Category: Lawn

• Mulch your grass clippings. Get a mulching mower or blade setup for your current mower and leave as much of the clippings as possible on the lawn. The clippings are full of good stuff! This can provide 30% of your lawn’s nutrient needs while increasing the organic matter in your soil. Not only will your lawn thank you, but so will the soil ecosystem, along with all of the other plants that have sent roots out under your lawn.

• Stop "feeding" your lawn. Instead of fertilizing in the fall and spring, put a thin layer of fresh compost (or a compost tea) on your lawn twice a year. This will provide all of the needed nutrients for your lawn, your soil, and many other plants and trees in the area. Synthetic fertilizers are like fast-food for your lawn. It may green up temporarily, but your yard’s ecosystem in actually damaged by the treatments, increasing certain species of micro-organisms at the expense of others. Compost is a complete nutrition source that has natural time-release qualities and ultimately is much more effective long-term than synthetics.

•  Plant clover with your grass, or at least let it grow when it begins to come in. Clover seed is available at many natural gardening supply sources, including Rail City Garden Center in Sparks, NV. Clover and grass live symbiotically, which is why they tend to end up together unless you constantly and aggressively try to kill it. Clover is a nitrogen-fixing plant, which basically takes nitrogen out of the air and constantly delivers it into the soil where the grass can take it up. In other words, clover mixed in with your grass can provide another 30% of your lawn’s nutrient needs, keeping it and the soil greener and healthier.

• NEVER use ANY herbicide or pesticide on or around your lawn. Most people know not to use most herbicides, but the gardening industry has made 2,4-D (the active ingredient in most “broad-leafed weed killers” including the Ortho product Weed-B-Gon) seem to be benign for your yard. Unfortunately, they fail to make clear how damaging it is to your other plants that search for water and nutrients under your grass. Most plants in your yard, including your trees, are broad leafs. They will certainly be less healthy when these types of products are used on the grass and it may ultimately kill them. And pesticides are not particular about what insects they kill. Most of them are detrimental to ALL insects. In Nevada, according the UNR Extension Master Gardener training, 99% of insects are beneficial or have no-known problems. The trouble with using a pesticide is that all insects are affected, wiping out both the problem and the solution. If the ecosystem is healthy, and the beneficial bugs are allowed to do their thing, they themselves will control the population of pests in the garden. When we increase the healthy organisms living in our gardens and our soil, we are fully able to take advantage of nature’s bounty and balance.

None of these steps are hard, however they may seem daunting at first. If you feel like you need help, please call us and we can get you started on the path to a TRULY green lawn right now. Fall is the perfect time for an application of compost.

Call or email Valarie at: 775-250-2240 or valarie@heirloomgardensreno.com