How Your Lawn & Garden Reduce Energy Bills Naturally

Did you know? With proper planning and care, your lawn and garden can actually help you reduce household energy bills naturally. And with today's concerns about economic crisis, rising fuel costs, and potential rises in electricity bills due to taxes proposed in the new U.S. budget proposals, this could be one of the most important home improvement projects you do this year.

Plants are a natural way to protect yourself and your home from the environment. They work wonderfully for both winter and summer purposes too. Plants can insulate your home from winter cold and keep it insulated from summer heat too. Trees placed in strategic positions can provide shade to cool the home in summer, and they help block cold winds in the winter too.

There are actually many ways to use your lawn and garden to reduce your home energy bills naturally, and here we'll look at some of the easiest to accomplish.

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2. Plant deciduous trees. Deciduous trees are particularly useful for reducing home energy costs throughout all seasons of the year. In the summer these trees have plenty of leaves and foilage which helps provide shade to your home. Having your home shaded by trees in the summer time can actually reduce your heating costs as much as 20%.

The same applies in wintertime. In the winter the leaves have fallen off your deciduous trees, leaving plenty of area for the sun to shine through and help warm your home. And just as you did with summer heating costs, you'll see a direct benefit with the reduction of your heating bills because of this.

3. Insulate your home naturally. There are simple and easy way to use plants and flora to insulate your home naturally. Some people prefer to simply plant evergreen bushes near the home's foundation, because these provide insulation from heat and cold as well as natural wind breaks year round.

Another excellent way to insulate naturally though, is to create raised garden beds around the outside of your house. By building raised garden beds right against your home's exterior, you are placing several inches of natural earth between your home and the outside elements. Earth is an excellent natural insulation material. It slowly absorbs solar heat from the sun throughout the day, and the heat it has stored is released slowly as well. So in the evening when it may be chilly or cold outside, the garden beds have stored plenty of heat to share with your home. And by the time the sun rises in the morning, the soil in those garden beds has cooled and will in turn help your house to stay cooler for the better part of the day.