How about watching the grass grow? Okay, okay, you don't actually have to watch it grow, but a healthy lawn can do wonders for the environment. More than 3/4's of all U.S. households have a private lawn; that's a massive amount of plant life working to convert carbon dioxide into clean oxygen, prevent erosion, and provide habitat for crucial insects and invertebrates. Every year consumers spend more than $40 billion dollars on lawn care and landscaping, but not all lawn care is environmentally friendly. Fertilizers and pesticides can cause major damage to wetlands, non-native plants can reek havoc on local eco-systems, and over watering can draw down water tables.
Here are three tips to make your lawn "green":
- Get good seeds. Choose a type of grass that grows well in your environment. If you live in a dry part of the country, don't pick a grass that needs a lot of water. If you have a shaded lawn, don't choose a grass that needs direct sun. The better suited the grass is to your environment, the less maintanence it will need.
- Go Native. When landscaping your lawn choose plants that grow naturally in your area. Not only are they more likely to survive, they reduce the risk of contaminating local eco-systems with "exotic species," non-native plants that compete with native species for water, sun, and other resources.
- Don't Use Gas. The small gas engines used in lawnmowers create an incredibly large amount of pollution for their size. All the upsides of a green lawn can be cancelled out by the noise and pollution of a gas mower. But other options are available. As gas prices sky rocket, more and more companies are offering electric and push powered mowers. The money you spend on a new non-gas mower can be saved in one summer of mowing.
1 comment:
Letting your lawn grow longer will allow you to mow less and it will need less water too. sg
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