By Robin Catalano Once our gardens and flower beds are planted and mulched for the season, and with outdoor parties just kicking into gear, many of us turn our focus toward lawn care, and creating a lush, green, welcoming outdoor space. While most people have heard the term organic in the grocery store, when they hear it...
By Hannah Van Sickle Each spring, it takes but one unexpected visit from a bear–who inevitably strews garbage up and down my driveway–to remind me that it’s time to resume composting my kitchen scraps. I’ve relegated a heavy white ceramic bowl, inherited from my grandmother, to serve as the “mulch bucket;” I park it next...
Permaculture is a contraction of both “permanent culture” and “permanent agriculture”. The phrase was coined by two Australians, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, in the late 1970s. Inspired by observations in nature and in indigenous cultures, the two began forming a set of principles; believing they could create a system functioning in as much a...
Most would agree that a great lawn is thick, green and easy to care for. The controversy starts when you add the words “weed free”. What is a weed? Generally defined as “a wild plant growing where it is not wanted”. Makes sense and certainly applicable to many plants found in the cultivated landscape with...
As we begin our twelfth season offering Organic Lawn Care to our clients, I’m reminded of the importance of avoiding using toxic chemical lawn fertilizers and pesticides in our homes’ landscapes. “Of the 36 most commonly used lawn pesticides: 14 are probable or possible carcinogens, 15 are linked with birth defects, 21 with reproductive effects,...
