The Ocean Friendly Gardens (OFG) is the Surfrider Foundation’s sustainable landscaping and education program that provides beautiful, inexpensive and natural solutions to reduce polluted runoff and to support resilient coasts. In addition to providing valuable information to property owners on how landscapes and hardscapes can prevent water pollution, Surfrider chapters are using this program to encourage landscape professionals to incorporate the program’s principles into their business practices. Chapters also use the program to motivate local governments to support OFG-oriented policy changes for existing and new development.
OFG standards use a nature-based approach everywhere possible: contouring landscapes for rainwater retention; creating living soil to sponge up water, filtering pollution, sequestering carbon; and installing climate-appropriate & native plants to create wildlife habitat and a sense of place.
By maintaining green spaces with less fertilizer and capturing runoff, Ocean Friendly Gardens can help prevent harmful algal blooms and filter water pollution before it reaches our waterways and groundwater. As climate change increases the intensity and frequency of harmful algal bloom events, it is more urgent than ever to reduce nutrient pollution from our landscapes.
The Eastern Long Island chapter's Methodist Lane bioswale captures rainwater & runoff while adding native habitat and beauty to the community. Learn more about this project and how you can get involved by volunteering with the ELI chapter.