When Green is Not So Green
by Anne Goorhuis
To be green is to
be seen as eco-friendly. A green choice protects the environment
and doesn’t deplete the earth’s natural resources. Sprinkle the word green in your conversation enough, and your colleagues will begin
to view you as an avant-garde who’s into cutting edge, petroleum-saving
technologies. Yes, green is the new adjective to describe an environmentally friendly,
sustainable lifestyle choice. Unfortunately, green is also used to describe grass.
Green grass…sigh! It conjures up images of barbecues and
hammocks. Green grass seems to summarize
what so many of us strive for – beautiful surroundings and the time to enjoy
them! We dream of a golf-course quality
lawn and pursue that dream at any cost. However, there are some underlying assumptions about perfect lawns that
do not harmonize well with lakeside living.
The golf-course-quality, green lawn is one of monoculture,
where one characteristic is emphasized to the detriment of other characteristics. The chemical companies have taught us that
uniformity of appearance is better than diversity of plant species. If we sprinkle a little of this or spray
some of that, we can get rid of the clover in the grass, for example. Clover’s broadleaf image doesn’t jive with
the slim, anorexic look of a blade of grass. The lake-lover, however, comes to appreciate clover because of its
ability to bind nitrogen to the soil – a kind of self-fertilizer, if you will. The lake-lover realizes that to use an herbicide
to get rid of the clover affects the lake, because the chemicals can leach into
the water and cause problems for the fish, which in turn can cause problems for
the beings that eat the fish. DDT is a
prime example.
A lakeside
environment is one of diversity. The
above example illustrates how sensitive our unique environment is. This complex interplay is one of the reasons
we Taylor-Ponders love living here. I,
for one, get a thrill from watching a Bald Eagle perched on a nearby tree
looking for chemically untainted fish! (And
should the fish become tainted, how long until there are no more Bald Eagles?) When
we choose to give up the unrealistic dream of monoculture, we say “Yes!” to the multilayered environment
that is our home.
So here are a few pointers for those of us who want to walk
barefooted to the grill to get our hamburger and still have something
grass-like under our feet.
1) If you’ve got enough sun on your property to grow grass, vow never to use an herbicide on it. Adjust your expectations to allow a few broadleafs in your lawn.
2) Let your grass grow to at least 3” in length before mowing and allow the clippings to fall on the lawn to fertilize it.
3) Only water your lawn if it hasn’t rained in seven days. In this case, water before 10 a.m. for a longer period of time (30-60 minutes). This creates deeper root systems on the grass that withstands drought better.
4) Do not mow within 15 -20 feet of the water. Instead allow a natural buffer to flourish there. (See www.taylorpondassociation.org and click on “Glossary of Lakeside Living Terms” for the rationale.) Even a buffer of 8-10 feet is better than nothing.
5) If you do not have enough sun to properly grow grass, don’t spend lots of money on useless fertilizers trying to do so. All those chemicals end up in the lake and you still won’t have that coveted lawn. (A future article will deal with options for the yard with dense shade.)
6) If your property touches the waterfront, don’t use any fertilizers. Instead, do not bag the grass clippings and shred your leaves in the fall. Allow the shredded leaves to lie on the lawn over the winter. This is a form of natural fertilizer. For flower and vegetable beds use organic fertilizers such as a compost of leaves, grass clippings and household vegetable waste.
7) If your property is not contiguous to the lake or a stream that feeds into the lake, and you feel the lawn occasionally needs the burst of a fertilizer; purchase phosphorous-free fertilizer. Do not apply fertilizer after midsummer, as plant growth then starts to wane in preparation for autumn and winter and more chemicals are therefore leached into the ground table or lake.
These websites were helpful to me in preparing this article: www.reduce.org/garden/
and www.mindfully.org/Sustainability/Sustainable-Lawn-Care.htm . Happy grilling!