This article is part of our Design special section about making the environment a creative partner in the design of beautiful homes. Between Holy Week and the demands of farm life, it wasn’t easy to get Sister Lily Scullion on the phone in April. (“Sorry for the delay, have been very busy with lambing,” she wrote in an email.) And then there is the heating fuel to be harvested. In an effort to live sustainably, the sisters not only use solar panels to warm their buildings but also a little-known but mighty form of elephant grass called miscanthus.

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