Natural Organic Lawn Care
It seems that these days all the buzz is around “being green” and of course what better way to do that than through your lawn care practices. But what is “green” lawn care anyway?
Well guys, I gotta be honest and tell you that there is no clear definition of green, responsible lawn care. It really depends on who you are talking to, what their experiences are, and where they learned turf care. But since this is my lawn care tips blog, I figure I will give you my own opinions which have been formulated over nearly 20 years of turf care experience.
Integrated Pest Management And Natural Lawn Care
First off, there is no way to go 100% organic or natural in you lawn care regimen and expect to get top results. (by top results I mean a thick, green, weed free lawn). There is NO ORGANIC WEED KILLER! If anyone tells you that, they are flat out selling you snake oil! In addition, there is no such thing as a 100% weed free lawn! Weeds will always come back into your grass during any given year because of factors out of your control; ie: that neighbor that does nothing at all for his grass.
So this brings us to Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and your lawn care regimen. Basically, IPM is a thought process whereby we only use chemical control (non natural) when pest pressure (in this case the best is weeds) exceeds amounts that we are “willing to deal with.” Now, farmers will use IPM in a different way that you and me as homeowners, but that is not the point here.
The point is that if you are going to “go green” with your lawn, you will need to be willing to accept “some” weeds in your lawn. In addition, when you do spray those weeds with a herbicide, you don’t use a blanket application, rather a targeted, or spot-sprayed application. This is the essence of IPM when it comes to erradcating weeds in your lawn: SPOT SPRAY ONLY!
This also means that you don’t have to break out the pump sprayer every time a dandelion or thistle pops up either. If you want to be natural in your lawn care, who says you can’t pull weeds by hand? Afterall, it doesn’t take that much effort to do so, and pulling weeds is very environmentally friendly! Get your hands dirty guys!
Lawn Fertilization; natural and organic
There is a lot that I could ramble about when it comes to properly using fertilizer on your lawn with an eye on the environmental angle. In short, if you choose to use 100% natural or organically derived fertilizers, you should expect to get very slow, yet sustainable results. What I mean by that is organic fertilizers will NOT release nutrients in colder temperatures, and even so, they release slowly when it is hot.
In addition, when you use an organic fertilizer like Milorganite, you have to put down heavy amounts to make any difference. Personally, I am fine with putting down 15 lbs per 1,000 sq feet of lawn space when using Milorganite, but to the average homeowner, it will feel like you are applying it with a snow shovel!
This is, in fact, the biggest problem most homeowners encounter when applying natural or organic lawn fertilizers: that bein they don’t put down enough. You guys are so worried about burning your lawn, so you dial back the amounts not realizing organics won’t burn anyway.
I guess that is all I have to say today, but the key is following along with my program and understanding the organic lawn care takes time, hard work and most of all, patience! If you do that, you will eventually have a lawn just like mine pictured here: 99% organic!