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Caring for Your Lawn in an Environmentally Friendly Way
Healthy Lawn, Healthy Environment
Picture a healthy green lawn: perfect for lounging, great
for ball games and cookouts, a real asset to your home. But did
you know that your lawn--and how you take care of it--can also
help the environment? * Healthy grass provides feeding ground
for birds, who find it a rich source of insects, worms, and
other food. Thick grass prevents soil erosion, filters
contaminants from rainwater, and absorbs many types of airborne
pollutants, like dust and soot. Grass is also highly efficient
at converting carbon dioxide to oxygen, a process that helps
clean the air. * Caring for your lawn properly can both enhance
its appearance and contribute to its environmental benefits.
You don't have to be an expert to grow a healthy lawn. Just
keep in mind that the secret is to work with nature. This means
creating conditions for grass to thrive and resist damage from
weeds, disease, and insect pests. It means setting realistic
goals for your lawn, whether you or a professional lawn care
service will be doing the work. And if you choose to use
pesticides, it means using them with care so as to get the most
benefit and reduce any risks. * Caring for your lawn in an
environmentally sensible way can have a bigger impact than you
might think. Your lawn is only a small piece of land, but all
the lawns across the country cover a lot of ground. That means
you and your lawn care activities, along with everyone else's,
can make a difference to the environment. And that's why taking
care of the environment begins in our own backyards.
Working With Nature: A Preventive Health Care Program For Your
Lawn
To start, think about lawn care as a preventive health
care program, like one you would use to keep up your own
health. The idea is to prevent problems from occurring so you
don't have to treat them. As they say, an ounce of prevention
is worth a pound of cure. A healthy lawn can out-compete most
weeds, survive most insect attacks, and fend off most
diseases--before these problems ever get the upper hand.
Your lawn care program should be tailored to local
conditions--the amount of rainfall you get, for example, and
the type of soil you have. The sources listed at the back of
this brochure can help you design a lawn care program that
suits both local conditions and your own particular needs. But
no matter where you live, you can use the program outlined in
this brochure as a general guide to growing a healthy lawn.
A preventive health care program for your lawn should have
the following steps:
1. Develop healthy soil
2. Choose a grass type that thrives in your climate
3. Mow high, often, and with sharp blades
4. Water deeply but not too often
5. Correct thatch build-up
6. Set realistic goals
1. Develop Healthy Soil
Good soil is the foundation of a healthy lawn. To grow
well, your lawn needs soil with good texture, some key
nutrients, and the right pH, or acidity/alkalinity balance.
Start by checking the texture of your soil to see whether
it's heavy with clay, light and sandy, or somewhere in between.
Lawns grow best in soil with intermediate or "loamy" soils that
have a mix of clay, silt, and sand. Whatever soil type you
have, you can probably improve it by periodically adding
organic matter like compost, manure, or grass
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