By Marvin Miller
AIB President

One of the first lessons taught about color is that white is a combination of all colors. As such, winter’s blanket of snow might be considered, at least in color theory, the most colorful time of the year for landscapes. For a gardener, perhaps, the snowy landscape might be the perfect inspiration to plan the spring and summer garden with the various colors yet to come.

While the beauty of a well-planned garden can’t be debated, there is another kind of beauty that such a garden can also possess. Research has also shown that a school garden, for example, can actually help students returning to the classroom from recess stay calmer and focus on schoolwork. These students ultimately have improved memory and receive higher grades. A school garden, therefore, might be said to yield gold stars.

When hospital patients have a garden view during recuperation, they have quick recoveries when compared to similarly-affected patients without such garden views. Flower arrangements and plants can also help encourage patients. Perhaps, the flowers and garden views lead to fewer (code) blues.

In neighborhoods with well-planned and well-maintained gardens, crime rates have been shown to be lower than in similar neighborhoods without these gardening activities. The more gardens in a neighborhood, the lower the crime rate. The garden color is said to attract neighborhood activity and yield more social relationships among neighbors. The presence of this activity is thought to deter criminals. In addition, adding plants to the landscape is also the only home improvement one can make that yields a greater return than the cost of the improvement investment. What is the color of these landscapes? There’s definitely added green and maybe some gold.

Elsewhere, we know that trees and shrubs strategically planted in the garden can provide an excellent windbreak, and thereby lower winter’s heating bills. These plants might also shade a building from summer’s sun, reducing cooling costs. These plants certainly yield some green in the pockets of the homeowners.

One of the great things about all of this plant material, of course, is that plants use carbon dioxide, sequester carbon, and release oxygen. Used throughout a community, plants can help clean the air, ameliorate all kinds of pollution (water, light, and air), help control soil and wind erosion, and help reduce the heat sinks associated with metropolitan areas. It seems flowers, plants, trees, shrubs, turf, and groundcovers provide a lot of green, but in a variety of colors!

As we begin 2012, we hope many of you are considering participating in America in Bloom activities this year. Enrollment is under way for our 11th annual community evaluation program with awards to be handed out in Fayetteville, Arkansas in September. Our organization will also be adding some new ways to showcase your community this year. Stay tuned.

Remember, no matter how you color your landscape, we encourage you to plant pride in your community!