Eco-Friendly Lawn Care
Caring or improving your lawn can involve way too many chemicals for anyone’s comfort. Can you balance your lawn care needs with the needs of the environment?
Consider the value of your lawn to the eco-system – the grass is a fresh feeding ground for birds with worms and insects while preventing soil erosion. It also naturally filters rainwater contaminants and even absorbs airborne pollutants. If you’re not convinced of your lawn’s importance, how about its role in converting carbon dioxide to oxygen which cleans air and helps us breathe?
Since our lawns naturally help us, it’s only fair that we naturally help our lawns. Use environmentally friendly products and techniques for maintaining your lawn.
An Ounce of Prevention….
Use preventative health to avoid the use of pesticides or other chemicals. Prevent the problems from even occurring so you don’t need to treat them. How?
- Choose the right type of grass for your lawn.
- Soil prep and maintenance is worth an extra step – try aerating the lawn to loosen compacted soil of necessary – a good indicator of a yard that needs aerating is rain puddling in the yard rather than running off or absorbing in to the ground. Just strap on an aerator to the bottom of your shoes, almost like cleats, and walk around to airate soil.
Fertilizing
Fertilize if you must to maintain healthy soil – but too much of good thing isn’t good. Only fertilize when necessary. Excess fertilizer ends up not in your lawn, but in the stormwater runoff system or pollut ing streams and lakes.
Not all lawns will need fertilizing, soil tests can tell if your lawn is nutrient deficient. Don’t just fertilize because everyone else does. If the soil test indicates that a fertilizer is needed, choose one that addresses the specific needs of your soil, not an all purpose fertilizer. Organic fertilizers are best for contributing to soil health and include manure and compost. while inorganic fertilizers contain different combinations of nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous but can also contain pesticides and other harmful chemicals.
Pesticides
Don’t bug out over pests. All lawns have them to some degree. Don’t indiscriminately use pesticides as part of your yard maintenance. If you develop a pest problem, try natural home remedies before considering pesticides. Use one tablespoon of dishwashing liquid with four cups of water and spray on pests directly. Try not to use in direct sunlight, rinse off soap residue to reduce leaf damage.
What’s wrong with pesticides anyway? Well, they’re toxic and can pose risks to humans, pets and the environment. Have you noticed after a lawn care service has used pesticides they leave little warning flags on the lawn. They’re pur there for a reason, pesticides can be harmful. Reduced risk pesticides are widely available and offer an alternative for more serious pest issues.
Use environmentally safe lawn maintenance practices for caring for your lawn, keep your lawn green by staying green in the yard.