The Importance Of Keeping Your Lawn Maintenance Work Green

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, approximately 5% of the country's air pollution is contributed by lawn maintenance. By ensuring you use a company with green lawn maintenance techniques, you can help to significantly reduce the carbon output and pollution that lawn maintenance presents.

Environmental Benefits of Lawns

While lawns are beneficial from an aesthetic, as well as recreational, standpoint, they also have a number of environmental benefits as well. A healthy, well-maintained lawn is 30 to 40 degrees cooler than soil alone and 50 degrees cooler than streets. In addition, lawns produce oxygen. In fact, if a 50x50 patch of lawn can provide enough oxygen for a small family, imagine how much is produced by a large business park's grassy areas. While lawns give off oxygen, they also soak up toxic gases, like sulfur dioxide. And when it rains in St. Louis, flooding streets, lawns can help to keep erosion to a minimum by soaking a great deal of the excess water.

With all the environmental benefits lawns provide, it is important to make certain that they are well-maintained and cared for in as green a manner as possible.

Watering

Much of the worst waste of lawn maintenance comes from improper water usage. Too much water can invite fungus and molds to grow. Too little creates drought-like conditions, which invite weeds and thatch to thrive. By engaging a knowledgeable lawn maintenance company, you can be certain that your lawn is getting the proper amount of water, without excess waste.

Fertilizing

An effective fertilizer has a proper balance of nutrients, including nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, which encourage strong roots. Strong roots allow lawns not only to appear more full and lush, but also to ward off insects, disease and weeds.

Using an organic fertilizer like compost allows lawns to get all the nutrients they need, but without the toxicity of chemicals. In addition, organic fertilizers stimulate the soil and the growth of micro and macro-organisms that aid in natural weed control.

Water and Fertilizer

Water and fertilizer must work together in order to maintain a perfect lawn. Unfortunately, many lawn care companies overdo one or the other in an effort to get lawns healthy. This serious overuse results in harmful runoff, which ends up in streams and rivers, creating pollution and toxins for plants and animals. Not only that, but the lawns aren't any healthier, so they can't do their jobs of providing clean air and moderating temperature.

In the end, green lawn maintenance ensures a stable lawn environment, without the harmful environmental effects that chemicals produce, enabling a lawn to look and function at peak effectiveness.