In April 1970, the founders of Earth Day hoped to spark a national movement toward greater environmental awareness and to teach practical ways to be kind to the Earth.

It was intended to be a day of action, a day in which millions of Americans would be prompted to work with their neighbors to reduce, reuse and recycle. It would be a day of teaching and of learning and a day when politics could be cast aside and the big picture of what it means to be an environmentalist would be clear.

These days, while "being green" is making a comeback due to concern about global warming and high heating bills, gardeners should be smiling and patting their collective backs for their year-round observance of Earth Day. While we know much more today about how our actions impact the global environment, one of the most notable effects ordinary citizens can have is in how we take care of our landscapes and lawns.

Gardeners are often the butt of their friends' jokes for their uncanny ability to see the value of objects that most of us would discard without a thought. For example, what you think is an old bathtub the creative gardener sees as the perfect lawn ornament.

While you can't wait for recyclables to be gone from your garage, the wise wildlife gardener sees plastic soda bottles just waiting to become hummingbird feeders. Gardeners typically have their own solutions to close the "energy loop" by reusing and recycling in many ways.

Perhaps one of the best known ways that gardeners contribute to our collective well-being is through their ability to recycle waste and put it back into good use in their garden beds. While the average American generates 4 pounds of garbage per day, gardeners are not your average Americans. Not only do they harness their powers of invention to create raised beds from "trash," but also they reuse food and garden wastes by composting and spare the landfills leaf and lawn litter by mulching. The home gardener brings the conservation message right back home and expresses it through some simple and cost-effective garden chores.

As we all become more conscious of the importance of biodiversity thousands of miles away in the world's tropical forests, it is the gardener who wages the battle for greater diversity here at home. Loss of biodiversity in our gardens is addressed through the quest to find the "coolest" heirloom tomato ('Cherokee Purple' is my pick) or the most beautiful and fragile species of wildflower to grace our perennial beds (the endangered and native Tennessee coneflower (Echinacea tennesseensis) is a whimsical and lovely choice).

Some gardeners save seeds or support organizations whose mission it is to cling to the vast amount of seed stock that has been used by farmers for generations. Biodiversity is cultivated not only through choices of fruits and vegetables but also through nurturing the insect and animal species that call our garden plots home.

Some gardeners are so soft-hearted that we can't bear the thought of turning the hose on our rabbit friends, let alone using inorganic pesticides around our gardens to deter insects. Instead, we choose to assess the situation, decide what our "pest threshold" is and maybe even have a little fun by planting a "decoy" garden with spinach, mustard and chard just for the rabbits or a patch of milkweed or a spicebush to offer food for the pesky caterpillars.

In these ways, we proudly wave the banner of Earth Day in our gardens while learning patience from our critter friends.

Finally, as gardeners, we realize that our food does taste better when WE put the time and energy into cultivating it. Instead of buying the convenient bag of spinach that may have traveled 2,500 miles before it reaches our table, using our own small plots or even containers to create salad gardens for our families saves us from the hidden costs, both economic and environmental, of food production.

We enjoy the knowledge that our tomatoes have traveled only 20 feet from the soil to our salsa, and we can bask in the admiration that our beautiful and lively landscapes bring from our neighbors. Most importantly, we can be proud that our vegetable gardens and perennial and annual flower beds, tended with care, are the very embodiment of the spirit of Earth Day every day.