Waiting in the cashier line at the local hardware store the other day, I overheard the conversation between a customer and a store clerk. The customer wanted a lawn fertilizer to get an application down right away. In addition to failing to mention to the customer that fertilizer applications in this town are prohibited by local bylaw until April, the clerk pushed a fertilizer herbicide mix that added poisonous insult to fertilizer injury.
I found the whole exchange kinda depressing, but I bit my lip. The whole idea of fertilizing lawns in early March when there is not enough growing for the plants to take up the nutrients was made worse with the days of heavy rains that we have experienced the last two weeks. Very little of what the customer will have applied did anything other than add to excess nutrients in surrounding waters that will feed aquatic life as the waters warm.
The customer clearly relied on the expertise of the store clerk. The clerk said nothing about time of year restrictions, said nothing about the need to wait until plants begin to grow and compounded the errors by aggressively promoting the application of broadleaf herbicides to eliminate beneficial plants that provide plant diversity to a lawn area and make it less ecologically barren.
Everything about this brief conversation, that is no doubt repeated hundreds, if not thousands, of times across the Cape, says a lot about how far we have left to go to make a dent in reducing needless fertilizer and pesticide use in the residential sector. APCC will be working on new strategies to improve yard care practices; there is clearly a lot left to do.
In the meantime, you can swear off the lawn fertilizers and just say no to the pesticides and herbicides this year. The Cape will be better off if you do.
