Ahimsa Landscaping | Services

Services

Ahimsa Landscaping is a full service landscaping company. We can help you from concept phase all the way through maintenance of an established system.

Whole Site (Systems) Design

Ahimsa Landscaping's aim is to maximize the potential of each site we work with by harvesting water, sun, shade, wind, and vegetation in an integrated way that helps to heat our homes in the winter, cool them in the summer, and allows for the possibility of maximum production of on-site resources, such as solar power, solar hot water, and vegetation that can provide food, medicine, shade, wildlife habitat, building material, and beauty.

We work closely with our clients throughout all phases of the design process.

Water Harvesting Earthworks

Water harvesting is the capture, diversion, and storage of rainwater and greywater for beneficial use, i.e. plant irrigation. The primary concept is to slow, spread, and sink as much of it on the property as possible. It's more than just placing a cistern on a site. It's using the water in the most beneficial way possible. With just some simple techniques you can make your desert landscape come to life and THRIVE, not just survive!

Passive water harvesting earthworks such as berms, basins, swales, and terraces, combined with organic mulch and vegetation help infiltrate our rain water into the soil, build nutrient rich soil, slow evaporation rates by shading and protecting the soil, and encourage micro and macro organisms to find a home. Healthy soil is the foundation of all healthy and productive ecosystems. Where there is water there is life.

Cistern Design and Installation

Rainwater is the highest quality water resourse we have on our sites. by capturing and storing the rain coming off of our roofs we are then able to utilyze this high quality water throughout the dry times of the year. We design our systems incorporating the best practices possible, including elememts in the system such as rain heads (rain screens), appropriately sized first flush and conveyance piping, overfloes directed to be a resource and not wasted, 1" diameter outlet with full port valve, not allowing sunlight into the tank so algae doesn't grow

Greywater Design and Installation

Greywater is water from sinks, showers, baths, and washing machines that typically runs down our pipes and into our sewer systems. By conveying this water to our landscapes we have the opportunity to reuse this water instead of having it pollute our water ways. We can then safely irrigate more water needy plants with this water, which allows us to incorporate more exotic plants that can produce food for us, helping to meet some of our needs from our backyard.

Ahimsa Landscaping focuses on passive, branched drain greywater systems that rely on gravity to do the work for us. We don't use pumps. This water is then sent into mulched basins that double as rain water harvesting basins as well.

Edible Forest Gardens

An edible forest garden, or food forest, is mimicking the natural patterns that happen in forests, from structure to function, in a way that produces yields directly beneficial to humans. Focus is on the three most common layers in a forest: trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants. Additional layers could include vines, roots, and ground covers. These plants are all interspersed throughout the landscape which helps deter pests and build soil. Ahimsa Landscaping always designs edible forest gardens with the on-site water budget in mind, never planting anything that will depend on imported, high energy, water.

The list of benefits of food forests is lengthy:

the most natural way to garden
low-maintenance
moderates microclimates
provide critical habitat to beneficial organisms for the garden
combate global warming by sequestering carbon
extended harvest
plants perform multiple functions
beauty
highly diverse systems are more resilient to weather extremes

Natural Building

Steel, concrete, and drywall are the three building materials with the highest embodied energy. That means those products require a tremendous amount of resources to produce. When we build with these materials we have to understand the overall impacts that choice has on the planet. There are other options out there sometimes. Houses have been built by just mixing clay, sand, straw, and water together in the right proportions. Ahimsa can build you a nice garden bench or garden wall out of materials sourced locally that have a relatively small footprint, and will not pollute the environment because of their use. Features built out of natural materials (clay, sand, straw, water, etc.) with their softer edge have a much more pleasing effect on the interacting person.

Natural Landscape Maintenance

There is no such thing as a no-maintenance landscape. When we properly tend to our yards we can expedite the processes of nature and guide them to progress through the stages of succession. For example, humans can build healthy soil much quicker than nature ever could on her own. Ahimsa can maintain your landscape in a way that mimicks how mature ecosystems maintain themselves. We adhere to the following principles and practices when maintaining landscapes:

Produce/create no waste. Employing the "chop and drop" method, all prunings stay on-site and are used as mulch to reduce evaporation rates, increase soil moisture, and cycling nutrients through the system.
Emphasis on the use of biological resources over fossil fuel resources. We do not use chemicals in the form of pesticides, herbicides, or feritlizers but we will amend soils using compost, compost teas, and the like. You can even take care of "weeds" using chicken tractors.
Irrigation system design, installation, and repair. Only systems that are there to get plants established and to be used during severe droughts but incorporate rainwater as the primary irrigation source are considered.