Lawn-obsessed, chemical junkies, who would have sexual relations with their lawns if they could, all advocate the use & safety of chemical fertilizers & weed controls with a passion. Yet, they also claim that their goal is to create a healthy (that's an organic oxymoron) lawn so they can use less of the products so they dearly love.

So, what I don't understand is: If they have no compunctions or problems w/using the products in the first place, why (other than the cost) would they strive to use less of them?

I've been breathing in too many chemical fumes lately I guess.

Linda,

Are you frustrated because of a conversation you are having "over there"?

Scotts has thousands of employees, each of whom get the company news letter which probably urges them to log on to the companie's web forum to share thier experience using Scott's products.

No, ctdahle,not frustrated and not having any more (I'd hardly call them) conversations 'there' either. I'd rather be spending that time in my garden or tiling my kitchen backsplash.

My question above is truly something I've been mulling over even long before my time in "LawnLand". So many lawn jockeys I come in contact with almost all say the same thing: "Oh, yeah once the lawn gets good and healthy and all the weeds are gone, then I can cut back on the Turfbuilder Plus Every-Living-Organism-Killer-In-A-Bag I get from Home Depot". These are also eople who guage their worth and fear others on their block will guage them as well according to how perfect their lawn is. You know that mentality.

When I think of all the nitrogen and phosphorous run off created from over use of chemicals in general, but mostly from documented overuse by Joe Consumer of lawn care products, it makes me sick. When the health of family and animals are placed in peril, and the watertables that run beneath the ground become polluted and from which I draw my well-water, I have to ask for what? For the sake of a few blades of water-wasting grass? Every time I pass a golfcourse, I grind my teeth. Every time I pass one of those blue-green lawns that you just know were chemically treated, I grumble. Every time my neighbor's Lawn Doctor truck arrives, I run. Every time I have to walk past the aisles of (mostly) Scott's toxic crap when I go to Lowes to buy a box of nails or something, I gag.

This is a NASA image off the coast of Lansing MI showing phosphorous pollution along the shoreline which has been directly traced to lawn fertilizer run off:
http://blog.mlive.com/watershedwatch/2008/01/phosphorus.jpg This is a picture of part of the Potomac River in full algaebloom as a result of excessive nitrogen and phosphorous runoff from the same kind of ferts. http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/7/78/Potomac_river_eutro.jpg. Lovely opaque azure blue, isn't it? A shame the fish and other aquatic life can't see it. They're all dead.

So, yeah, I suppose I do get a tad frustrated about the whole lawn thing. At this point, it has nothing to do with t'other place. Here, now, it was more a statement than a true question, I guess. Had to vent it a little in more open-minded, friendly surroundings.

I think I understand. I used to live in a neighborhood where every lawn had that perfect carpet look, and knowing what I know now, I would be as frustrated as you, were I to see that every day.

One benefit, and maybe it's the only one, of living in an area that has been in steady economic decline for the past 10 years, is that no one can afford to maintain a perfect lawn.

Personally, I have gone from a desire to reproduce the "perfect grass carpet" of my youth, to a belief that the lawn exists for only two purposes, to provide organic material for the rest of the garden, and to keep the yard from turning into a dust bowl.

Still, I try to keep a small play yard of turf carpet for the kids, and this gets a bit of extra horse manure raked out to weather under the snow in the fall, and a bit of choice compost to help it greet the spring. But it's also filled with specimens of mommy and daddy's favorite "sunshine flowers", which, if not picked, turn into "birthday cake flowers".

I could probably eradicate the dandilions in a few hours of attention with my digger, and maybe I should, just to show that a carpet of green is acheivable without the chemicals. But when my daughter presents me with a boquet of freshly picked dandilions, I am well able to resist.

Two years ago we visited the Oregon Coast, which I had not seen in summer, for more than 20 years. The effect of an algae bloom there was like a hammer to my forehead. In my memory the shoreline teamed with an infinite variety of tidal life, and I was looking forward to showing my then three year old son some of the wonders of tide pools and sand dollars and star fish.

Instead the tide pools were bare of all but some distressed strands of seaweed. As we walked the beach, each breaker deposited a green algeal scum and a cargo of dead and rotting jellyfish. The water itself, in my memory so clear and blue and clean, was thick, oily, brown, and fetid.

More than thirty years ago, on a trip to the Oregon Coast, my environmental awareness was awakened. My aunt and uncle had dragged us to church and the pastor took his sermon from the gospel according to Rachel Carson.

The knowledge of the damage we are doing to the planet and her systems has been available and growing for more than 50 years, yet we have done nothing. Had we taken the steps that the "damned tree-hugging hippies" suggested in the 1970's, we would not only have had a healthier planet today, we would have been largely immune to the economic disaster looming as we reach the end of cheap oil.

quote:

Originally posted by ctdahle:
The knowledge of the damage we are doing to the planet and her systems has been available and growing for more than 50 years, yet we have done nothing. Had we taken the steps that the "damned tree-hugging hippies" suggested in the 1970's, we would not only have had a healthier planet today, we would have been largely immune to the economic disaster looming as we reach the end of cheap oil.

I tip my hemp hat to you ctdahle and, I'm w/you... leave the dandelions. They bring you and your daughter such pleasure. Besides, in the years ahead, the sight of a lone dandelion or a field of them will bring back priceless memories of your daughter's bouquets for Daddy.

--J--Hopefully my neighborhood isn't too toxic, as most people are of the "just mow the weeds" school of lawn ownership.

quote:

Originally posted by gardenz:
Lawn-obsessed, chemical junkies, who would have sexual relations with their lawns if they could, all advocate the use & safety of chemical fertilizers & weed controls with a passion. Yet, they also claim that their goal is to create a healthy (that's an organic oxymoron) lawn so they can use less of the products so they dearly love.

So, what I don't understand is: If they have no compunctions or problems w/using the products in the first place, why (other than the cost) would they strive to use less of them?

I've been breathing in too many chemical fumes lately I guess.

A few years ago I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about a con man named Charles Ponzi. He was credited with inventing the first pyramid scheme.

The article stated when Ponzi was interviewed he was asked how he was able to swindle so many people so easily, his responded, "When a man's mind is concentrated he is blind."

Lawn obsession is as good as any other blindness pill for people to fixate on.

Lawn is the opiate of the masses?

--J--

I wish people would be less obsessed about their lawn too. I prefer to have as much bio-diversity out there as possible. Besides, dandelions are edible and they break up the monotony of the green carpet look.