An open letter to "lawn care" companies:

[HopeHoops]

Dear so-called "lawn care" companies:

LEAVE MY LAWN THE FUCK ALONE!

I have children who play in the yard. They do not need to be exposed to your poisons.

I have dogs who play in the yard. They also do not need to be exposed to your poisons.

I have one of the only yards in the neighborhood with honey bees. I doubt this can be challenged as a coincidence. They aren't in any of the poisoned yards! It seems obvious why we have had problems with the hives - nerve agents freak them out. They get lost and die in isolation.

I have a garden and there are bees everywhere when the blossoms are out - I know of at least 30 different kinds. I didn't even know there WHERE that many kinds 20 years ago. The neighbors with poisoned lawns who have tried gardens have given up and reseeded the areas with grass. No bees = no fruit. They listened to you instead of reality. I grow a lot of my own food for my family and I need those bees. You kill the bees. Three years ago, my cherry tree didn't even produce a single fruit. Not one. Last year wasn't bad and I hope this year will be better. I blame you.

I have birds. I have rabbits, although those do tend to nibble at my garden parts, but at least I have them. The poisoned lawns do not.

I have bugs. I have slugs. I have toads. I have worms. I have beetles. I have a yard that is ALIVE! The poisoned lawns are not alive.

Oh, and I have dandylions! I have a SHITLOAD of dandylions! They are pretty! The poisoned lawns do not. They look like dead green carpets.

So keep your FUCKING PESTICIDE INFESTED BOOTS OFF OF MY FUCKING PROPERTY!!!!

"For more information in English, press 1"

FUCK YOU SCOTT'S, TRU GREEN, LAWN DOCTOR, and all of the other poison spreaders out there. Your job is a road straight to HELL!

I've got a 77 lb border collie and a loud but cowardly 17 lb sheltie that will give you what-not if you come around again! And don't make me sic our rabbit on you!

So there.

End of rant.

Fuck you,

Me.

[Critters2]

1. We've destroyed the native plants, then planted this stuff

that ISN'T SUPPOSED TO BE HERE! Then, to make it grow, we have to fertilize and poison the hell out of it!!! Why?!! Because it LOOKS NICE?!! By whose damned standards!!!!

:banghead:

[SpiralHawk]

2. Chemlawn changed their name a few years ago

to something so freaking mindf*ckingly propagandisticaly 1984ish -- TruGreen.

PTOOOOey. Makes me want to Blow Chunks.

This is the Republicon Homelaner anti-Life Mindset in action.

I, like the OP Ranter HopeHoops or HoopHoper, or whatever, don't want no steenkin toxic chemicals on my lawn, or my planet for that matter.

[Egalitariat]

31. Where do you live? Lawn companies treat your lawn without you requesting it?

You have to tell them to stay away? Do they charge you afterward if they treat your lawn without your even requesting the service? This is interesting to me.

[Big Blue Marble]

63. About eight years ago, a lawn chemical company did treat my lawn

without me requesting it. In the 30 years I have lived in my house no pesticides or herbicides had ever used on lawn prior
to this happening. We settled with company for $50O. Yes they paid us. ;-)

[county worker]

3. Are you saying we should not have lawns of grass but instead we should have lawns of weeds?

[Retrograde]

5. we should stop trying to make every plot look like an English estate

Lawns do well in some places, namely those with lots of rain throughout the growing season. They're not suited for other areas, like mine, where we don't normally get any rain from mid-April through November. However, we try to make one look fit the entire continent, and as a result we expand huge amounts of resources seeding, weeding, cutting and watering grass to make an emerald carpet.

I don't see what's wrong with a mixed lawn, if you must have one: why not have flowers mixed in with grass? Why go to all the trouble of trying to make something unnatural? I think the original poster is objecting to the (eastern? that's where I've mainly seen it) practice of chemically turning the front of one's lot into a monocrop.

For the record, my front "lawn" is roses and shredded bark: it gets no water other than what comes out of the sky in winter.

[county worker]

7. I am not trying to argue the point here. I don't understand something.

There have been lawns of grass at homes and estates for a very long time. It is the desired thing in most cases to have a "green lawn." I once got a letter from a home owner's association telling me that my lawn wasn't green enough.

How can anyone convince the world to give up green lawns? I understand the why, but what's the how?

Are we going to pass laws against green lawns? I mean is it even practical or is this a dream?

So many things I read on DU may make good rational sense but there is no way of doing it. What's the purpose to propose something that isn't going to happen? It can happen in a few locations but you aren't going to get people to stop wanting green lawns.

[Mari333]

11. it takes time to change peoples minds

I see a lot of people in the little town I am in getting rid of their lawns. that was unthinkable not a decade ago. They are replacing the lawn with indigenous growth. I am pretty glad to see it. with education and information, I think people will continue making changes.

[tabasco]

15. That's right. Leftover of the Leave It To Beaver era

when everybody had to have a perfect lawn.

More people are planting gardens and wildflower patches which looks a lot nicer than astrofurf-looking grass.

[Mari333]

18. Thats why I would rather eat worms then live in a gated community

I cannot even imagine anyone telling me what to do with my property. i wouldnt last a millisecond.

[XemaSab]

51. I was in a gated community yesterday

where only about 1 house in 20 had a lawn.

The front yards were small anyway, but I was happy to see that someone, somewhere has a clue. :)

[REACTIVATED IN CT]

57. We don't have to give up green lawns - just change the way we

get there. My town has switched to organic lawn care for all athletic fields. We are on a river and a salt marsh and a harbor. We don't need all those petro-chemicals leaching into our waters.

They recently passed an ordinance encouraging people to use natural/organic lawn care. I'm encouraging the town to offer workshops for newbies.

I haven't used chemicals on my lawn in the 10 years I've owned this house. Yeah, my lawn doesn't look like Pebble Beach like my neighbors, but I have tons of earthworms which tells me my soil is healthy.

Edited to add link to article on what my town and another in CT are doing

http://www.beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/?p=1099

and to add link to article about ordinance
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2009/02/lawnsll_be_gree.php

[we can do it]

67. Green Does Not Equal Chemically Poisoned

you can have green without stinky chemicals

some examples-
http://www.gardensalive.com/category.asp?c=10
http://www.extremelygreen.com/

[Kalyke]

68. Homeowner's associations are the Devil's spawn.

I would not - and could not - live in a neighborhood that had one.

They're generally run by nosy nattering nabobs with Napoleon complexes.

[Mari333]

8. weeds by another name are wonderful wild growth

I prefer wild yarrow, wild tansy, phlox, dandelions (delicious in salad), wild bergamot, thistle, over chemicals that leech into our rivers and streams.

[county worker]

9. Please reply to my post #7

Thanks, I am not disagreeing with you just want to know why propose something that isn't going to happen or if it is, how?

[csziggy]

43. Frankly, green lawns are going to pass away naturally

As the water needed to maintain them in most parts of the US is restricted, chemicals are banned or restricted (or the insects they are meant to kill develop tolerances or die off completely), and people realize that they are a waste of resources.

Sure, some people in some places will still want green lawns, but I sincerely believe that they will become a passing fad.

[Retired AF Dem]

17. But at least it is green in color

Damn chiggers can be a pain in the ass though.

[alarimer]

22. You should have whatever lawn you want.

If you like walking on chemically enhanced, fake lawns, be my guest. The rest of us want a little nature. Maybe a butterfly garden, maybe some cactus or a rock garden. You're welcome to the sterile green fakeness of suburbia. I personally can't stand it.

[Chulanowa]

26. What's a weed?

If your definition is "a plant that should not be there", then your lawn is actually the weed.

There are lots of native herbs and grasses than can make a nice lawn. Look into xenoscaping, the use of native plants for yards. One can have an attractive, durable, and low-maintanance yard easily enough with plants native to your area, that don't require constant saturation with water and fertilizers, like most non-native carpet grasses

[truedelphi]

38. I think it was clear what she was saying -

"YOU" can have any kind of lawn you want, and any kind of cancer that that risk entails.

But the OP is saying they don't want THEIR lawn treated.

Period.

As I type this, I am listening to the slamming doors of the hospice worker who visits the 47 year old golf course maintenance man who lives across the street. He was always amused by my "Organic Yard" ladybug stickers on my car.

E. is 47 and will probably not be around to laugh at these stickers any more because of cancer, terminal cancer, that is the direct result OF ALL THE CRAP THAT HE HAS INGESTED SPRAYING the golf courses where he works.


He and his fellow workers were told for years that the formulas of the pesticide products that they used were benign - in the case of "RoundUp" he "knew" for a fact that RoundUp was only salt and water. He was told that the Bayer pesticide products, the ones that those in the know are now saying are killing our bees, but that Bayer claims are only "Aspirin and water."

And I am really sad about E. - he was a great person, and I will even miss our friendly arguments about pesticides. I wish that I could have convinced him about the dangers. But he had a lot of energy, and saw himself as being immortal, as all young-enough, energetic-enough people do and thus would not heed warnings. And cancer is the sort of thing that leaves you alone until the day it makes you sick.

[roody]

42. I suggest that your lawn be edible.

[trof]

47. We should have 'lawns' of vegetables.

You bet!

[dugaresa]

54. actually lawns of just grass are a recent issue

lawns of old had clover infused with the grass seed as the clover would help re-introduce nitrogen to the soil. In fact old mixes of grass would boast their clover content.

Today we now have folks intent on just grass but then they must feed it nitrogen.

I have a yard of grass and clover mix. healthy and green.

[REACTIVATED IN CT]

59. Me, too ! I buy a pound of it and

add it to the grass seed I'm using to fill in the bare spots.

[theHandpuppet]

61. My lawn is about 1/3 clover now

I carefully mowed around one small patch of clover that appeared in my yard a couple of years ago. Now I have several large islands of clover and just love it. Keeps the bees happy all summer long.

If I MUST pull a weed (some of them have nasty, prickly stems that harm my dogs' paws) I pull them out by hand. I have raised garden beds and several, semi-dwarf fruit trees. No pesticides or artifical fertilizers. And they're all doing just fine.

It has taken me a few years to get the bees back -- our previous next-door neighbors had their entire lawn chemically treated every couple of weeks or so, and the excess chemicals carried by the wind literally made me sick. I had to keep the windows shut every time that ChemLawn truck drove up to their door. Even the wooded fence between our property and theirs couldn't keep out all that poison.

I can't believe folks who spray their lawns with poison then let their kids and pets romp in that chemical sewer.

[arikara]

62. We let our lawn grow higher in the summer

so it doesn't die off so fast in the summer drought. Its full of little flowers, moss and yes... dandelions. Lots of bugs, birds and bees. Healthy and full of life. .

[tabasco]

72. That's a great idea.

I'm doing the same thing.

I just mow a path to get to the house.

[Thickasabrick]

4. Me too! I figure I make up for my poisonous neighbor. Thank you

for your rant. Couldn't have said it better or agreed with you more!

[pipoman]

6. Along with chemicals, the worst thing for wild birds,

herbivores, insects, etc. is fescue grass. It is all for show with horrible effects on the environment. When we moved to our little farm it was fescue haven, we have planted it back to native grasses. We now have birds, snakes, rodents, wild critters of all sizes.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

10. Well then by all means...

don't purchase their quality products.

[BeFree]

49. We will outlaw those products

They will be banished from use and anyone attempting to buy or sell such products will be put in jail and fined.

[G_j]

12. Bravo!

****


:yourock:

[rosesaylavee]

13. Wow... Hi Twin!

I keep bees, have a natural yard with dandelions, bugs, etc. And I too have a border collie! I get flyers and advertising tucked in my door all the time. Silly lawncare companies. I feel bad for their employees who are exposed to all that poison on a regular basis.

[Celebration]

14. I think we are triplets

No bees or border collies, but the same peer pressure and happily introducing my grandson to CLOVER!!

[KittyWampus]

16. You really think Lawn Doctor is going to treat your lawn without your paying them first?

Why the heck are you telling them to keep their product off your lawn when there's no way on earth it'll get there unless you pay them.

Now if you said something like "keep your pesticides and fungicides and sewage-based fertilizer out of my drinking water and wetlands", you'd have a point.

[Captain Hilts]

19. Agreed. Chemlawn is creepy. nt

[Bigmack]

20. Weed and Feed...

is one cause of the decline of salmon in the Northwest. Apparently, it screws up their sense of smell and causes them to get lost.

I cringe when I see the pallet-loads of Weed and Feed and Roundup at Costco. The only thing worse than those companies blasting yards with chemicals is the untrained homeowner blasting his yard with megadoses of those same chemicals.

I hope the downturn in the economy will bring back the natural lawn.... or better yet, gardens.

[NNN0LHI]

33. The downturn in the economy will bring back the natural lawn no doubt

When someone gets in financial straights around here the lawn service is the first thing to go. Usually isn't too long after the dandelions start taking over someones yard the for sale sign goes up.

Don

[depakid]

21. While you're at it- knock it off with the fucking leaf blowers

They're loud, filthy and just blow dirt and dust from yard to yard.

[arikara]

64. Agreed... and basically useless too for all the annoyance

they ran a funny piece on the local news once where they compared how long it took for a man with a noisy leaf blower to do a yard versus an old woman raking a comparable sized yard. The old gal with the rake was way faster than the guy with the leaf blower.

[The Backlash Cometh]

23. I liked the last part best.

End of rant

Fuck you.

[Obamanaut]

24. Don't hire them, and they won't come. nt

[HopeHoops]

27. But the fuckers keep CALLING!

And sending shit in the mail!

[AwakeAtLast]

32. Opt out for junk mail and call your state about a do-not-call list

Opting out of junk mail will help our landfills, too!

:hi:

[Triana]

46. If your state AG's office has a Consumer Protection division (and even if it doesn't)

report them for harassing you. AFTER you ask (by voice and in writing) to be removed from their lists. Give it two weeks max and if they're still harassing you REPORT them to your AG.

I did that and the AG sent a VERY NASTY letter to "TruGreen" for continuing to call me. They threatened them with fines if they didn't stop.

They stopped.

[InvisibleTouch]

25. Agree 100%!

I just threw away another solicitation by one of those purveyors of poison. I love my dandelions - and my clover!

[Earth_First]

28. As a professional landscaper,, I agree with you...

I refused a much better paying position where I am employed by refusing to get my 1A license.

Instead I stack stones for a living...

[Synicus Maximus]

29. If you don't want chemicals on your lawn don't hire a company that

uses chemicals. My service cuts and edges my yard but does not apply any chems. If the grass is green, cool. If it is brown also cool.

[HopeHoops]

30. That would be called a "lawn care service"

and that is cool.

[baldguy]

35. Bullshit.

I don't use any chemicals - but both of my neighbors do. I'm exposed - and so is my family, my pets & my plants - whether I want to be or not.

[Muttocracy]

36. and that is a big concern - water, air, animals move across property lines. nt

[HopeHoops]

48. An excellent point! I'm surrounded on three sides by poisoned lawns.

I put in a brick walkway along one of the borders around a perennial bed that I use as a buffer between that yard and my vegetables - sort of a runoff filter.

[kaygore]

34. Like you, our yard was always a natural meadow when I was growing up

Now that we know all the horrors of pesticides, I am so glad that my dad kept things natural and that he used organic gardening methods on our summer gardens!One of the things that I appreciated about Portland, OR, when I lived there one summer house sitting for a friend was that most people simply let their lawns die in the summer when the area has little rain and most just keep natural yards.

People need all that watering and lawn care when they disrupt nature and nature can be a bitch in return!

[conscious evolution]

37. Fantastic Rant

Poisons don't know when to stop killing.

[Creena]

39. Poisons. Ew.

As the proud parent of a 40 lb goof who adores flopping around the grass, especially in a nice warm sunbeam, I loathe living in a planned condo complex. I have no say about the chemicals used and must always tell my girl she can't shake her booty in the grass because it might harm her. She is also an avid dandelion connoisseur, but strictly forbidden from snorfing them at home. She must wait until we visit our friend's pesticide-free yard to get her dandelion fix. She is also a first class bug hunter, but again, I fear her rooting around in the community green belt because of all the poisons. Poor pup, all she wants is a safe yard to rub her butt all over with plenty of dandelions to snorf and bugs to pounce.

[bvar22]

40. Righteous Rant.

K&R

We moved to the Woods (Rural South) in 2006 to get away from all the poisons.

Lots of HoneyBees, Hummingbirds, Butterflies, and Frogs (The Coal Mine Canaries).
Lots of weeds/wild flowers too.

All non natural pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers permanently BANNED.

[upi402]

41. I'm with ya. We pull weeds and our lawn sucks. Never fertilized

just compost, especially lately. We're growing food now in the yard now and glad I don't use the weed and feed.

[knitter4democracy]

44. I refuse to use anything on my lawn.

Heck, most of the time, I don't even water it and let it die down when we don't get any rain. What a waste of my electricity for my well pump.

I was mowing yesterday, and I hated to mow the violets that have taken over major sections of my yard, though I didn't mind mowing over the mint that escaped from my son's garden planter. My lawn's about half "weeds" but it's soft and pretty. My neighbors don't like all of my dandelions, but my kids love the darn things, so I just keep pulling them out of the gardens and plantings and mowing the rest.

[underseasurveyor]

45. OH MY THAT IS ONE OF THE GREATEST RANTS>>>EVER!!

And so important.
I love that:-)
I love the bees and all those little creepy crawly creatures that make up LIFE:-)

[blueworld]

50. Amen, amen, amen! They're also destroying our water!

I'm a Master Gardener & had an organic landscaping company for years. It isn't even necessary to pour, spray, inject all the poisons & chemicals everywhere to have a lawn, as you point out!

They can put in astro-freakin-turf if they can't tolerate an imperfect blade of grass & need swaths of green instead of a natural yard!

Scott's Miracle-Gro Hyponex is one of the worst since they're EVERYWHERE. Big Chemical feeds Big Pharma and Big Ag. And we all die.

I boycott every single garden product tied back to any of these companies ever, I don't care if it's a peat pot. Rant some more - we need it!

[Duncan]

52. Agree. This is a great vid:

Dennis vanEngelsdorp: Where have the bees gone?

Grow a meadow, not a lawn.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dennis_vanengelsdorp_a_plea_for_bees.html

[XemaSab]

53. Amen

We're 99% organic here, and we've got lots of critters. Bugs, worms, bees, snakes, butterflies, lizards, and birds. And a big rat that lives in the neighbor's tree.

We're helping the earth one plot at a time.

[dugaresa]

55. i had so many bees in my yard due to the plantings

that the mail man was afraid to come down my path.

i had to coax him along by saying "they want the pollen, not you"

it was quite funny.

i recently moved and plan to recreate the same kind of effect in my new location

[4_TN_TITANS]

56. Kick for the bees....

I have the same experience with my garden. Whatever we might lose to the bugs by not putting out Seven dust, is more than made up by the extra pollenation by the bees. Our garden hums with activity when plants are flowering, and the bees are so caught up in collecting food that they have no desire to sting anyone.

[undeterred]

58. My brother worked for one of those companies for a while

and he had to get his blood tested for exposure to their chemicals every so often. I wouldn't want a job that involved spraying that stuff around.

[Trailrider1951]

60. Lawn grass is the only crop we grow...

where we throw away the harvest. Think about it.

[Capt. America]

65. I totally agree. I can't believe my pregnant neighbor uses a lawn spray service!

I only use oraganic lawn feed and I don't care if I have dandilions. In fact, I probably have at least five different type of grasses/weeds/flowers growing in my lawn and I don't care. It is normal in nature to have multiple species of grasses/plants growing in the same field; only man wants uniformity.

I too, like you, have worms, bugs, robins, rabbits, and bees in my yard. My cats and child also use my yard. I wouldn't dream of spraying or laying any sort of chemical pesticide/herbacide on my lawn, unfortunately, both my neighbors do.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

66. Oh. My. God.

:crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy:

[Hissyspit]

69. I've heard you can kill weeds by pouring boiling water on them.

Never tried it myself.

[cpompilo]

70. Pesticides and herbicides are made from petroleum -

what part of toxic is not understood? Geez - lawn "care" is killing us.

[pleah]

71. K&R Awesome rant!

:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:


:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:


:toast:

[snooper2]

73. I seriously doubt any "lawn care" companies

are going to get your "open letter" :)

[windoe]

74. Many pesticides cause low sperm count and interfere with estrogen metabolism

-baffling that people allow themselves, young developing children, babies to be exposed to it. There is a boom in allergies and asthma, and who knows what else--but hey it keeps the pharmaceuticals rolling!!
There are so many alternative pest controls, nematodes, predatory insects (like ladybugs, ect), and planting rows of resinous plants that the bugs don't like (lavender, marigolds, mint, basil, sage, ect. )
some links:
http://www.alternative-lawncare.com/pesticides.html
http://www.marchbiological.com/

Great rant, environmental poisons only benefit the big chemical companies, while they poison our water and food supplies, and make us sick. There is something insane about that.