Reducing Toxins in Your Home Landscape

Caring for your home landscape can dramatically increase toxicity to your surroundings and adjacent habitats. Lawn care using fertilizers and insecticides add tons of potential toxins to the environment each year. Broadcast spraying for insect control also can contribute to toxins in the home landscape. Reducing the amount of fertilizer and insecticides helps prevent leaching and run off of these products into surrounding habitats. Spraying herbicides to control weeds also can contribute to toxicity in your yard.

Five Tips to reduce toxins

1. Toxic run off from lawn care can be reduced in a number of ways. First reducing the size of your lawn will reduce the amount of fertilizer or pesticides required to maintain it. It also saves water and money spent on your water bill. Use less fertilizer or slow release fertilizer that is less likely to leach out into the surrounding environment. Control weeds using mechanical methods. In other words: good old fashioned weed pulling. This will also encourage a smaller lawn size.

2. Use organic amendments for lawn health. Fish emulsion mixed in a typical hose sprayer container will give your lawn a nitrogen boost without all the other additives and insecticides in many lawn care products. A top dressing of weed free garden compost helps keep your lawn healthier and reduces the need for fertilization.

3. Control insects utilizing Integrated Pest Management. IPM is an environmentally sensitive approach to pest management according to the Environmental Protection Agency. IPM programs use information about the life cycles of pests and their interaction with the environment. For example, rather than spraying your tree every year for a particular pest, monitor the tree in the Spring when insects become active. Often beneficial insects will control pests without spraying.

4. Use non-toxic or low-toxicity pest control products. Many soft bodied insects are surprisingly easy to control. Aphids are a prevalent pest that can be killed by simply spraying with soapy water. Liquid ivory soap mixed in a garden hose sprayer and applied thoroughly to leaves can be effective at controlling aphids. A mixture of dried chili peppers ground up with powdered garlic is also an effective insecticide. Commercially available products that have low toxicity are also widely available.

5. Use mulch in the home landscape as an alternative to herbicides. When mulch is applied to a depth of four inches it is very effective at reducing weed growth. I recommend arbor mulch as an economical and readily available mulch. As mulch breaks down in the soil it adds organic matter, nutrients, and humic acid to the soil. Mulch is also effective at reducing the amount of irrigation required for plants and trees when placed around their drip lines. Be sure not to mound mulch around trunks of trees or shrubs since this contributes to root fungi.

For more information on caring for your home landscape visit our web site at treeprosonoma.com

Ron Wallace
Certified Arborist WE 0979A
TreeProSonoma.com treeprosonoma.com