Straddling the synthetic-chemical and organic worlds puts Patterson among the 35 percent of homeowners dubbed "hybrids" by the National Gardening Association.
It also puts him directly in the sights of Paul Tukey, a fellow obsessive who has embarked on a national crusade to change American lawn habits. So far, Tukey has taken his "all organic" lawn message to 32 of 50 states, including an appearance at the Philadelphia Flower Show this year.
"You just don't need the chemicals and risks associated with them," says Tukey, author of The Organic Lawn Care Manual.
Tukey has loved lawns, and mowing, since he was a kid. He even owned a successful lawn-care company in his home state of Maine, a venture that veered dramatically from conventional (chemical) to organic after he was diagnosed with acute pesticide poisoning in 1993.
Last year, Tukey cofounded the nonprofit SafeLawns.org and reinvented himself as the Al Gore of lawn care - not such a purist he can't appreciate an expanse of thick green grass, but determined to maintain it in a more environmentally thoughtful way.
Determined, too, to reach traditional lawn guys like Patterson - yes, lawns are still a guy thing - who believe an organic lawn might take more money and work and still end up full of weeds.
Organic advocates insist those things are not true. But some explanation - and attitude adjustment - definitely is in order.
Nancy Bosold, turf-grass educator with the Penn State Cooperative Extension, agrees that if you're converting your entire lawn to organic all at once, it might be more expensive and more work at first because there's so much to do.
But once you're over the initial hump, she says, the expenses go down and the workload lightens. You'll still need to add compost every spring and fall and adopt new habits: Mow high, leave clippings behind, and water judiciously.
