Last Updated on November 21, 2023 by Brian Beck
Have you ever asked yourself why you have to expend so much water, so much fertilizer, so much herbicides and fungicides? I see a lot of people getting frustrated with their lawns, with their lawn service, with their water bill and the whole process. As a matter of fact I see a lot of people getting discouraged. Back in 2017 I questioned the system myself that I had been in for almost 20 years as I was frustrated from the lack of results from the status quo. If you’re reading this you’re probably of a like mind and you probably questioning the process yourself. What I discovered in 2017 revolutionized how I approach my business, my customers lawns and my own lawn for that matter. What I discovered was shockingly simple and had been forgotten as it is not new. To understand the current methods that are used in lawn care you must understand the past. Unless you’re over the age of 125 all you have ever known is the current system of fertility. That system involves synthetic products which kill microbial life in the soil. Synthetic fertilizers which contain inorganic salts kill off microbes such as beneficial bacteria and fungi, protozoa and nematodes and discourages other invertebrates such as earthworms. We have actually been taught to extinguish all life in the soil as it is viewed as a pestilence or a plague. This is the downfall of modern chemistry that has abandoned biology in the natural processes that exist in nature that were prevalent in normal before the advent of synthetic fertilizers in the 1930s. When you kill off microbiology in the soil disable the soil’s ability to aerate itself, hold water, fight off weeds, endure temperature extremes and fight off lawn diseases, all of which are normally handled by soil microbiology. When you factor in the secondary costs of using synthetics you can quickly extrapolate the incredible amount of waste that occurs when you use synthetics that don’t exist in a biological system. If your skeptical you might say, “well it’s worked so far.” To which I say, “do you like blowing money?” A biological lawn uses 1/3 to 1/2 of the resources that a traditional synthetic lawn takes without the toxicity that is incurred by using synthetic products. One solid standalone test that will prove whether or not your lawn is truly healthy is whether or not you can leave it alone for 6 to 9 months and have very little variation in how it looks. Because synthetic lawns are highly dependent on human intervention and the man-made chemicals that prop them up they quickly collapse when they are not attended to on a regular basis. A biological lawn on the other hand will hold 2 to 3 times as much water, will have much more consistent growth pattern and color. It will green up a month earlier in the spring and stay greener well into early winter if it is properly hydrated. The question I would ask myself is if this is true why am I not engaged in it? I asked myself that same question several years ago and have reaped a lot of benefits from doing so.
