The passion for sustainable living doesn't begin and end with your home's interior. Today's green living houses incorporate gardens that work closely integrating sustainable design with nature.

Organic gardening is an integral part of the green living lifestyle. When you create an organic garden, you rely on beneficial insects instead of chemicals, a diversity of native plants and trees, and using recycled water, as well as wide range of compost materials to enrich the soil with vital nutrients.

Green Living Using Native Plants and Trees

Planting native plants and trees is one of the best ways to take sustainable living directly into the garden. Generally native plants are low-maintenance, wildlife-friendly and offer a variety of choices that have adapted well to your home's specific climate.

The benefit: these plants and trees require less maintenance than exotics and can be drought-tolerant - saving valuable water. Additionally, native birds, insects, and other wildlife are drawn to native plants and rely on the fruits, nectars and habitat these plants and trees provide for survival.

Reusing Water Enhances a Sustainable Garden

Gardeners are always finding ways to naturally return water to the ground, rather than having it run off into the city's storm drains. Ideas range from rain barrels that harvest water for irrigation, to permeable paving that allows runoff to penetrate into the soil.

Many people interested in creating an eco-friendly, sustainably designed home disconnect their rain gutter's downpipes and either store the rainwater to use the garden, redirect it to fill a water feature, or use it to irrigate planters and pots directly. A traditional Japanese-style rain chain, or kusari doi, is decorative as well as functional.

Try Eco-friendly Composting

Composting using your kitchen scraps and yard waste returns nutrients to the soil, including phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, zinc, manganese, iron and boron. It improves the texture of the soil making cultivation easier, as well as offering better water retention and drainage. To further enrich your eco-friendly home garden, consider asking your local coffee shop for used coffee grounds and filters - items that would otherwise end up in the landfill. The organic matter breaks down slowly, and worms love to eat the paper filters.

Speaking of worms, no sustainable living household would be complete without a worm-composting area. Whether you're a suburban green-living householder or a die-hard, sustainable design apartment dweller, you can worm compost year-round either indoors and outdoors. Simply use a bin that allows air to circulate throughout the structure, moistened bedding and red worms. Add your food waste to the worm mix, and the worms and micro-organisms will eventually convert the cast-offs into nutrient-rich compost.

Sustainable Design Recycles and Re-uses

What do you normally throw away that can be re-used in the garden? Use your imagination to repurpose broken pots, stones, an old chair or table to beautify your garden.

Today, sustainability is no longer something we just talk about; it's something that eco-friendly homes incorporate through considered use of sustainable design and living. A "green" garden is another way to bring the sustainable living philosophy full circle.