Yesterday many folks celebrated Earth Day in various ways across our country and the world. In our little part of the world in Tulsa and northeast Oklahoma, we actually celebrate Earth Day about every day, since we try to act as stewards towards this world that God created in a responsible way. But wait, some may say…don’t you use those nasty chemicals and fertilizers, polluting the world and wrecking havoc on the planet?
Well, give me a break! Chemicals are all around us. They are part of our world. Fertilizers are mainly natural products, mined from the earth or manufactured from organic sources. And they are like many other products in our world. If used properly, in judicious amounts, and in the intended use they are designed for, they pose no unreasonable risk to people, pets, and the planet we live on. Reality is that there are chemicals and products under your kitchen sink, in your medicine cabinet, and in your garage which are far more toxic, and could cause far more serious consequences when used improperly than the products we apply to your lawn.
If anyone should be concerned about the chemicals we apply it should be us in the lawncare industry, as we work with them and are exposed to them every day! I’ve been in the industry for over 25 years now, and I’ve personally treated alot of lawns (my bad hips are paying for it also). My health is great, our kids health is great, as are the tens of thousands of lawncare workers across the country. In fact, there has never been any responsible scientific studies showing links between using lawncare products and health issues for lawncare workers. If there were, do you really think I’d be exposing myself and my employees to stuff that was bad for us?
Reality is that by caring for lawns and landscapes in an environmentally responsible way, we are providing many positive benefits to our urban environment, with cleaner air, less soil runoff, noise abatement, oxygen production, and sequestering of harmful carbon dioxide.
We’re proud of what we do at LawnAmerica in caring for thousands of lawns, parks, sports fields, and commercial areas in Tulsa and surrounding areas. We’re leading the way towards responsible lawncare by investing in propane-powered spray equipment, which helps provide cleaner air with much fewer emissions. Our last two trucks we’ve purchased even have totally electric driven delivery systems for our spray equipment, with even less emissions than propane. At LawnAmerica, we’ve always incorporated IPM, or integrated pest management into our programs, with only spot-treating weeds as needed at many times of the season, along with educating homeowners on proper mowing, watering, and other cultural practices which help produce healthy turf. We always incorporate some organic content into our fertilizers. And our new Enviro-Care Program lessens the need for granular fertilizer input into the soil with soil amendments, while decreasing mowing requirements by 50%, leading to less pollution put out my lawn mowers.
We love caring for our part of the world at LawnAmerica!
Hey, I’m an environmentalist at heart. I’ve always loved nature. I started out at OSU studying forestry, then wildlife ecology, before ending up with a biology degree and teaching science for 7 years. Two years ago I spent almost 5 months in the thick of nature while thru-hiking the entire Appalachian Trail. So if anyone tries to tell me that I’m a bad guy for the earth, they are just barking up the wrong tree. Every day is Earth Day here at LawnAmerica, because that’s what we do–care for our little corner of the earth. We love what we do, we do love the earth that we care for (but we don’t worship it), but even more–we love the people and the community we all share.
That’s good for business, but it makes our jobs more challenging in trying to get a handle on these spring weeds. There are several reasons for the accelerated generation of weeds this spring.
