Greening Up
You can have a lush organic lawn without being a soil scientist.
April 2008
Ah, spring: Birds singing, trees budding...and lawn warriors pushing fertilizer spreaders, each one feedin’ and weedin’ with a steely determination to make his turf the neighborhood envy.
But as much as we may love our lawns, they don’t love us back. According to Beyond Pesticides, a watchdog group in Washington, DC, Americans apply over 90 million pounds of weedkiller on their lawns and gardens every year, and the yards of suburbia are subject to more pesticide applications per acre than farmland. Nervous system dysfunction and birth defects are just two of the problems that have been linked to many of the most commonly used pesticides. These potent chemicals, which have been detected in groundwater, have also been shown to harm birds, fish and bees. No wonder some localities, such as New York’s Suffolk County, are starting to put limits on the feeding of the suburban lawn.
Concerns about both human and environmental health have made organic lawn care a hot new trend. The National Gardening Association estimates that five years ago, organics made up 5% of the lawn and landscaping market; this year they expect it to hit 10%. “I have visited 37 states in the past two years and the trend toward organic lawn care is overwhelming,” says Paul Tukey, founder of the SafeLawns Foundation (www.safelawns.org). Tukey’s group is helping the trend along by doing an organic makeover on part of Washington’s National Mall.
Showing Your Lawn the Love
While an increasing number of lawn care companies are going the organic route, you can create your own eco-friendly yard. The first step might be cutting back on the amount of lawn itself; ground covers that are native to your area are better bets in areas that are too shady or wet, or otherwise unsuitable for grass. Ask your garden center or Cooperative Extension for suggestions.
For the lawn that’s left, less is more. As far as Paul Wheaton, certified master gardener and creator of www.richsoil.com, is concerned, there’s only two must-dos. First, “set your mower as high as it will go—3 to 4 inches,” he says. Second, “water only when your grass shows signs of drought stress and then water deeply. Put a cup in the sprinkler zone and make sure it gets at least an inch of water.”
Wheaton explains the need for high mowing: “There is a fight for sun. If the grass doesn’t shade the weed, the weed will shade the grass.” He also recommends leaving the clippings on the lawn to feed the soil and to use an old-fashioned push mower instead of a “heavy, noisy, stinky gas mower.”
The idea behind watering infrequently and heavily is to “force your grass roots to go deep into the soil,” Wheaton says. “As the top few inches of soil become bone dry, the weeds and weed seedlings up there will die while the grass still enjoys moisture from a little deeper.”
So go ahead and give your yard the organic treatment. You’ll actually have more time to kick back in the hammock this summer.
To find a lawn care company in your area that uses organic practices, visit www.beyondpesticides.org and enter “lawn care” into the search function.
