Easter weekend will be blessed with unseasonal temperatures, possibly reaching up to 24 degress in Stratford. Commercial greenhouses will surely bloom with eager gardeners and spring fever patients who want prepare their lawns and gardens for the summer season ahead.
As we consider lawn maintenance approaches, it’s important to remember long-term effects to ourselves, our family members, pets, neighbours and the earth. While pesticides are now banned in Ontario, there are several products that duck just below the radar, still laden with harmful chemicals.
The potential health threats of using pesticides far outweigh the benefits of having a weed-free lawn and garden. Recently, scientists have observed associations between pesticide exposures and adverse effects on reproductive and neurological health, as well as some forms of cancer. Spraying lawns and gardens also kills good forms of life. Eventually the area is dependent on chemicals for survival and can no longer sustain the natural balance that keeps it healthy.
In Stratford, we’re fortunate to have a wonderful – and free – resource called Stratford Naturally, a group advocating a new approach to gardening in this area, without the use of any harmful chemicals. Following its environmentally-friendly guidelines will help us rebuild our ecosystems, banish health risks to people (particularly more susceptible infants, fetuses, children, prospective parents and the elderly) and enjoy healthier lawns, plants and flowers filled with enchanting and helpful butterflies, songbirds and bees.
Here are some brilliant lawn care tips, taken from the Stratford Naturally website:
1. Aim for healthy soil without adding substances that kill organisms in the fragile soil ecosystem (even vinegar) if you can.
2. Aerate your soil. Once it’s healthy, the earthworms will do the job for you.
3. Overseed with grass. Use a three-way mixture: perennial rye grass, creeping fescue, Kentucky blue.
4. Consider adding White Dutch Clover. As a legume, it will provide critically important nitrogen fixing in your soil.
5. Set your mower high. Cut to a height of 3”. Grass is a plant and its blades need to absorb sunlight and carbon dioxide. Short grass stresses the plant and soil, leaving it open to pest infestation.
6. Leave grass clippings on the lawn. They provide natural compost.
Let’s work together to garden naturally and inspire others in our neighbourhoods to do the same.
“When one tugs at a single thing in nature; he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” – John Muir
No comments:
Post a Comment