Do you dream of a beautiful lawn with a thick green grass? Are you worried about putting chemicals on your lawn for fear of the potential health risks that come along with them? Well, you’ll be happy to know there are alternatives. Organic lawn care is on the rise and better than ever. With increasing knowledge about the way nature responds, landscape companies are bringing clean innovation to lawn care. You can have a beautiful lawn and lay in it too.
Organic Lawn Care vs Chemical Treatments
There are many ways to naturally cultivate your yard. No matter the type of grass you have, you can work with it in natural ways to reduce weeds and encourage the growth of grass. However, nature is wild and unruly, and it can be quite a challenge to prune it. For years, landscapers and homeowners alike turned to chemical weed killers, insecticides, and pesticides to keep their lawn looking beautiful. As more health issues were linked to these products, the experts are returning to organic methods and natural fertilizers to enhance your grass without endangering your health.
In addition to the dangers to humans and pets, chemical treatments destroy the natural balance in the soil. They also leach into the water supplies because of rainwater wash off. There are countless consequential effects of chemical lawn care that should make you consider organic products as an alternative.
Expectations for Natural Lawn Care
Patience
As you begin the transition to using organic products in your yard, you must have patience. If you are used to the immediate response of weeds dying from chemical sprays, you will find organic lawn care takes a bit longer. Just as it takes time to grow grass, so does it take time to kill weeds and divert insects.
Research
Another important factor in switching to organic products is education. As certain issues arise throughout your lawn and garden, you will need to research, learn, and react quickly. This is where it comes in handy to have a lawn specialist or company to do that for you.
Funds
Organic anything is typically a bit more expensive. Organic fertilizer, pesticides, and insecticides are no different. Because it will take more time (and time is money) to care for an organic lawn, you will find that it is more expensive. There is no price tag on a healthy family though, so take comfort in the fact that organic lawn care will give you peace of mind.
Continual Maintenance
Lastly, you need to accept that caring for an organic lawn is never-ending. You may think that once you’ve got that gorgeous green sod that you are all set for life. Unfortunately, nature doesn’t work that way. You will be tending and caring for your lawn as different weeds, bare spots, or intrusive insects appear out of nowhere. However, it’ll be worth it when you can send your pets or children out to play on a safe and healthy lawn. And honestly, chemical lawn care is a never-ending cycle, too.
Reasons to Switch
There are quite a few reasons to switch your landscaping methods to organic. From health benefits for you and your family to encouraging a natural ecosystem to thrive, you won’t regret switching to organic care of your lawn. Let’s look at a few concrete reasons to make the change.
Health Advantages
First and foremost, turning to organic methods will significantly decrease the potential health risks to you and your family. Chemical weed killers and insecticides have direct links to cancer, and some have been banned from store shelves. After you apply organic treatments to your lawn, you can walk or play on it immediately without fear of the chemicals leaching into your system or harming your children and pets.
Application
Organic products and methodologies work in a gradual way. Organic fertilizers release nutrients slowly, only as the soil needs them. This makes it extremely difficult to apply too much organic treatment to your lawn. In contrast, chemical fertilizers are immediately absorbed into the plant, making it tricky to judge how much to apply before it burns the plants. There is no way to kill your lawn by over-application of organic fertilizer.
Balancing the Ecosystem
Although chemical fertilizer will give you green grass quickly, it is only surface beauty. Under the surface, chemical treatments are killing off naturally occurring defenses that would otherwise repel damaging insects or disease. Organic products do just the opposite. It will enhance the ecosystem to strengthen and balance it for better defense from invasive predators.
Conditioning
Soil needs nourishments in order to produce a healthy plant. With organic approaches, you are providing the soil with vitamins, supplements, and all-around healthy food for it to encourage the growth of plants. When the soil is rich with these nutrients, it can hold water better, making it easier for plants to remain hydrated. Organic lawn care will set the base for a healthy lawn above and below the surface.
Go Green
As mentioned before, chemical lawn products will leach into the water supply, harming not only consumers, but also entire eco-systems in the rivers, streams, creeks, and lakes. The green choice would be to avoid these chemicals and turn to organic treatments immediately to eliminate more damage to our earth and the natural resources of your community.
How to Switch
When you have made your decision to switch to an all-organic lawn, there are a few steps to get yourself set up correctly. It is a learning curve and can be trying, so remember to have patience. Let’s look at what it involves to make the change.
Research Your Lawn
You’ll want to start with research, and not just in generalities. Find out what the issues are with your lawn and then move forward in your research to learn how to treat them. This may involve a trip to the store to buy natural products or it may mean making your own products. A majority of the time, you will have ingredients on hand to make natural pesticides or insecticides. For example, mint and garlic are two major components for natural insect repellents.
Pay Attention to Timing
Another aspect to research is timing. You’ll want to spray your natural products during the right time of day, and especially the right time of year, to prevent certain diseases and insects from starting their damage in the first place. These are all aspects to consider when learning about organic lawn care.
Apply Your New Knowledge
After you have researched, it’s time to apply. Get your gloves on: even some natural products, like pepper, can be harsh on your skin, and start applying. This is where you’ll want to invest in great glass spray bottles. They will come in handy when you need to get out there and treat target areas on the lawn.
Having a truly green lawn is a lot of work, but fortunately, you can call a reliable and honest landscaping company to help you make the switch. Reach out to Weed-A-Way today for organic lawn care you can trust!
