Michael Hauck doesn't rake leaves. He hasn't mulched in 20 years. He doesn't need insecticides to combat bugs, and he's used scant herbicides to control weeds.

Yet the Hauck family's one-acre yard carved from a cornfield in rural Pequea Township could be on a house-and-garden tour.

Best of all, he doesn't have to do much maintenance. He can actually enjoy his yard, not be a slave to it.

The yard sends no runoff into the Chesapeake Bay. Wildlife seeks out the property. Less energy is used to heat and cool the Haucks' handsome brick home, and all the vegetation absorbs global-warming carbon dioxide. All this is accomplished almost exclusively with plants native to the area.

For all those reasons, Hauck is the first recipient of a $500 excellence award in the "Seeds of Sustainability" contest by the 5-year-old nonprofit Chestnut Grove Foundation.

The Ann and Larry Kirchner family of Conestoga received a $100 meritorious prize for their energy-saving and environmentally friendly practices.

The household recycles plastic bags, cardboard, egg cartons, cans and bottles, uses natural cleaning products such as vinegar and baking soda, uses cloth bags for shopping and buys used cars, as well as used clothing and refurbished electronics.

The Kirchners also use a push mower to cut the grass and feline pine pellets as cat litter (later used as mulch), drive a hybrid car and are currently replacing all their traditional light bulbs with energy-saving compact fluorescent ones.

Now, the Chestnut Grove Foundation has launched a second contest with awards of up to $1,000 to homeowners in the seven-township Penn Manor School District who have made improvements to their properties within the last five years that involve alternative energy sources, protect  wildlife or conserve or protect natural resources.

Applications will be received until July 15. Applications are available on-line at the group's Web site, www.chestnutgrovefoundation.org or by calling 872-4142.

"We want to spark interest and raise awareness," says Dan Yocom, a biology professor at Millersville University and foundation board member who conceived of the contest.

"Our hope is to put these projects out there to give other people ideas. If they know their neighbors are doing this, it makes it somehow more achievable."

When Hauck, 59, marketing manager of a technical publication firm, built his home on a former cornfield on Church Road, he was determined that it not be just another "suburban desert."

Twenty years and some trial-and-error later, he has what he envisioned. "It's made so you don't have to do a lot of work — you can just go out and enjoy it," Hauck says while walking through the grounds ready to burst out in spring splendor.

The yard includes a handful of pockets of themed vegetation. There is a wildflower area and a dwarf conifer garden, for instance. Many of his trees were selected based on their varied bark.

He's found room to grow anything that tickled his fancy through the years, to date, about 130 species of plants and trees.

He has a typical yard in back for soccer and football games with the kids, but much of the surface area weeds out weeds and needs little watering because of various blooming ground covers.

"One of the main points to recognize is this landscape development can be accomplished with a modest amount of expense, and if the appropriate native plants are used, the time spent maintaining it is minimal," Hauck says.


Staff writer Ad Crable can be reached at acrable@LNPnews.com or 481-6029.