Responsible & Safe Lawn care
Safe enough to eat dinner off!
Today, many people are concerned about environmental issues and quite rightly so. It is easy to be a ‘good guy’ and give ‘lip service’ to this, perhaps the most serious issue of the century. However, though I care for my environment passionately I believe a healthy and realistic balance can be achieved between natural and man-made products. This means our lawns can benefit the environment whilst being cared for with a programme of child and pet safe lawn care.
A well maintained healthy lawn has the following benefits:
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It reduces the threat of flooding by trapping rain water with minimal runoff
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It traps dust and dirt particles keeping the air and windows cleaner
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It absorbs road and airborne noises making homes and neighbourhoods quieter
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It traps the sun’s rays reducing air temperature in and around the home
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It is one of the safest play surfaces known to man
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A 200 square meter lawn produces enough oxygen for a family of four
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A healthy lawn is one of the best ways to reduce your carbon foot print
Without doubt weed killer and chemical use should concern us all regardless of our ‘green’ credentials. The LAWNSMITH approach to weedkillers is ‘as much necessary and as little as needed’. This can only be achieved with responsible lawn care, for example; applying a bag of ‘weed and feed’ product on 200 metres of lawn to kill a handful of weeds is irresponsible in the extreme! Pure lawn fertiliser (without any weed killer) combined with spot spraying weed killer or manual removal of the weeds is far more effective and ultimately safer for you, your children, your pets and all your wild garden visitors.
In addition, I do not consider so called organic fertiliser necessary for lawn care. They are useful for low organic soils or as a slow release fertiliser in dry conditions but not as a routine fertiliser. Most are manure based and contain proportions of phosphate not required by grass plants. Phosphates are the more polluting of the fertiliser elements and are prone to being washed into our water ways if applied as a manure type product. Blends of organic and non-organic fertiliser can be useful as they often provide the best of both worlds.
Of the ‘manufactured’ fertilisers many are mined raw materials (organic) and reconstituted into a ‘lawn feed’. Others though synthesized are often replicas of substances occurring in nature. Therefore, taken in balance, your typical lawn fertiliser if applied correctly is not an environmental threat.
It seems, therefore, that a sustainable policy of lawn care can be achieved with a little knowledge and common sense. We would all, our environment included, be better off if we promoted well cared for, adequately fed, weed free lawns rather than covering our beautiful land with block paving, timber decking and fake oriental stone water features...but then I’m biased!
