The Crazy Wisdom Community Journal • January through April 2022 • Page 65
When my husband and I moved into our home over three years ago, we did an “accidental experiment” in our far back yard. I did not want us to mow every square foot of land, so we only mowed pathways. The first two years, there was flooding in a particular low spot when we had heavy rains. In the third year, after heavy rains, the area did not flood! I was shocked and excited to realize that not mowing for just two years had allowed the existing grasses to grow deeper roots and tops, absorbing and transpiring the excess rain before it had a chance to puddle. Bravo, ecosystem services! Mowing every week also adds to the arsenal of toxins in our world. Consider these statistics according to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) studies: Americans burn 800 million gallons of gas every year trimming yards. In one hour of operation, one new gas-powered lawn mower produces an amount of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxide air pollution equal to eleven new cars driven for one hour. Adverse health effects from gas-powered lawn and garden equipment emissions are well known. Benzene...and formaldehyde are listed among the four top ranking cancer-causing compounds. They cause lymphomas, leukemias, and other types of cancer. Ground level ozone … and fine particulate matter cause or contribute to heart attack, stroke, congestive heart failure, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cancer, and early death. That’s a lot of bad news there but hang on—we’ve almost made it to the good news. What is a conscientious lawn owner to do? If you’re not quite ready to overhaul the whole yard, and you like a little lawn, there’s still hope. Contrary to what we’re told, lawns can be maintained beautifully and organically. Why isn’t this common knowledge? Because there is a distinct lack of university research and funding in organic methodology. Lack of university research trickles down through the cooperative extension service, resulting in a dearth of public information, few organic products, such as fertilizer and pest control, and a lack of horticulture professionals trained and knowledgeable in organic products and methods. Case in point: after researching almost a dozen lawn companies in our area who advertised organic lawn care, I interviewed the two that seemed most promising. Each one said that only 5% of their customers choose their 100% organic option. Sadly, neither one of these reps spoke knowledgeably about what it takes to maintain a lawn organically. Each organic “lawn care specialist” pushed the chemical weed control option. It is no surprise they didn’t have more organic customers. I needed more good news. Therefore, I returned to my roots—a mecca of organic information and my alma mater, The Natural Gardener in Austin, Texas. This is where I spent 18 years learning and teaching organic methods. From their referral list, I found several recommended lawn care companies who knew their business. If an organic lawn can make it in Central Texas, it can make it anywhere. Southeast Michigan offers a much more hospitable environment for turfgrass: deep, fertile soil and regular rainfall, and a distinct lack of rocks, drought, and scorching heat. I spoke with Barry Fassauer II, owner of Green Earth Conservation Lawn in Austin. His company offers an “organic, all electric, no emissions, sustainable lawn care and maintenance service.” He has been in business for about five years, employs seven staff members on three crews, caring for 500-600 lawns. He knows that to offer fully organic lawn care, he has to be educated and must educate his customers. He said, “I’m yapping about organics all day long!” Switching from a chemical regimen to organic requires patience and understanding of how nature works. “It’s a marathon,” Fassauer says, “not a sprint. Every chemical applied to the soil does harm,” so it takes time to reverse that harm and create a healthy, sustainable lawn. Why go to such trouble? Fassauer came from a farming family in Amarillo who used the usual array of chemicals. When his family members started getting cancer, he sought another way. It’s the same reason I am passionate about organic gardening.
This is a wonderful time to explore a fresh outlook on our little piece of earth. What does organic lawn care look like? First, ditch all chemicals. Use organic fertilizer. Espoma All-Season Lawn Food or Sustane 8-2-4 are two pelletized choices. Don’t chain yourself to mowing every week. Mow as high as the mower allows and leave the clippings—that’s free fertilizer and crucial organic matter. If your budget and time allow, go a step further and top dress with a half-inch or less of the real deal: good quality compost. Compost does more to heal damaged soil than anything else. It adds back the microorganisms, plus the organic matter that is the food they need to survive. That organic matter also loosens a compact or clayey soil and helps bind a sandy soil. It adds nutrients to feed the lawn. For a lawn transitioning to organic, applying compost once every spring or fall for a couple of years would do wonders. Especially add compost to the weedy areas. Studies have shown that weeds are less likely to grow in an area where compost was applied. Tuthill Farms in South Lyon makes the best bulk compost I’ve seen or buy bags at your local garden center.
Finally, remember that diversity is a good thing—in life and lawn—so rethink “weeds” in the lawn. Intentionally plant some white clover to add diversity and beneficial insect habitat. If you must get control over the most invasive members of the “alternative lawn plants” category, there are several choices. First realize that the healthier soil is, the thicker the lawn grows, which crowds out weeds. Fassauer and I would recommend corn gluten as a pre-emergent weed killer and spot treating weeds with a mixture of one gallon 20% vinegar with two tablespoons of dish soap and/or 3 tablespoons of orange oil. Remember that building back healthy soil and its living ecosystem takes time and patience. Going organic and increasing diversity in our existing lawn and landscape will do wonders to turn an ecological dead zone into a carbon-sequestering system. For creating next-level environmental services, I discovered two local companies and one organization right in our backyard.
But monocultures do not exist in nature. Lawn is an artificial design feature, and we have 40 million acres of it in the US… From the late 1700s to 2022 is a long time to adhere to a single fashion. If you have ever stopped in your tracks to see a beautiful Southeast Michigan native garden or landscape, alive with butterflies and hummingbirds, it may have been designed or restored by PlantWise (plantwiserestoration.com). In business since 1998, David Mindell and his crews have installed native landscapes and rain gardens for homeowners all across southeastern Michigan in Ann Arbor, Chelsea, Whitmore Lake, Dexter, Gregory, and beyond. They work on family-sized yards all the way up to thousand-acre properties managed by municipalities or conservancies. The PlantWise mission is to do “the most ecological and aesthetic good for the sites in which we work.” In September of last year, I spoke with Mindell. He shared some of the success stories from larger properties they’ve worked on. For the last three years we’ve been working with a private landowner down in Tecumseh. They’ve got about 50 acres that used to be a sand and gravel mine. It was abandoned as a mine many years ago. We’ve worked on knocking down the weeds throughout that area, and then planting the whole thing to a tallgrass prairie. This is the end of the second full growing season, and we’re starting to see all kinds of cool native plants coming, ranging from Lupine to Horsemint (Beebalm), and Black-eyed Susans, Blue Vervain, and lots of species diversity already. Lots of Little Bluestem and Indian Grass. It’s really fun to see those larger landscapes transform into something that’s going to be such a boon to pollinators, as well as other wildlife. One of the crazy things is that many native species do great in terrible soils. So, while the topsoil had been stripped away and that was not a nutrient-rich site, oftentimes that’s perfect for many native species. Then, very quickly they (the native plants) are going to start to rebuild those rich soil conditions. Many of us, myself included, are disheartened to see the effects of mining and other destructive actions on our earth. It is so encouraging and exciting to learn from David Mindell that such a degraded environment could bounce back so significantly in just two growing seasons. Michigan has almost 3,300 miles of Great Lakes shoreline. Add to that the shorelines of over 11,000 inland lakes over five acres in size, and we certainly have an abundance of beautiful lakeshore vistas. That intersection between the lake (or river) and land is an incredibly diverse and sensitive part of our landscape called the riparian zone. Landowners who build retaining walls or have a lawn all the way up to the riparian zone have likely witnessed the destructive power of water and ice which carve into the banks and erode the soil. I caught up with Jim Brueck to find out how he and his crews at Native Lakescapes are restoring this unique ecosystem. Brueck started Native Lakescapes in 2009. He grew up hiking, fishing, and hunting, and later in life learned about native plants and shoreline restoration. He and his crew have created “native lakescapes” on more than 15 lakes, including his own home on Middle Lake. Brueck told me: The whole principle behind a more natural shoreline is to try to create a riparian buffer that allows a movement of wildlife from aquatic to upland. In order to do that, you have to have a variety of different plant material. You end up with this aquatic zone, and then the transitional or emerging (zone), and then upland. The fascinating thing is that it’s probably one of the most diverse habitats that exists—that transitional area going from aquatic to upland. That in itself is kind of mind-boggling, saying, ‘Wow, that’s kind of cool! Right here in my yard I’ve got one of the most diverse habitats that exists!’ It provides a necessary transition for reptiles, turtles, and frogs that move from aquatic to uplands.
