Take the pledge

Okay, y'all. It's free. It's easy.
Take the Audubon Healthy Yard pledge.
And while we are on the subject, I need to get something out of my craw. When I see a Scott's Lawn Care or ChemLawn truck in our neighborhood, I want to puke.
Do these people have so much money that they would like to pay for something they don't need? Why are they poisoning their yard? Why are they killing their insect population? Why are they fertilizing the grass so it grows twice as fast?
WHY?
Let's look at some facts:
1. Nature not only abhors a vacuum, but also abhors a monoculture. So these yards have grass and ONLY grass? So what? It's boring.
When a monoculture exists, any organism that is dangerous to the monoculture is capable of wiping it out. Totally wiping it out.

2. When you kill all the bugs in your yard, you are removing the food from baby birds' mouths. Many, many bird species depend on at least some insect food for their young.
Also, if left alone, nature is damn good at taking care of itself. Insect A eats Insect B, but Insect A is eaten by Bird A, B and C. So if you kill Insect A, you will be harming Birds A, B and C, but allowing Insect B to flourish and unbalance the whole thing.

3. Fertilizing your lawn makes it lush and green and pretty. It also makes it grow faster. That equals more mowing...which equals more gas being consumed...which increases our dependence on foreign oil and dirtying the air more...which falls into lakes and streams with the rain...which...I could go on and on.
Last note on fertilizing: When fertilizer runs off your property with rainfall, it ultimately ends up in some sort of natural body of water. This fertilizer feeds an algae bloom. This algae bloom a. Steals all the oxygen and kills off fish and b. Blocks out sunlight to other aquatic plants in the water and causes them to die.

Thinking about cancelling your lawn care yet?

If you have the money to spend on chemical lawn care, you have the money to donate to charity, or donate to wildlife conservation.