this is the aesthetic ecosystems podcast

I’m Ben Hale your virtual design guide

to help you and your family have a

healthy beautiful landscape with less

work what’s up and welcome to the

aesthetic ecosystems of odd cast this is

episode one of the aesthetic ecosystems

podcast that’s right the first episode

of many to come and we’re talking about

all the things you can do to have a

low-maintenance landscape something

beautiful but also it doesn’t take tons

of work to maintain and how to have a

healthy landscape at the same time

healthy for you healthy for your family

and healthy for your yard before we get

into all sorts of tips and tricks and

hacks and design fundamentals in future

episodes today we’re going to be talking

about some top-level stuff mindset

having the right mindset in order to

have a landscape like this is very

important and what the right priorities

are for you and your family and your

landscape now I’m super excited that you

guys are here with me today this is the

first episode like I said of many to

come and in order to celebrate this

excitement we’re having a launch party

stay tuned at the end of episode 4

details this launch party is gonna be

full of interaction giveaways and other

things to come that will celebrate this

excitement of this new podcast and I

really want you to be involved as well

and have you hopefully have a chance to

win some of these giveaways so stay

tuned for the details on that towards

the end of the podcast now today like I

said is about the right mindset for your

yard in your life now this may seem kind

of cerebral or fancy or or whatever or

maybe it’s too la la la but this is very

important actually so if you think about

it your yard and your lifestyle are very

directly connected if you have a house

and you have a yard which

guessing you probably do if you’re

listening to a home in gardening podcast

so if you have a yard odds are you have

to maintain it or you have to pay to

maintain it so in order for that

maintenance either time or costs

involved that directly affects your

lifestyle how much time you have to

spend on your yard or how much money

that you spend time to earn gets spent

on your yard and so this podcast is

about reducing that maintenance burden

in order for you to have more value more

time in your life left to pursue things

that are more important again that might

seem like a stretch but to me that is

fundamentally important to the

principles of low maintenance landscape

design and how it applies to you and the

really important pieces you need to know

to change your yard for the better to

have less work increase your health and

increase beauty at the same time so

there’s one core principle here in this

whole episode if you take away one thing

This Is It this mindset piece right here

your family and your lifestyle are far

more important than your yard again this

may seem kind of silly but I see so many

people that have this flipped around we

live on a street with just a about 20

homes on our street and of those homes I

see the majority of these people slaving

away at their landscapes every weekend

of the summer sometimes some people

every single day of the week they’re out

there working in their yard and I don’t

want that to be you there are far more

important things you can do with your

life whether it’s just sitting out in

your yard and enjoying it or making a

difference in the world or spending time

with your family whatever it is there

are far more important things than

having to go take care of your yard and

to spend time working on your yard and

so if you don’t understand that your

family and your lifestyle are more

important than your yard and actually

sit down and reflect on whether you have

those priorities straight then you may

be spending way

too much time on your yard than you need

to

what really boils down to with this

principle is time and focus in your life

are very important and where that time

and focus is directed is very important

so when you’re spending time cutting

your grass or edging or weeding or

whatever that time is taking away from

something else you could spend in your

life you only have a limited number of

hours every week in your life

from whoever you are that everybody has

the same number of hours per week some

people choose to spend it on making

their lives better pursuing their dreams

making the world better and some people

choose to spend that time on relaxing

and enjoying life contemplating life

some people choose to spend that time on

tasks that they feel need to be done and

maybe just don’t have to be done or

maybe things can be changed where those

tasks don’t have to be done as often and

that’s what we’re talking about here is

that certain yard maintenance tasks we

can design those out or design to reduce

those so you don’t have to do them as

often or as long duration and instead

you can take that time and reapply it to

something that makes a difference in

your life in the world around you now

I’ve already put something together that

can help you get time back right now

with just some simple things you can do

in your landscape today and throughout

the rest of the year that will give you

these simple habit changes so if you

want to check that out check it out in

the show notes or go to aesthetic

ecosystems comm slash 27 hours

that’s aesthetic ecosystems calm slash

to seven hours and you can get that free

giveaway right now so back to the

mindset stuff what this can do is it

allows you to have more time for your

own pursuits so

by having an easy to maintain yard you

can free up time to do more important

things in your life anything from

spending time with your family to doing

something even amazing and great that

changes the world

maybe it’s helping out with charity or

creating your own charitable

organization or designing some outreach

programs whatever it is everything

starts with the tiniest little bit

whether it’s getting time back from your

landscape or making drastic changes in

your lifestyle and what I’m talking

about here is making small changes in

your landscape

small changes in your mindset that allow

you to have more time and more freedom

in your life look we’re all busy these

days right everybody’s got a job they’ve

got kids they’re shuffling around

different programs we’ve got some

semblance of a social life hope

hopefully that we can you know spend

time with a few friends on the weekend

or whatever it is but all that stuff

takes up a lot of time and it’s all very

important stuff in order to have a good

healthy lifestyle with the people around

us and the people we care about but the

parts that aren’t is important is things

like these scheduled tasks that we have

to do or that we think we have to do

that maybe don’t improve life so much

and things like our landscape are very

very important to having a nice home but

at the same time they aren’t so

important to have to spend ton time on

so with a difference in design or a

difference in how you maintain your

landscape instead of having to schedule

your life around your landscape tasks

you can schedule your tasks around your

life and so if you have to delay

something a few days or even a week or

so it might not be a big deal at all

instead of having to do a certain task

at a certain time or your landscapes

gonna look like a mess this allows you

flexibility in your lifestyle allows

flexibility to delay maintenance and

flexibility to do the things you wanted

do when you want to do them and be a bit

more impulsive about it at the same time

sometimes to change your yard into

something where it’s more flexible it

takes less time to maintain sometimes

this requires an investment upfront I’ll

be completely honest here sometimes it

requires a very drastic change in how

you land scape is designed but not

always in like I said there’s some

things you can do today and just simple

habit changes that will give you a

massive amount of time back those are

the things we’re gonna be focusing on in

this podcast is is those things that

really really make a big difference and

in the long run give you the most impact

for the time spent or the money spent so

that’s where we’re gonna focus but

overall sometimes there is an investment

required to change your yard in a way

that makes it easier to maintain and

still has the beauty that you desire

because let’s face it you could make

your yard a low-maintenance yard right

now but it probably wouldn’t look the

way you would like it and not look away

that your neighborhood your neighbors

and your your city or Township would

accept so we’re talking about low

maintenance principles here that can

have your beautiful landscape your might

neighbors might not even notice that

you’re not out there every single day

until you’re sitting out there relaxing

while they’re mowing their yard every

day or every week there’s there’s a

funniest side right there as is we

actually do have one neighbor that mows

his yard every single day of the growing

season now that seems like a stretch but

it’s true this this guy’s out there my

wife when she was on maternity leave

with our oldest child she called me up

halfway through the week and we had

always always joked like how are you

know he’s out there every day and she

calls me a dead serious our neighbor has

been out there every single day like

it’s not a joke he’s been out there

every single day cutting his grass folks

that’s not a good thing to be doing

your time instead we can be I’m guessing

you probably I’m hoping that you’re not

out there every day with your landscape

and if you are you know we can change

that we can give you time back and I’m

glad you’re here if if that’s you but

I’m guessing you’re probably not out

there every single day that’s an extreme

of the circumstance but whatever it is

whatever your maintenance routine is I

can guarantee you that we’ll find ways

to reduce your maintenance needs in your

yard and still have a beautiful yard

sometimes in order to make this change

into having a beautiful yard you may

feel a little bit over your head and

we’re gonna be talking about a lot of

things you can do if you’re that

do-it-yourself for everything you want

to do yourself just to have whether it’s

to have control over it or reduce some

cost or whatever I totally get that

that’s where I come from is I have a

Duty yourself or background but I also

acknowledge that when it comes to a

landscape or when it comes to you know

any sort of project sometimes having an

expert to help you out with the design

or the implementation of it really pays

off in the long run it could save you

tons of time it can prevent certain

design flaws and it might really be

worth it so it’s something to consider

and we’ll get into hiring the right kind

of designer in future episodes but it’s

something just to point out right now

sometimes even with the design phase

there are certain things you can do that

really pay off and are worth the

investment sometime – you might want to

have a landscape maintenance program in

place I know there’s a lot of people

that don’t want anything to do with

their landscape and that’s fine you know

it frees up a lot of your time to do

other things that are potentially more

important in your life and sometimes the

investment of hiring a designer and

hiring a maintenance crew to take care

of your landscape can free up a lot of

that time now of course there’s an

investment required in that and if you

have the right kind of design the

maintenance program is drastically

reduced when it comes to your yard so

we’ll get into tips and tactics and

and finding the right designer as well

as the right maintenance programs for

your landscape and that way you might

not have to have a maintenance program

that comes by as frequently as is the

conventional landscape around you what

this does when you have this change in

vision and mindset about your yard where

your life and your family is more

important than your yard is it not only

increases your freedom from your

landscape but it also increases your

pride because you realize you can have a

beautiful landscape you can have what

you want out of your yard without having

to spend all this time and effort on it

so having to have the ability to

decrease your burden from your landscape

can actually increase your pride in it

and how well it’s designed and

maintained on a less frequent basis

we’re gonna talk about in later episodes

how you can actually involve your family

in your landscape and and surprisingly

sometimes get them in excited about

being in your landscape as well so when

you have a beautiful attractive

landscape that doesn’t take as much work

surprisingly your kids may actually want

to help you with the maintenance of it

and also spend time in it along with you

to enjoy it so a healthy beautiful

landscape is something where it’s an

inviting space for you your kids your

family and your friends to be in more

often and to enjoy it enjoy the variety

of your landscape enjoy the textures and

enjoy the space the inviting space that

it’s made to be and that’s what really

landscapes are supposed to be is to be

an extension of your home somewhere you

can go to escape to refresh and to

become invigorated with the the natural

surrounding of your own property so

that’s what I want for you and your

family

and I hope you want that too is that

your landscape is not just kind of a

pretty ribbon to tie around your house

but it’s something that’s actually an

inviting opening space that both

frontier

in backyard side yard can be something

where you want to be in that space to

enjoy it and and to maintain it in a way

where it’s not a ton of work and

sometimes it’s almost like a pleasurable

thing where you can do little bits of

maintenance along the way to reduce the

long term maintenance burden along with

creating an inviting space for you and

your family and your friends to be in

and to enjoy the space of your yard

there’s an additional piece that’s very

very important and it kind of comes hand

in hand with the whole inviting piece

and that is creating a healthy space for

your family and what I’m talking about

here is a lot of landscapes we’ve kind

of been in a way a little bit tricked

about what a healthy landscape is what a

great landscape is and so a lot of our

landscapes are full of chemicals that

are used to treat our landscapes and

also just kind of unhealthy practices or

not the most fun space so whether it’s

having to use a lot of chemicals to

maintain your landscape or simply to

have a space where the environment of

your landscape is not so healthy reduces

the health of you and your family as

well and so what I’m saying about the

environment piece is if you have a wide

open lawn totally surrounding your house

which let’s face it most landscapes in

the in the United States that’s how our

landscapes are is there’s a big wide

bond and and these can be very pretty at

times but they’re very susceptible to

extremes in temperature so if I’m out on

our front lawn our front lawn faces

south and it’s just it’s a there’s a

bank in front and so if I have the kids

out there playing and enjoying the time

usually we can only do that in summer

kind of mid morning and late evening

because the rest of the day it’s

scorching hot out there so how can we

design our landscapes to be comfortable

all day long and as much of the

year-round as possible so have spaces

where midday they’re well shaded and

nice cool spaces with a gentle breeze

that comes through in midsummer

so we have a space all day around in the

middle of the summer somewhere in our

landscape to enjoy so that’s what I’m

talking about not only being free of

certain harmful chemicals that can

potentially be harmful for your family

but also to be inviting spaces that are

healthy for your yard but also healthy

for your family to enjoy and to be

comfortable as much as possible as we

kind of wrap up here I want to talk

about some of the benefits of changing

this mindset so we can have more time to

do the things we want things we love or

to even complicate contemplate what we

could do with that time let’s face it

sometimes we’re just so busy we don’t

even get a chance to stop and think

about life or about what we would like

to do next or if there’s a next step for

us what is it and so here’s some of the

things that we could do if we had some

dedicated time for ourselves or for our

family first you could just simply have

more time with your family let’s face it

it’s so difficult with with full-time

jobs and with busy schedules to actually

sit down with your family and and create

an enjoyable space and enjoyable time

for all of our family members sometimes

we’re so stressed out so tired or

whatever when we do have that time it’s

difficult to be fully present and so

just by having more time on your

weekends away from having to take care

of your yard you can have more time to

spend dedicated to your family of being

fully present and being with them to

enjoy it same you could also spend that

time with your spouse more fully let’s

face it right now I’m having a very

difficult time we have a we have a

newborn in the household and my wife and

I we have a very difficult time just

being together and having time to go on

a date or whatever and just bring up

more time during the week to have time

together would be incredibly awesome

right now and and again we can talk

about

how we can do this how we can have more

time to do things like having more time

with our spouse some quality time that’s

what we’re talking about here is quality

time you can spend this time actually

working toward your life goals maybe you

don’t have life goals right maybe you

wish you had life goals well this is

time you could also spend just working

toward figuring out your life goals what

do you want to do with your life and can

you really make space to make a

difference well that’s what this time I

really want a suspended on is is fix our

landscape to help fix our lives to make

our lives better maybe you just want to

spend this time for relaxation right

it’s so hard with a go-go-go scheduling

out fully our weeks that we have a hard

time scheduling and just time to relax

and so when we get this time back for

ourselves and for our family let’s make

sure we have time to just relax and to

calm down for a little bit because

relaxing and calming down helps you

focus so much and need to start working

toward the things that are important and

overall this time can be used to help

develop relationships or to redevelop

relationships they’re so important to

keep in touch with friends family

members and making connections that it’s

so hard to do in a busy schedule so

again just freeing up a few hours a week

and several hours a year can really

build up to make a significant

difference in our lives

and so as we wrap up here again this

whole episode is about making the point

that our family and our lifestyle the

people around us are far more important

than our yard and so if we flip that

balance to say our yard is secondary to

our lifestyle how do we design our yard

to fit that priority shift is very very

important and we’ll learn how to make

that change in future episodes as we

kind of build the pieces together and to

help change your landscape and again if

you want to step out and start just

making simple habit changes right now

that can make a significant difference

in the amount of time you get back in

your life go to aesthetic ecosystems

calm / 27 hours for a free download

that’s ascetic ecosystems calm / – 7 hrs

and get your free download so you can

start making those changes today so now

we’re gonna be getting into the launch

party piece of our episode here and so

stick around get all sorts of

information about this launch party how

you can get eligible for free giveaways

ok now it’s time to talk about the

launch party guys excuse me not party

but partay the launch party is for the

first two months of the show from March

have some fun to help spread a war to

spread the word about the show I really

appreciate your enthusiasm and interest

in this show and I want to get you guys

involved and have some fun while we’re

doing it so this is a chance to have

some fun too for us to get connected to

win some prizes and let’s talk about the

prizes before we talk about what we’re

doing so what are the prizes weakly I’m

offering a free consultation with me Ben

Hale which is normally a $99 value so

one person each week that gets involved

in the launch partay gets a free

consultation I’m also giving away a free

offer for one of my ebooks ten ways to

get more beauty with less work which is

the $19 value next the grand prize there

is only one of these were giving away

through this whole launch party so at

the end of the launch partay the organic

lawn care manual by Paul – key so Paul –

key himself has offered to give away one

free book to a lucky winner that’s

getting involved in this launch party

and this book is all about how to manage

a healthy lawn from anything from a golf

course style on to your low-maintenance

lawn which of course is something I

prefer here on this show right

I own this book I’ve read this book

multiple times I’ve give it away it’s a

kind of a tattered and worn version that

I have and I use some of these practices

in my own lines so I love this book and

I highly promote it as well and you’ll

hear me talk about it throughout the

show

but Paul Tookie has been kind enough to

offer a copy of his book as a grand

prize and there’s also a special

surprise for everybody that’s going to

be getting involved in the launch partay

the rolling river nursery out of

California has offered a special

surprise for everybody that’s involved

the rolling river nursery is a USDA

certified organic nursery so I went

online and I looked around for nurseries

that have online availability ship

through the continental US and have some

great offerings and rolling River

nursery is being kind enough to become

involved with our launch party and

they’re not only are they online

availability but they also are certified

organic which means they don’t use any

harmful herbicides or pesticides that

you have to be concerned with your

family about and so what you’re getting

is a safe and healthy plant they also

offer a ton of edible plants and trees

and shrubs cacti and succulents so they

offer several trees and shrubs that are

adaptable throughout the most of the

United States so definitely worth

checking them out and in addition these

guys are also involved with a non-profit

in Southern California to help local

food movements called planting justice

org so if you want to learn more about

them you can go to rolling River nursery

com and I also want to give a shout out

to Paul to Kies website for his organic

lawn care manual and his other works is

Paul to keep calm PA UL t uke Y and to

sum up guys okay you want to learn how

to get involved with this launch party

go over to aesthetic ecosystems calm

slash pod launch and that’s p OD lau nch

there’s a link in the show notes and

that’s that’s going to give you all the

instructions on how to get involved

there’s two ways specifically to get

involved one is through sharing with

your peeps on Facebook and the other is

through leaving a review on iTunes

both of these are gonna help spread the

word about the show and get other people

other friends listening to it as well

and I sure appreciate your help here and

likewise this is gonna be a fun time so

so going over and to ascetic ecosystems

comm slash pod lunch to get involved

thanks so much for coming by

I into being part of this launch I’m so

excited to be launching this episode and

to be sharing my knowledge with you guys

and I want you to stick around and kind

of be witness as we change our landscape

as well to something beautiful easy to

maintain and healthy for our family and

I hope you do the same for yours so

thanks for tuning in and make sure you

live with passion and make tomorrow

better than today

[Music]

you