The Washington Post - 19.03.2020

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DC

the washington post

.

thursday, march

19

,

2020

mosquitoes. “It killed my bees,

immediately,” he said.

Many pests can be handpicked

and dumped in a bleach

solution; they can be sprayed

individually with a bottle of

insecticidal soap, and some can

be vacuumed up.

Lawns

Lawns are useful and have a

visual appeal, but they are the

most dependent areas for

fertilizers, pesticides and

precious water.

If you want a lush, manicured

lawn, “then you owe it to yourself

and to the world to understand

what you’re putting on the lawn

and what your contractor is

putting on the lawn, what they’re

doing to the environment,”

Forrest said. “Make sure you

make an informed decision.”

M ost lawns can be reduced in

size and still provide a place for

the kids and the dog to let off

steam. You can also do what a lot

of major botanical gardens have

done and ease up on lawn

perfection for the sake of the

environment, tolerating more

dandelions or clover, for

instance.

This has also been the case at

Glenstone Museum, the privately

owned, public art campus in

Potomac. Its entire 300 acres of

turf, meadow, woodland and

streams are managed

organically. This extends to the

more than 20,000 annuals

plugged into the Jeff Koons

sculpture “Split-Rocker”

annually. Before planting in the

spring, they are soaked in a bath

of water containing mycorrhizal

fungi, the sort that lives in the

plant root zone.

Glenstone’s lawn areas have

been reduced from 16 to five

acres, much of it replaced with

meadow, and the turf that

remains has been tested for pH,

levels of nutrients and organic

matter, and managed

organically. Tukey, Glenstone’s

chief sustainability officer, shows

me a storage shed with large

compost tea brewers and shelves

of fish emulsion, a concentrate

made from crab shells, and

insecticidal soaps. The

groundskeepers make and spray

500 gallons of compost tea daily.

“The message at Glenstone is:

Going organic doesn’t mean

going ugly,” Tukey said.

Another EDF scientist, Eileen

McLellan, said just as farmers

are encouraged to plant buffer

zones between their fields and

ditches, to intercept fertilizer

runoff, home gardeners can

create a planting strip or a rain

garden on the edge of their

lawns. “You can have significant

environmental benefits by

removing part of the lawn,” she

said. “You don’t have to take the

whole lawn out.”

Weeds are a symptom of a

poor lawn, not its cause.

Common factors for lawn failure

are too much shade, compacted

soil and the related problem of

standing water. If you can’t fix

the shade or the waterlogging

aspects, plant something else.

Here’s another important

consideration: The prevailing

lawn grass in the Mid-Atlantic is

turf-type tall fescue. It is a cool-

season grass inherently unhappy

in high summer, especially a dry

one. (Warm-season grasses have

their own issues.) When you

renovate or overseed such a

lawn, best done in late summer,

it pays to seek out a variety of

fescue that has been bred for

these conditions. Don’t just pick

up a bag of seed thinking they’re

all the same.

Plant choices

Many natural areas have been

significantly degraded by the

rampant spread of invasive

plants, whose untended

populations exploded and have

outpaced the resources of land

managers. Many of these plants

escaped from gardens via seed-

scavenging birds.

These include the vines

English ivy, oriental bittersweet,

porcelain berry, wintercreeper,

Asian wisterias and

honeysuckles. Problem trees and

shrubs include ailanthus, callery

or Bradford pear, autumn olive,

bush honeysuckles, winged

burning bush and Japanese

barberry.

Remarkably, some of these

plants are still sold in garden

centers, so you can’t assume that

what you’re buying behaves

itself. If you have these in your

garden already, consider

removing them or, at a

minimum, making sure they

don’t go to seed. Cut off the

fading flowers and, in the case of

the vines, don’t let them loose on

trees.

There is the idea that if you

put in native plants, they will

take care of themselves, but this

is not strictly the case, as anyone

who has tried to grow a

mountain-laurel or franklinia

tree will attest.

What is more important is

that you select plants based on

their preferred growing

conditions, whether sun or shade

(and the degree of each), the soil

types and pH, and whether the

site is wet or dry. Planting a yew

or a cherry-laurel in heavy wet

clay that is then mulched and

irrigated may well lead to root

rot. Before planting anything,

dig an 18-inch-deep hole and fill

it with water. How fast does it

drain? Five minutes or five

hours? Your local county

extension agency can tell you

how to get soil tested for fertility,

pH and amount of organic

matter.

In sum, you have to learn your

site and your plants. Don’t

assume a shrub in glorious

bloom at the garden center will

thrive in your yard. A tree or

shrub in a place it doesn’t want

to be may hang on, but it will be

stressed and attract pests and

diseases, for which constant

spraying is not the answer. A

moisture-loving plant may

require continual watering,

especially in a drought. Once

established, the right plant in the

right place will be better placed

to survive dry spells.

Supplies and equipment

Your neighborhood nursery

carries plenty of pitfalls for the

green gardener. Among them:

Don’t buy cheap, flimsy tools

that will soon need replacing.

Garden tools that are well made

are investments that last for

many years.

Plastic nursery pots

accumulate at an alarming rate

for serious gardeners and should

be recycled. Some can be used

for seed starting or for perennial

divisions that can be given to

friends.

Sphagnum peat moss is a

common ingredient in potting

mixes and soil amendments, but

many gardeners are moving

away from it because it is

harvested from ancient peat

bogs that function as important

carbon sinks. Alternatives

include mixes made from

coconut fiber (coir), highly

screened wood and bark

compost, and shredded paper

products.

If you are using wooden

planks to create raised beds or to

shore up hillsides, check out

architectural salvage yards for

recycled lumber. I avoid

pressure-treated wood in the

vegetable garden, content to use

untreated pine as a short-lived

option, or I use cedar with its

natural rot resistance.

Gas-powered garden

equipment is not as clean as

automobile engines, especially

two-stroke versions found in

chain saws, leaf blowers and

edgers. The way to minimize

their emissions is to keep them

well tuned and serviced. Electric-

powered tools are kinder (to the

environment, not the ear) but

even they rely on fossil fuels for

their power generation. Consider

ditching the leaf blower this fall

for a good garden rake and a

broom, especially now that you

are going to keep all those leaves

on site.

[email protected]

@adrian_higgins on Twitter

 Chat Thursday at noon Higgins

will answer questions about all things

gardening. submit questions at

live.washingtonpost.com.

 Also at washingtonpost.com

read past columns by Higgins at

washingtonpost.com/home.

Gardeners who are trying to
provide habitat for wildlife or
encourage pollinators cringe
when neighbors have their yards
sprayed for mosquitoes. The best
way to combat mosquitoes is to
remove sources of standing
water, where larvae develop. In

ponds, you can add fish, which

eat the larvae, or apply pellets of

Bti, a natural larvicide.

Rudek knows firsthand the

effects of mosquito pesticides.

He lives on a one-third-acre lot

in suburban Philadelphia, where

he kept honeybees. The township

came along his street to spray for

Peggy nille for tHe WAsHington Post

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