Chemical Free Lawn Care: Simple, Effective and Rewarding

There is a tremendous interest in lawn and garden care that is environmentally friendly. The result has been a shift towards building the soil as opposed to maintaining weak, dependent plants with ever increasing chemical inputs as they struggle to survive in lifeless soil. Good lawn care is a combination of ancient horticultural knowledge and modern materials and practices. The essence of good lawn care involves understanding and recognizing that healthy plants grow in healthy soil. You likely have noticed that weeds tend to invade parts of the lawn where the grass is thin and the soil poor. Killing the weeds will not result in grass taking over. If you don’t improve the growing conditions for grass, the weeds will simply come back. If we strive to create a more ideal growing environment and use good maintenance practices there will be less opportunity for moss and weeds to invade your lawn and it will look wonderful.

At Bumblebee we know that healthy soil has nutrients, is fertile, has the correct pH level and is rich in organic matter. Grass plants, if given these same four things, will respond with dramatically increased health, colour and vigor. Lets be good grass gardeners because a nice lawn creates the ultimate frame to display your house and garden. Here is how we provide turf grass with the 4 keys to plant health.

1. Provide Nutrients- A good organic based fertilizer is naturally slow release and will provide the grass with ALL the nutrients it needs. In addition, it provides food for the beneficial microbes in your living soil. These “good bugs” help feed the plants, break down thatch and repel disease.

2. Improve Fertility - A compacted soil is a poor home for grass roots. Roots need to be able to effectively access air and nutrients. In addition, there are less beneficial microbes doing their good work in heavily compacted soils. The cure for compaction in lawns is aeration. An aerator pulls out plugs of soil and allows water, air and organic fertilizer to penetrate into the soil, greatly improving the density and overall health of turf.
   

3. Correct pH - Acidic soil, common on our beautiful island, causes nutrients to be less available for uptake by grass roots. Determine pH with a good quality tester and apply dolomite lime, if necessary, to begin moving your pH towards neutral. Grass prefers soil with a pH of between 6 and 7 and remember that fertilizer is largely wasted on grass that is unable to use it.
   

4. Add Organic Matter - Farmers have known for ages the importance of organic matter and gardeners swear by compost amendments. This is because it works! It is one of the best things you can do for any plants, including the grass plants that make up your lawn. Also, when you topdress you are supporting natures own feeding program. Instead of giving a quick rush of nitrogen to the grass you are providing a long term source of food to the microbes which in turn will feed the grass. To greatly improve your soil topdress with the best soil/compost mix you can find. Or have Bumblebee do it for you.
   

Now that you know how to improve your lawns growing conditions, let’s address the equally important maintenance practices. These won’t cost you a cent and can make a huge impact in reducing weeds and improving appearance:

1. Mow high –Happier grass plants, deeper roots and less weeds are benefits of mowing at a height of 2.5 to 3 inches and not shorter. The leaves have a job to do, namely photosynthesis, cut them to short and they get stressed and use all available food reserves to force new growth as quickly as possible. The deeper roots that result from mowing higher makes your lawn more drought tolerant. Longer grass tends to be denser and crowd out weeds, it also shades weed seeds preventing their germination.
   

2. Mow often –Never cut off more then a third of the grass plant. To do so causes undo stress to the lawn and makes it more susceptible to disease.
   

3. Grasscycle-Leave the clippings where they fall. Think of clippings as fertilizer and water. They contain nitrogen and moisture. Use a mulching mower, which chops the clippings up very finely, helping them to decompose faster. If pesticides are not used, your lawn will have plenty of beneficial microbes that will make short work of converting lawn clippings into food.
   

4. Water deeply but infrequently – One or two inches of water once a week is better than a little every day. Deeper grass roots result from the grass plants digging down to find water as the soil dries out.
   

Being conscious of how the lawn ecosystem works will make it easy for you to improve the quality and density of your grass, which will allow you to crowd out weeds naturally. Trying to rid your lawn of weeds by applying pesticides is a never ending band-aid solution. Organic lawn care practices are a way of implementing your desire to be a good steward of the land. Your lawn is part of our environment, it will respond very well to good care.