It seems every channel I turn to, I'm exposed to endless commercials featuring catchy little jingles and some representative or professional from a fertilizer company, or some sanguine homeowner stroking his weed-free, lush, vibrant-green lawn while mentioning how easy it is to have similar results on your patch of heaven. Ah, if this were only true. Three things come to mind whenever I see these commercials: it ain't that easy; these poor "average Joes" have no idea of the health and environmental risks associated with "creating" this type of landscape; and why is this perception of the American lawn and landscape so persuasive in today's environmentally conscious society and not aggressively challenged?

Lets talk about lawn care. Over a 30-year span of maintaining lawns here at IES, one principle remains central: if you desire a "good" lawn, be prepared to put the time in. If you are creating a new lawn, do your "homework" and educate yourself about grass seed and match the best varieties for your growing zone and site conditions. If you don't know what endophyte inoculated seed is, you're not ready to proceed to the installation or maintenance steps. Nurturing a new, or newly renovated lawn for the first couple of growing seasons is essential and will lead to turf that will survive environmental (or human) stresses. Bottom line: you can't just put in a new lawn and forget about it (i.e. mow when you can't see small children in it). I firmly believe that we are able to manage the IES lawn without routine chemical use (selective herbicides or insecticides) because we concentrate on proper turf culture. Adhering to management practices such as yearly thatching and core aeration, overseeding and topdressing with compost, maintaining optimum soil acidity and fertility levels, monitoring for diseases and pests, and proper mowing practices all will lead to healthy and largely weed-free lawns. For recommendations on our management practices check out the "Learn More About" option on our homepage.

Crab grass, dandelions, grubs, chinch bugs, billbugs, sod webworms, and turf diseases aplenty (brown patch, yellow patch, dollar spot, fairy rings, pythium, red thread leaf spots, blights, molds, rusts, smuts, and mildews...), no problem, these infomercials promise a pesticide for each and every turf malady. True, but applying these all too prolific pesticides can pose serious health and environmental risks that is only described in the "fine print" on the labels and never mentioned in these well-orchestrated, but misleading TV commercials. Check out the eye-opening website, www.pesticide.org, and select the article "Ten Reasons Not to Use Pesticides", taken from the Journal of Pesticide Reform, winter 2001. You'll learn about the "top 28" pesticides used in agriculture and landscape management and their cancer causing potential and problems associated with reproduction (i.e. miscarriages, birth defects, testicular atrophy...). These are not studies performed by some "fringe" advocacy group; rather the statistics are based on studies performed by the US Environmental Protection Agency. After illuminating statistics on the tonnage of these chemicals put down yearly in the US, the residual and persistence of many of these chemicals, our pesticide-contaminated food, water and air, the profitability of marketing these common pesticide, and other thought-provoking details, the one thing that stands out about pesticides is this: pesticides don't solve pest problems. They don't change the conditions that encourage pests. How true, how true. If you have a weedy, stressed, thin lawn there is no "magic" chemical, or fertilizer, that will deliver it to a condition similar to the aforementioned picture-perfect lawns. No, concentrate on the site conditions, foster the soil through good soil management, and perform diligent cultural care and you need for turf pesticides will be minimal.

Finally, I am gratified to see that over the course of my professional career, slowly changing attitudes about what is acceptable (and attainable) in so far as standards for the American lawn care industry. I have noticed this with professional lawn care people, even to the point of changing attitudes and practices on our golf courses. I am witnessing similar changes with the average homeowner. I hope that these slowly transforming attitudinal changes are driven by a better understanding about the health risks associated with pesticide use and a greater sense of land stewardship in our society, rather than the almighty dollar or lack of free time for lawn and landscape care.