Brainstorming

Well, I'm doing a research on sustainable garden, sustainable landscape
Here it is,

Native Plants and Trees 
Planting native plants and trees is one of the best ways to work with, rather than against, nature. By matching plant species to your particular area you will have plants and trees that take less care and energy and will be healthier than exotic species. Another benefit is that native birds, insects, and other wildlife have evolved with native plant species and are able to use the fruits, nectars and habitat these plants and trees provide.

Plants that attract beneficial insects
Aster (Aster) 
Baby blue eyes (Nemophila) 
Calendula (Calendula) 
California Lilac (Ceanothus) 
California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica) 
Chervil (Anthriscus cerefolium) 
Chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum) 
Coriander (Coriander sativum) 
Cosmos (Cosmos) 
Coyote bush (Baccharis pilularis) 
Dill (Anethum graveolens) 
Elderberry (Sambucus mexicana) 
Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) 
Fleabane (Erigeron) 
Holly–leaved cherry (Prunus ilicifolia) 
Monkey flower (Mimulus) 
Native buckwheat (Eriogonum) 
Queen Anne's lace (Daucus carota) 
Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) 
Rudbeckia (Rudbeckia) 
Sunflower (Helianthus) 
Sweet alyssum (Lobularia maritime) 
Tidy–tips (Lobularia maritime) 
Toyon (Heteromeles) 
Yarrow (Achillea spp.)

Friends You Should Invite Into Your Garden!
Ladybugs — This aphid loving beetle is worth its weight in gold.
Lizards — Alligator lizards will search dark basements, garages and bushes for their favorite meal – black widow spiders.
Spiders — The average spider eats about 100 insects a year. He's one of the good guys.
Toads — One toad can eat between 10,000 and 20,000 slugs, flies, grubs, cutworms or grasshoppers per year.
Bats — Besides being a valuable pollinator, bats consume large quantities of insects. A single little brown bat can catch 600 mosquitoes in one hour.
Bees — In California alone, forty–two different nut, fruit, vegetable, forage and seed crops rely directly on bee pollination.
Green Lacewings — Green Lacewings will eat mites, mealy bugs and other small insects but their favorite meal is aphids.
Ground Beetles — Ground beetles' favorite insect meals are cutworms, grubs and root maggots. Some even love slugs and snails. To invite them into your garden, place a log or board at one end of your garden.
Hover Flies — These flies look like little flying helicopters. They are some of the garden's greatest allies. They feed on flower nectar, which makes them excellent pollinators. Their favorite meals are aphids and mealy bugs.
Hummingbirds — These small birds consume more than half their total weight in food everyday and a big part of their diet is insects.


ELEMENTS OF SUSTAINABLE LANDSCAPES
Consider your entire site your garden, including your dwelling. Everything on your site is interconnected in the whole of the activities that happen on that site. For practicality, garden placement and activities need to be considered in relation to accessibility from the dwelling. For aesthetics, consider how you can achieve a graceful, gradual transition from house to garden, and then from garden into wild landscape, if you have any, with formal structure becoming less and less as you move toward the periphery of the garden.

Follow the patterns and processes of Nature. Learn about the ecology of the place, how Nature operates there, assist rather than impede natural flows, and design according to natural processes. Work with Nature, rather than against it. Look to Nature, too, for artistic inspiration.

Learn the qualities and characteristics of the resources on your site and use them to their advantage. Everything works both ways — it is only how we see something that determines whether it works for us or against us. Everything is a positive resource, it is only up to us to find out how to use it in a positive way. We could curse the hot sun or use it to grow corn.

Create an "open system". Everything in the garden or house or community should be able to get their needs met from the system and put wastes back into the system. Consider how all parts of the system of your garden — including ourselves as gardener and harvester, plants, animals, water, sunshine, soil — interact and fit into the system itself. Study the structure and processes of local natural systems and imitate them in your garden.

Preserve the natural contours of the land. Choose the site for your garden in a naturally flat area, for example, rather than terracing a hillside that would require excavation. On the other hand, if a hillside is the only available land for food production, go ahead and terrace in a way that flows with the natural contour of the hillside.

Preserve local habitat. Every home and every garden site was once wild habitat. When we claimed this land for our own, we displaced some, if not all, of what previously lived there. So the first priority is to consider how we can live within the existing Nature on the site, or restore habitat if necessary.

Respect the materials, species and traditions of the place. This includes using local stone, native plants, and traditional design styles, which have evolved naturally in their particular areas.

Feed the soil. Creating fertile soil lays the foundation for an abundant garden. Plants that receive nutrients from rich soil are naturally strong, beautiful, productive, and pest-resistant without pesticides and chemical fertilizers.

Landscape with edible plants. Fruit and nut trees, flowers, herbs and other edible plants can be very attractive and provide shade, windbreaks, and food—all at the same time. They are a way to extend your garden and food supply to a larger area.

Plant heirloom varieties. Non-hybrid varieties are more hardy, easier to grow, and are able to reseed on their own.

Allow freedom of growth in plantings. Although there is often structure in sustainable gardens, the plants themselves are allowed to be loose and flow naturally. Plants are allowed to reseed and naturalize, letting the plants themselves decide where they want to grow.

Encourage beneficial wildlife. Your garden can be a virtual haven for all sorts of wild creatures—from butterflies and birds to squirrels and salamanders.

Create windbreaks with trees, bushes, and other plants. This can help protect your garden from harsh winds and improve the yield and quality of your food, as well as attract beneficial birds and insects. You can even create "living fences" instead of wood or metal ones.

Use companion planting methods. Organize your garden to bring together plants that support their neighbors by providing benefits such as shade, insect deterrence, and/or growing support.

Design for abundant yield. If you are using a piece of land to provide for your needs, use it efficiently. A system can always be made more complex, more stable, more abundant.

Consider the natural flows of movement. Where do you naturally want to walk? What places are you drawn to for certain activities? Place things in the garden where they fall and flow naturally.

Incorporate sustainable practices. Within the structure of your garden design, include other sustainable practices such as natural building materials, resource conservation, vernacular design, renewable energy systems, organic gardening methods, and others. Your garden design can bring them all together in a way in which they each are interconnected into a whole.

Others Sites that I think would help us to come up with a concept for sustainable green space:
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/PUBS/GARDEN/07243.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_landscape_architecture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_urban_drainage_systems
http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/envirohort/vagardlist.html
ttp://www.thefragrantgarden.com/g_sustain.html

See you guys tomorrow!