If you’ve ever been to a big box home improvement store and stared at the shelves full of noxious, dusty lawn fertilizers, you’ve probably experienced two things:
- Complete confusion over what the heck you’re supposed to put on your lawn.
- That sinking feeling that this stuff probably isn’t great for your kids, pets, or the environment in general.
You would be correct.
For a long time, there’s been a pushback against natural lawn care because people are worried, essentially, that it doesn’t work. And if it does work, it’s expensive. But as it turns out, it’s possible to be environmentally friendly and have a great lawn at the same time.
If you’re working your patch of grass, you may not think too much about whether what you’re doing can make much of an impact, but in fact, the 63,000 square miles of lawn in American could cover the state of Texas --and suburban lawns and gardens, on average, receive more pesticide applications per acre than agricultural land.
So yeah, choosing natural lawn care products is an important way to foster a healthy lawn, keep your family and pets safe, and to contribute to the overall health of our environment and climate. Lawnbright uses a completely natural suite of products, from fertilizers to weed pre-emergents to insecticides, and they work. So we’re here today busting some of the natural lawn care myths we’ve heard.
Myth 1: Natural lawn care is expensive.
Before we get started here, give your local franchise of the nearest national lawn care service a buzz, and ask them how much it’ll take for you to get a lush, green lawn by the end of the season. While you’re at it, ask them if they use natural lawn care products.
Go ahead, we’ll wait.
In most cases, you’ll get some kind of eye-popping number, and if you sign up, you’ll get a disinterested rep show up once a month, half-heartedly spray god-knows-what on your lawn, and charge you handsomely for the privilege.
If you go to the big box store and buy giant bulk bags of chemical fertilizer, you might save some cash in theory. But you really don’t need that much stuff for your lawn--you just need to know what to use, when to use it, and how much to apply.
It’s very possible to get natural lawn care products that will work well and not bust your budget for lawn care. We’ve figured this out by sourcing products from independent manufacturers, creating a product mix that’s cost-efficient and effective. Beyond this, we don’t send you more than you need, so your cost is kept down by reducing waste.
Myth 2: Natural lawn care doesn’t work
If your freshman English teacher wrote, “show, don’t tell” at the top of all your papers, too, we’ve got you covered. Natural lawn care works great. Take a look.
Here’s the deal: taking care of your lawn isn’t about putting it on steroids and making it perfect. It’s about figuring out what it needs, and giving it the right vitamins to grow and thrive. Soil testing and using a variety of products at the right time is key to making natural products work well.
Myth 3: If my lawn doesn’t look like a golf course, I’m a failure
What’s your goal for your yard? To let your kids play on it? Your dog run loose? To host barbecues and corn hole tourneys? To be able to sit on your back deck and see the American Dream from your Adirondack chair?
Golf courses are the military haircut of lawn. They are functional and they look good, but they require a lot of precision and attention. Let’s let a little loose with the hairstyle.
In the end, what matters for your lawn is that it’s green, it’s healthy, and it’s dense--this means that you have lots of blades growing in any one area. (No dirt patches for us.) We want it pretty free of weeds, but we also know that natural lawn care allows for some clover and even (gasp) some crabgrass--all of which looks pretty much like a green American Dream from your perch on the deck.
Myth 4: There’s no such thing as a bug killer or weed killer that’s safe for my kids
Well, this is just wrong.
Most of having a great yard is about growing things, but there are a few things that have got to go to make that lawn a paradise. Namely: weeds, mosquitoes, and ticks.
Listen, letting your kids lick the grass is just bad parenting, but it happens and we get it. (We also have a tortoise who likes to eat the grass, and we wouldn’t want to cut into her 50-year life span.)
This is where independent sourcing really comes into play. By scouring natural lawn care options for the best solutions, we’ve found the natural alternatives to pesticides and weed killers that are as safe as our other natural products and--importantly, really work.
Myth 5: Trying to DIY my lawn care will kill my whole weekend.
Who among us hasn’t gone down the rabbit hole of lawn care YouTube videos? I mean, there are people mowing patterns in their lawn over here. The whole thing sounds like a complex mess, one that’s better left to the professionals.
In fact, no. DIY’ing your lawn care doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming. All we ask of you is to hook your hose up to our product and spray, twice a month. Should take you less than a half hour each time. If you want extra credit, go ahead and mow after. (If that’s not your jam, make sure you tell your landscaper to leave the clippings and keep the blade on high.)