PRFCT Perspectives

One hundred years ago, clover was considered a sign of a "healthy" lawn. Diversity was prized and the ideal lawn was sprinkled with flowers. Lawns fertilized themselves naturally with regular boosts of nitrogen from clover and mulched grass clippings.

What changed? Chemical companies found themselves with lots of extra product on their hands after the end of World War II. Some of those products could be turned into fertilizer, and some could be used as herbicides. Marketing teams turned clover into the new enemy, selling consumers herbicides to rid their yards of "weeds" and synthetic fertilizers to replace what those "weeds" supplied naturally. Before long, the uniform, military-style lawn became all the rage.

There are those who use a lot of energy and toxins to keep clover out of their lawns. What’s wrong with clover anyway?

Clover fixes nitrogen, providing important nutrients to keep your lawn healthy and reduce the need for fertilizer.

Clover adds green to those hot dry difficult spots that grass doesn’t like, helping your lawn to look lively and lush. Stop wasting time and money trying to kill clover….think different, embrace it for all the good it can do!

And look for the one with four leaves…..

Something slimy slithering through your garden? Slug and snail season is back. These pests can often wreak havoc on lawns and landscapes. While a nuisance, the good news is they can easily be controlled with safe, non-toxic methods: 

• Watering: Snails and slugs thrive in high humidity, damp conditions. Frequent watering, and areas of standing water, creates an ideal environment for slugs and snails. Deeper, infrequent watering make your lawn less hospitable for these pests. 

• Shade: Slugs and snails love shaded areas to hide during the heat of the day. Eliminating shady spots makes your landscape less welcoming. 

• Traps: Trapping with natural methods such as melon rind, sugar water, or beer can be effective in small areas. However, please note these methods require constant upkeep and removal of dead pests.

• Baiting: Slug baits containing carbaryl or metaldehyde are highly toxic to children and pets! CHECK THE LABEL! Baits containing iron phosphate are safe to use around pets and children, pick them instead. Try baiting right after watering your garden, when snails and slugs are most active.

Achieving your PRFCT lawn can be as simple as changing the way you mow your grass.

By setting your mower to the high setting (between 3.5" and 4") you¹ll encourage grass to grow in thick and strong. That promotes a healthy root system that resists pests, weeds and drought conditions.

Also, leave grass clippings on lawn! Clippings are a natural source of nitrogen, which will promote healthy growth without the use of fast-acting fertilizer.

So, bag your lawnmower bag and let those clippings fly. Mulching mower? Not critical, but even better.

Grass clippings provide a natural—and free!—source of nitrogen that fertilizes your lawn every time you mow. Instead of dumping your clippings in the landfill and then dumping fertilizer on your lawn, use the clippings to gently feed your lawn all season long.

Do not rely on your irrigation company to set the timer on your sprinkler system. Irrigation companies are water delivery experts; they are NOT lawn care experts.

You or your landscaper should decide the schedule that best fits your lawn's needs.

Remember there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Over watering promotes shallow rooting, fungus diseases, mosquitos and nutrient run off.

Honey bees are critical to pollinating crops but their population has been declining in recent years, due in part to lethal pesticide exposure.

To help combat the problem the Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to ban spraying pesticides while honey bees are pollinating crops.

The ban, however, would only restrict spraying on specific properties where growers arranged to bring in honey bees to pollinate their crops. While the proposal fails to address other sources of toxic pesticide exposure to bees, you don’t have to.

By simply not applying pesticides to your lawn and asking your friends and neighbors to do the same you can help save the honey bee population.