12 Tips For A Healthy Organic Lawn

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Want a beautiful, green, healthy organic lawn? Then here are twelve ways to achieve just that…

Do A Soil Test

Before you do anything, test your soil. You can buy a DIY kit at your local garden store or from this page on Amazon, or you can call your local Cooperative Extension office. The test results will tell you the pH of your soil, along with your levels of Nitrogen (N), Potassium (K) and Phosphorus (P). Once you know what you’re working with, you can make an informed decision about what type of organic fertilizers you’ll be using on your lawn.

Start Composting

You can help your lawn and the environment by starting your own compost system at home. There are several ways to set it up, and with a little research you can find the best method for you. You can put food scraps, garden waste, lawn trimmings and so much more (see 35 Unexpected Things to Add to Your Compost Pile) in your pile. Once the compost is ready it can be mixed in with your native soil or used to make compost tea. If you don’t have the space or the energy to make your own, buy compost that was produced locally.

Plant Native Grasses

Though many of them look similar, different varieties of grass are just that, different. They grow differently and require different levels of sun, water and soil nutrients. And like most plants they are best suited to their native environment. Once native grass is established it will need less watering, mulching, protection from frost, and mowing than introduced varieties.

Try an Alternative Ground Cover

In tight spaces, those with a lot of foot (or tire) traffic, less than awesome soil quality or a serious lack of sunshine – it’s often hard to grow healthy grass. If you have a spot like this on your property, you may want to consider other methods of ground cover, like creeping vines and succulents. Many of these plants need less watering and maintenance than traditional lawns, and visitors will be less likely to walk all over this type of ground cover. If you visit a nursery in your area you can find ground covering plants that like sun or shade, sandy or rocky soil, or even some that can go months without watering.

Pick the Right Fertilizers and Soil Amendments

In addition to compost, your organic lawn might need other nutrients (as determined by your soil test). Always use organic fertilizers, and if you can find one that was made locally that’s even better. Lawns generally prefer fertilizers lower in nitrogen.

Below are some common soil amendments that might be helpful in your lawn or garden:

Builder’s sand is natural, large grain sand that is great for soil with drainage problems.

Humus is decayed, organic matter that adds fertility, holds moisture and provides aeration

Limestone lowers soil acidity

Sphagnum Peat Moss can lighten heavy, clay soils and add mass to sandy soils, which keeps the existing nutrients in.

Kelp Meal contains over 70 vitamins and minerals beneficial to plants and helps beneficial micro-organisms to thrive

Earthworm Castings repel pests that feed on plant juices, like aphids and spider mites. They also get rid of any remnants of heavy metals from organic waste and can be used to protect plants from pH levels that are too high OR too low.

Bat Guano can hold together loose soil AND make dense soil longer. It contains nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium along with several micronutrients that benefit your soil and lawn.

…But Don’t Overdo It

Once you start learning about all the amazing organic soil amendments that will support your luscious new lawn, you may be tempted to add a lot of them, often. However, too much fertilizer can be more harmful than too little – especially if you’ve gone with native grass. Over-fertilizing can make grass grow too fast, and it will be more susceptible to disease and bugs. Fertilize just once a year, in October if you live in the north and November if you live down south.

Avoid All Poisons

An organic lawn can’t be organic if you use any pesticides or weed killer. Even the so-called ‘organic herbicides’ aren’t good for your grass and can damage plants growing nearby. If you plant local grass and shrubs and use organic fertilizers, the natural eco-system you’ve created will likely not need these dangerous poisons anyway.

Don’t Mow too Short, or too often

Your lawn will be healthiest when you let it grow. Set your mower blades to about 4” (or the highest setting) and only mow when rain is expected in the next few days. Grass that is allowed to grow naturally has stronger roots and absorbs more nutrients; longer periods without mowing will also help grass spread into any bare spots.

Water well, but only when needed

Moist soil encourages the roots of your lawn to grow deep and strong. When your soil seems moist after a brief watering, it’s actually dry underneath and the roots can’t dig down into the soil. It’s much better to run the sprinklers for an hour once a week, than for 15 minutes every day. If having a lawn that is green year round isn’t so important to you, or you live in an area that is prone to drought, you can let your grass go brown in the summer without damaging it. Even if it looks dead in the hottest times of the year, it will come back lush and green in the spring – think about how brown natural prairie looks during August, the same rules apply to the grass in your backyard.

Don’t Freak Out over Good Bugs

An organic lawn won’t, and shouldn’t be, bug free. Products designed to kill all the bugs in your lawn can also be dangerous for your lawn, pets and children. Some creepy-crawlers are very good for your lawn. Earthworms are a sign of healthy soil. Spiders, ladybugs, wasps and beetles eat the insects that are actually doing damage to your plants. Insects and other bugs are a sign of a healthy eco-system.

Aerate your lawn for natural healing

Like all living things, your lawn needs to eat, drink and breathe. Once you have a healthy, organic lawn going, including natural fertilizers and lots of earthworms, your lawn will breathe all by itself. If you’re just starting out and want to help your lawn heal itself, you can rent a core aerator from a local equipment rental store and get it done in no time.  Just like fertilizing, fall is the best time to aerate your grass.

Attract Bug-Eaters

If you have concerns about insects and other bugs in your grass, you can take some steps to attract one of the best exterminators around – birds. Planting native shrubs, vines and trees will bring them in, and create a bit more diversity in your mini-eco-system (which will help eliminate pests). Hanging feeders filled with seeds will also attract finches, sparrows, wrens and other insect loving birds.

source: http://www.naturallivingideas.com/12-tips-for-a-healthy-organic-lawn/

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Organic Lawn Care

Lawns may have been invented in Europe, but they’ve reached their apotheosis in North America. For those in the U.S. of A, that green, green grass ranks right up there with apple pie, backyard barbecues and softball. For Canadians it’s proof of place, both a responsibility and a privilege, like wearing decent clothes when you leave the house. Keep your teeth clean and your grass green. In the lower 48 states and much of southern Canada, grass is practically an obsession.

The problem with the perfect lawn is that it wreaks havoc on both your wallet and the environment. Between 30 and 40 million acres of land in the U.S. are devoted to turfgrass (see Curbing the Lawn), and Americans collectively spend big bucks — about $40 billion annually — on seed, sod and chemicals. In Canada, which has around one tenth the population of the U.S., sales from all lawn care products have risen steadily over the past five years, to over $2 billion by 2007.


Much of that money goes to products that “help” grass only in the most superficial ways and that degrade the soil, pollute any water they reach, and pose serious health threats to humans, their pets, and any wildlife in the area, including birds. As people become aware of these facts, attitudes towards conventional fertilizers and pesticides are beginning to change. In Canada, over 130 communities and two entire provinces have passed laws severely restricting pesticide use, so homeowners and city park services are going organic perforce. In the U.S., where municipalities in many states lack the power to pass such comprehensive laws, a number of cities and towns have restricted the use of pesticides on school grounds or in parks. Furthermore, while many pesticides remain legal in the States, more and more people are becoming aware of the strain that they place on the eco-system. All across North America, people are not only considering going green, but whether the perfect lawn is worth the long-term environmental price we’re paying for it.

Create a HEALTHY LAWN with Products from Planet Natural

• Lawn Fertilizers
• Sprinklers and Hoses     

• Organic Herbicides
• Push Reel Mowers        

• Landscaping Supplies
• Tree Care & Shrubs

Many of us have inherited our lawns and our ideas about how to care for them from an earlier era, when pesticides seemed safe and water inexhaustible. Since the mid-1950s, when the ideal of the weed-free carpet-like lawn took shape, pesticides — meaning insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides — have often been used routinely and preemptively, with the result that synthetic chemicals are often overused on lawns. In fact, one 1996 survey found that more pesticides are used on turfgrass than on any other ornamental (see Sustainable Turf Care).

We’ve inherited more than our maintenance standards and procedures; we’ve inherited the grass itself. Look around almost any town and you’ll see Kentucky bluegrass, still one of the most prevalent grasses in North America. It makes for a beautiful lawn but requires enormous amounts of water, which hurts both the environment and your pocketbook. A Sustainable Landscaping presentation by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that watering lawns accounts for 30 to 60 percent of water consumption during the summer months.

There are other costs of planting a grass that isn’t well suited to the land or its rainfall. We end up using tons of soil amendments, fertilizers and pesticides to keep things looking good. (Tons here is not just an expression. Estimates vary, but Americans dump approximately seventy million tons of fertilizer and seventy to ninety million pounds of pesticides on their lawns each year.)

Yet lawns, combined with gardens and other landscaping, do a lot of good. They muffle traffic and other noise pollution, and like all green plants, lawns help reduce carbon dioxide levels. They act as filters, removing pollutants from the air that we breath. And nothing beats grass as a place for kids to play.

Going organic doesn’t mean you have to give up your lawn, and it certainly doesn’t mean that you have to give up the rest of your life tending for your lawn. It means planting what will do well in your climate, watering deeply but infrequently, and avoiding the use of dangerous and expensive chemical fertilizers and pesticides. This site should help, whether you’re ready to dive in head first, or just want to dip a toe in organic waters.

How Green is Your Lawn?

• According the US Environmental Protection Association, a gas-powered push mower emits as much hourly pollution as 11 cars and a riding mower emits as much as 34 cars (see Small Engine Rule to Bring Big Emissions Cuts).

• Lawn and garden equipment emits 5% of the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the US, which cause health problems and contribute to ozone formation.

• A gas mower emits as much hydrocarbons in one hour as a car driven 20 miles.

• Mowers in the US use 580 million gallons of gas per year.

• 40-60% of nitrogen from fertilizer runs off or leaches away, ending up in ground or surface water, including wells.

• 60-70 million birds die from pesticide poisoning each year in the US alone.

• In the US, 30 percent of water consumed on the East Coast waters lawns, 60 percent on the West Coast.

• A 2001 Toronto Staff Report (PDF), reported that using a commercial leaf-blower for one hour generated “498 times as much hydrocarbons, 49 times as much particulate matter and 26 times as much carbon monoxide” as a then newer-model car.

• Close to 70 million pounds of pesticides (including herbicides) are applied to US lawns each year. This is approximately ten times the amount applied to American farmland, acre for acre.

• As of 2004, about 70 million tons of fertilizer were used on US lawns a year.

• A Toronto Public Health Report on lawn and garden pesticides (PDF) claims that between 2004 and 2006, almost half the homeowners in Toronto used pesticides on their lawns.

• The Virginia Cooperative Extension in its publication “Nutrient Management for Lawn Service Companies,” states that some fungicides and pesticides can kill 60 to 90% — or more — of the earthworms where they are applied.

source by : http://www.planetnatural.com/organic-lawn-care-101/

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