Green your lawn(care)

Do it Yourself Picture

Do it yourself

The EPA’s Healthy Lawn, Healthy Environment is a 19 page step-by-stepguide on how to carefor your lawn AND protect the environment. Download it for free. (Big file, 5mb... may take a few minutes to load.)

Know the ropes but need the goods? Try these sources for earth-friendly lawn and garden tools and supplies:

clean air gardenng Environmentally friendly lawn and garden supplies, including push mowers, furniture, and composting equipment
Extremely Green Organic garden supplies, fertilizers, pest control and weed control
lehman's Gardening, pest control, outdoor furniture, lawn care and equipment
Gardener’s Supply Company Garden-tested, earth-friendly products from seedstarting supplies and garden furniture to flower supports and garden carts.
NaturaLawn NaturaLawn of America makes environmentally responsible break throughs in lawn care with proprietary product lines of fertilizers and pesticides.
green home Organic yard and garden supply, including composting equipment, furniture, and lighting
seeds of change Preserving biodiversity and promote sustainable, organic agriculture by cultivating and disseminating open-pollinated, organically grown, heirloom and traditional vegetable, flower and herb seeds.
people powered machines Push mowers, lawn tools and composting systems
terracycle Affordable, potent, organic gardening products made from waste and packaged entirely in waste


Never mind that, I need a pro…
Gardening Picture

If you need a professional lawn service but want to avoid the chemical soup, try NaturaLawn, a company that provides organic-based lawn care service.

Why it’s Important

Obsessive about your lawn? You aren't alone. In the American psyche, lawns are important. An immaculate lawn offers silent testimony to the fortitude of the unseen groundskeeper lurking behind the front door. And dandelions? Never has a pretty yellow flower been so universally reviled.

Unfortunately, the steps we take in the U.S. to keep the roughly 20 to 30 million acres of lawns a manicured, uniform green leave them anything but green in the natural sense. Every year, Americans apply 70 million pounds of pesticides to home lawns, trees and shrubs, roughly 10 times more per acre than is used on farms. Those little flags that spring up after a dousing are there for a reason: many of these chemicals are hazardous to your health and harmful to the environment.

According to The Green Guide , “Several studies of professional lawn care workers have shown they face of increased risk of non-Hodgkinson's Lymphoma (NHL), currently the sixth most common malignant cancer in the U.S. Workers in pesticide manufacturing plants have been shown to have higher rates of NHL as well as soft-tissue cancers.”

Nitrates and phosphates from lawn and garden fertilizers pollute the water table, leading to algal blooms that suffocate ponds and lakes by reducing oxygen levels. Air pollution is another problem: the EPA estimates that gasoline-powered landscape equipment - mowers, trimmers, blowers and chainsaws - account for more than 5 percent of urban air pollution. Finally, lawns are a drain on our water supply: As much as two-thirds of urban freshwater is used to water lawns in some cities.

There are ways to keep your lawn natural, however. One way is to “xeriscape”-- landscape with plants and grasses that are well adapted to your climate and don’t need a lot of extra water and chemicals to stay healthy. Another way is to shun chemical fertilizers and toxic pesticides and choose organic alternatives instead. Organic fertilizers require less energy to produce than synthetic fertilizers and release nutrients more slowly than their synthetic counterparts (making them effective for a longer time). Natural pesticides target individual pests rather than kill indiscriminately, letting the “good” bugs thrive and reducing health risks to children. Alternative pest management techniques, like introducing insects or birds that prey on troublesome species are safer than chemical applications and often have more lasting effects. Finally, to reduce emissions, get a little exercise and have a more peaceful lawn care experience, you might consider a manual reel mower. The bottom line is that a green lawn doesn’t have to come at the expense of a green Earth.

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