A lush, green lawn is every homeowner’s dream.
A healthy lawn is not only a spectacle to behold. It also elevates your property’s curb appeal.
Sadly, our fast-paced lifestyles have made it exceedingly difficult to implement healthy lawn care practices. The quest to maintain well-manicured lawns on tight schedules has had many property owners resort to unhealthy interventions like applying pesticides laced with toxic chemicals.
While such products are widely touted for their ‘near-instant’ benefits, their harmful effects can be long-term and far-reaching. Your best bet is to stick to traditional organic lawn care methods.
Below are the six benefits of choosing organic lawn care.
What Is Organic Lawn Care?
Organic lawn care refers to lawn maintenance practices that don’t involve the use of harsh chemicals.
Otherwise put, organic lawn care methods use fertilizers and pesticides produced by organic compounds (living organisms) while shunning those formulated with inorganic compounds (nonliving or synthetic components).
Renowned companies like Envirogreen have been at the forefront of championing healthy lawn care techniques with a view to preserving local biodiversity. But as you’re about to find out, there are more than ecological benefits to organic lawn maintenance.
Why Switch To Organic Lawn Care
1. Fosters a Healthy Lawn
Inorganic fertilizers tend to be more concentrated than their organic counterparts.
Plants that are fed massive infusions of nutrients are usually helpless in the face of pests and diseases. Early exposure to inorganic fertilizers can also diminish your lawn’s resilience, making the vegetation less resistant to extreme weather conditions like drought and flooding.
On the contrary, organic fertilizers encourage a healthier lawn due to their sheer abundance of natural antioxidants.
Switching to organic lawn care can enhance the vitality of your landscaping plants by encouraging root growth and minimizing disease prevalence. Your lawn will retain its lush appeal regardless of the prevailing weather.
2. Promotes a Cleaner Environment
Implementing organic lawn care practices doesn’t just benefit your landscaping plants directly. It also contributes to the greater quest for environmental preservation.
Artificial fertilizers and pesticides contain toxic compounds that can leach into the soil and affect local biodiversity.
While pesticides are meant to kill unwanted guests in your yard, the chemicals in these products may not make a distinction between beneficial and parasitic organisms. Besides, the harmful compounds in inorganic fertilizers and pesticides may pollute nearby water bodies or mix into the air that we breathe.
The surest way to maintain a healthy ecosystem is by switching to organic lawn care methods.
3. Releases Slowly
The bioactive compounds in organic lawn care products break down and release into the soil over weeks. That’s in contrast to synthetic fertilizers, which often contain high-soluble and quick-release chemicals.
Organic lawn care compounds are almost impossible to over-apply due to their slow-release nature. That property also allows your lawn’s vegetation to develop elaborate root structures necessary for proper nutrient absorption.
It’s exciting to know that most organic fertilizers contain a balanced concentration of essential nutrients. Since these compounds break down over time, you’re assured that every bit will benefit your lawn vegetation.
4. Your Pets Will Be Safe
Artificial lawn care compounds pose a direct safety risk to your pets. Indeed, cases of dangerous exposure to toxic pesticide chemicals by animals abound. These encounters can happen through ingesting, breathing in, or physical contact with the toxins.
Herbivorous farmyard animals like bunnies are most at risk, although even true carnivores like cats aren’t entirely safe.
Studies have found pesticides containing organophosphate and carbamates incredibly toxic to pets. These chemicals can cause certain nerves to fire erratically, leading to a host of adverse effects. Common signs of toxicity include excessive drooling, irritability, incoordination, and mild tremors.
Fortunately, natural lawn care products are free from toxic compounds. You don’t have to worry about your cat developing severe toxicity after nibbling on your organically-fed lawn grass.
5. You’ll Be Safe, Too
Most things that are toxic to our pets are equally harmful to our health. In fact, research has shown that prolonged exposure to the chemicals that kill soil microbes can cause chronic health concerns.
Organophosphates have especially been linked to neuronal damage in humans, albeit to a lesser degree than cats and dogs.
In severe exposure, you may experience unresponsiveness, muscle fasciculation, pinpoint pupils, eye damage, and skin irritation. The adverse effects are compounded in the case of ingestion, where gastrointestinal distress and hypersalivation may also set in.
6. Saves You Money
Lawn maintenance doesn’t come cheap. Therefore, you require the most effective yet affordable interventions.
It turns out that organic lawn care practices are way more affordable than their synthetic counterparts.
Remember that organic fertilizers are slow-releasing. They break down gradually and linger in the soil much longer, allowing them to provide long-lasting benefits. The implication is that a higher percentage of applied organic fertilizers get absorbed by your lawn plants compared to synthetic fertilizers.
Besides, most organic fertilizers are readily available in most homes. While they require a bit of time and effort to prepare, there are almost ZERO costs.
Final Word
Organic lawn care doesn’t only maintain your lawn’s health. It also preserves local biodiversity while safeguarding the health of your entire household.
Contrary to popular misconception, organic lawn care practices are affordable and easy to administer. Better yet, you can enlist professional landscaping services if you lack the skills or time to personally tend to your lawn.