through their in-house recycling campaign.

Recycling is made easy for the 35 employees with easy access to recycle bins, “how to” labels and posters, and recycling guidelines in orientation materials. In Harmony also purchases recycled office supplies, reuses mailing boxes and envelopes, returns used toner cartridges for reuse, and collects food scraps for composting.

Advice to others: “Get as many people on board with ideas and input,” said In Harmony co-owner Ladd Smith. “Most of our recycling efforts were built around our people’s ideas and efforts.”

Each year, businesses in King County send more than 240,000 tons of recyclable materials to the landfill. By providing a recycling-friendly workplace, companies can dramatically increase their recycling rate, ultimately saving money on their garbage bill.

Click here for the complete list of companies, along with more business recycling advice.