Letters

Celebrate Earth Day by consciously considering the impact of traditional lawn maintenance on our earth, its air, waters, soil and increasingly extinct natural inhabitants: our birds and insects. Humans, both gardeners and those who care for gardens, are impacted, too.

With the right incentives you can have a beautiful lawn without harming the environment. First, use the right products; and, second, be open to a new concept of what constitutes a beautiful landscape. Do you really need the traditional green lawn, or is there an alternative that is both acceptable and attractive?

The first step is to reduce or eliminate chemical lawn products and modified maintenance practices. (The use of fertilizers can create stressors on grass plants by reducing photosynthesis, caused by excessive chemical coating on the blades.) Reducing traditional lawn size is a start to limiting their use.

Develop a plan that, over time, replaces lawn with trees, shrubs and plants that are compatible to one another. Use the principle of “two-thirds for the birds” (234birds.org). Plant two native plants for a non-native that you admire. More and more garden centers stock native plants and can offer advice. As an incentive, visit audubon.org.

Another benefit of less lawn and fewer chemicals is a decrease in water runoff that contaminates streams, ponds, wells, aquifers and eventually sends chemicals into our oceans. Limit watering habits to when the landscape requires moisture will eliminate water waste and excessive weed growth.

If you are still enamored of your traditional lawn, consider that air pollution emitted by a gas-powered mower for one hour is equivalent to driving 20 miles in your car. Mowing less often and leaving taller grass invites pollinator insects both day and night, bees by day and fireflies by night.

You can also eliminate those April-to-November “dump runs” to drop off grass clippings, leaves and tree limbs. Recycle them instead by allowing them to decompose into natural fertilizer for your soil.

Finally, consider the health effects on humans of the chemicals we have been exposed to over countless years in pursuit of a green lawn. The most recent research by Lathan and Cone tells us: “Lawns are the most prominent type of vegetation and are also the most resource consuming as well as polluting form of landscaping.”

Think native and natural to celebrate Earth Day.

Susanne Jansson

Liz Schroeder

Conservation Committee

Westhampton Garden Club