Last Updated on September 22, 2024 by Brian Beck
I heard someone today pose the question, “How long do you keep your lawn going?” This is a similar mentality to the mindset that exists and asks, “when do we get the lawn going this year?” It’s a seemingly reasonable request and quite common to hear but when you know the reality of it you understand why the person is asking the question. Let me put it bluntly synthetic lawns are extremely dependent on human intervention otherwise they will collapse rather quickly. This is why you here in the spring time people ask or insinuate that it is time to get the yard going because otherwise the lawn with flounder because there is no relationship between the root in the soil.
This time of year, meaning September this special time of the year. It is by far the most important month out of the entire season for the lawn as it dictates how the lawn will survive the winter and emerge either victorious or defeated the following spring. A lot of people are frustrated with the lawns these days and they want to get away from the responsibility of it as soon as possible like a bad habit. What is the reason for this? In a nutshell it is frustration borne out of inefficiency in the soil. Most people are fighting a phantom that they do not know exists and it is the horrendous conditions surrounding our soil. There are many things facing your soil that you have to contend with, predevelopment geological history, post development activity and post lawn installation and the use of synthetic fertilizers. Synthetic fertilizers destroy the soil and render it in a handicap state. Synthetic fertilizers diminish the carbon level in the soil, specifically organic matter and humus. Without an elevated level of humus the soil cannot hold water or support biological life meaning microbial life, fungal and bacterial that repair the soil, contribute to the breakdown of inorganic materials and contribute to water carrying capacity. We also live in a dry environment which necessitates the extracurricular need for hydration. Typically this time a year people have been beat up pretty fiercely by the water bill and they are ready to let go for the season. This is really what you are experiencing when someone asks how much longer do we have to keep up with it. The sad reality is that people begin to turn off the irrigation right now when it is most critical to keep the soil hydrated as we near prime root development time.
A biological lawn, meaning a lawn that uses microbial life to cycle nutrients into the plant both from the atmosphere and the soil versus a synthetic lawn that uses inorganic chemistry to force-feed plants nutrition, will regulate itself, green up when it is supposed to and go dormant when it is supposed to as is dictated by temperature and available light. The belief that we need to control and dictate every aspect of plant development is from over 80 years of conditioning from synthetic fertilizer use as it was introduced into the United States in the 1930s. A biological lawn will grow much more consistently without the spiking associated with synthetic fertilizers, will experience far less weed infiltration, will endure heat and cold much more vigorously, will require less water as the soil can hold much more water due to the increasing humus level in the soil and will also break down organic matter such as thatch much more rapidly which causes so many problems. The end result is a lawn that is much more stable, balanced and efficient. This is the essence of a biological lawn and is the goal that we strive towards. There really is no comparison and the habit to return to the old ways is no different than any other addiction. Once the truth becomes known it is very difficult to justify returning back to a synthetic system. Once someone realizes the cost of a synthetic system they will never return to it again.
