Lawn Care

Spring is here, and an American ritual is beginning: lawn care. Millions of homeowners are hauling out sprinklers and mowers, swarming into garden centers to pick up grass seed and fertilizer, and carrying home enough pesticides and weed killer to start their own toxic-waste dumps. There's something primal about our obsession with personal plots of grass. One expert, Warren Schultz, speculates that lawns "symbolize safety, comfort and well-being. " As our lawns spread out, their environmental effects are becoming more significant.

Lawn-care companies are jumping on the environmental bandwagon these days by offering natural and organic fertilizers. New companies such as Nature's Way and NaturaLawn are hoping to take away business from traditional lawn-care companies such as ChemLawn and the Lawn Doctor. But even the traditional companies are offering natural lawn services as an option. While the competitors trade barbs about what's really natural and good for the environment, horticulturalists and farm agents have the usual advice for the consumer: buyer beware.

ILIVE ON a block with 15 rowhomes near the Oxford Circle neighborhood that was recently hit with citations for high grass. I'd welcome the Streets Department to the 1500 block of Dyre Street. We have several houses with grass and weeds high enough for a small child to get lost in. The fact that our lawns are only 40 square feet makes it even more ridiculous that the homeowners can't cut their grass every week or so. Heck, I cut mine with a weed whacker in about 10 minutes.

For Gerardo Pantoja, 27, pruning bushes, weeding gardens and mowing lawns are more than just weekend afternoon drudgery. What others disdain, he gladly undertakes. It is his livelihood and his career. "I think in this business what matters is that people recognize you as a good worker and see that you care for your work," he said, while putting the finishing touches on a lawn in the 300 block of Bryn Mawr Avenue. During the March-to-December lawn maintenance season, Pantoja can average eight to 10 hours a day. But area lawn maintenance firms see the market becoming saturated, with new players joining the game daily.

Already snake-bitten by contaminated soil in its former orchards, Mount Laurel Township has embraced a policy to promote a reduction in the use of pesticides on lawns. The Township Council last night adopted an "integrated pest management" (IPM) program that will educate the public on alternative ways to care for their lawns and manage pests without traditional, chemical-based treatment. Participation is voluntary. "IPM techniques can deliver effective pest control without lacing our environment with toxic pesticides," said Jane Nogaki of the New Jersey Environmental Federation, which has sponsored the policy in several municipalities.

Visitors to the historic St. Martin's Church and cemetery in Marcus Hook will soon find themselves in far more pleasant surroundings, thanks to help from the site's giant neighbor, the British Petroleum oil refinery. Three sides of the churchyard abut BP property and two of the refinery's huge oil tanks form the backdrop for the cemetery. In recent years, the tanks had begun to rust, and their pale turquoise paint was peeling. No more. BP has repainted one tank and is in the process of painting the second, according to Patrick Prosser, BP's community relations coordinator.

For information about biodynamics or a catalogue of related reading material, contact the Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association, Rod Shouldice, administrative director, P.O. Box 550, Kimberton, Pa. 19442. The telephone number is 935-7797. Membership in the association is $15 a year and includes several publications, and discounts on products and literature. For organic lawn care, farming and gardening supplies, and non-toxic pet products, contact the following: Natural Gardening Research Center, P.O. Box 149, Sunman, Ind. 47041.

A truck backs up to the bare soil surrounding a new home. Workers lay sod and almost instantly transform the brown patch of earth into a lush, green cushion of lawn. Are these workers engaging in lawn care? That was no small question this week in the offices of the state Revenue Department in Harrisburg where tax specialists are trying to make sense of the legalese of the state's new tax package. New sales taxes on many services go into effect on Oct. 1, and thousands of businesses and their accountants across the state are looking to the regulation writers to interpret the tax package enacted by the legislature on Aug. 4. For the first time, the state sales tax of 6 percent - 7 percent in the City of Philadelphia on Oct. 1 - will apply to a variety of products and services that never before had to tack on the state's cut. New targets of the sales tax include a broad range of computer services, storage for businesses and individuals, employment agencies, temporary-help supply firms, exterminators, janitorial and housekeeping services and household paper products (no, toilet paper got exempted)

Each year, we suburbanites welcome spring with open windows that sweep out stale air and draw in balmy breezes, scenting our homes with nature's potpourri: freshly tilled soil, newly mown grass, and blossoming flowers. And the birdsong floats in like an impatient symphony whose musicians can't wait to strike up their instruments. But springtime's soothing music and gentle, warming winds are quickly disrupted by the daily cacophony of lawn mowers, leaf blowers and weed whackers that disturb the peace, sending us running to the windows to slam them shut.

Plenty of adults can spin endless tales of enthusiastic youthful rebellion involving blatant forms of adolescent acting out. By comparison to my contemporaries, I was a bit of a straight arrow when it came to rebellion. I just never felt the need to scream "You're not the boss of me!" to my parents in any of the traditional ways. Instead, in fomenting my own little revolution and fighting the powers that loomed over me, I took a firm stand against - mowing the lawn. OK, so it wasn't as much of a refusal as it was consistently begrudging acquiescence.

You don't have to be a student of military conflict to know that America's high opinion of our troops, which soared during the World Wars and the Korean conflict, plunged during the Vietnam era. Returning soldiers were held accountable for the president's decisions. Some have never recovered from feeling the contempt of their countrymen for being in the wrong war, under the wrong leader. Things couldn't be more different today. Regardless of where individuals stand in their opinion of the conflicts in the Middle East, there's a national sense that the men and women fighting there are not to be blamed for it, but honored for having signed up. To get a sense of how everyday Americans stand behind our men and women in uniform, scroll through a website like troopssupport.com . It's a directory of organizations that provide everything from free lawn care and baby showers for veterans and their families to job training and new homes for soldiers wounded in action.

Begin pruning rosebushes. Start by removing dead, damaged, or diseased branches, then look for crisscrossing branches that can rub together and cause long-term damage. If your roses tend to get too big each year, trim them down to 18 to 24 inches, removing the oldest canes and leaving newer ones. If you're a passionate rose grower, think about joining the American Rose Society, which will keep you up to date on rose introductions and care tips. Information at www.ars.org/ Continue pulling invasive plants.

Question: I've put my foot down and told my husband our discussion about housework is over and he needs to increase his share of the work, or else. We each estimated the number of hours we put toward housework and kids. I do almost 60 percent of the work. I excluded things on his side that I don't really call work, because I know he enjoys the solitude (lawn care, weeding, finances, cooking, etc.). He doesn't think that's right, but I don't think these tasks compare to vacuuming, doing dishes every night, and cleaning bathrooms.

The buzz might never rival a gasoline-powered mower, but there's growing noise out there about reenvisioning a cherished American tradition: the turfgrass lawn. For years, environmentalists have bad-mouthed the water-hogging, wildlife-repelling, gas-guzzling and polluting features of what the Lawn Institute, an industry group, calls "the earth's living skin. " Now, as lawn lovers prepare for spring planting, alternative ideas are gaining traction. One would replace that "living skin" with "freedom lawn," a wild quilt of grass and whatever else grows in. Others suggest having less lawn, or a different kind.

I THOUGHT I WAS over my grass addiction. But this week, I learned that what they say is true. Each time you relapse, the habit gets worse. On Wednesday night at 9 o'clock, I found myself watering my grass by moonlight. Being a grass fiend, I didn't want to stop at watering. I wanted more. The thing is, there wasn't much more to do. My grass already looks great. And even if it didn't, I couldn't see well enough to do anything about it, because it was dark out. So why would a man whose lawn is perfect return to a destructive grass addiction?

At least four times a year, September and October being the very best time of all, Mike Patterson puts a popular chemical fertilizer on his front lawn in North Wales. But the backyard is strictly au naturel - "I have a dog," he explains - and his flowers get organic compost and mulch. What gives? "I'll be honest with you," says Patterson, principal of Queen of Peace school in Ardsley, who describes himself as "obsessive" about his lawn. "I've read all about organic stuff, but I don't know . . . I'm not sure it works as good as the chemicals.

At least four times a year, September and October being the very best time of all, Mike Patterson puts a popular chemical fertilizer on his front lawn in North Wales. But the backyard is strictlyau naturel - "I have a dog," he explains - and his flowers get organic compost and mulch. What gives? "I'll be honest with you," says Patterson, principal of Queen of Peace school in Ardsley, who describes himself as "obsessive" about his lawn. "I've read all about organic stuff, but I don't know . . . I'm not sure it works as good as the chemicals.

As a child, I watched with awe as my father toiled over our lawn, only to have it turn to straw overnight while a crop of healthy Kentucky bluegrass grew through the asphalt in our street. To avoid my father's annual, late-August depression, I follow this Lazy Man's Guide to Lawn Care: The Lawn: A good lawn can make you the envy of the neighborhood. In my experience, the best way to handle your lawn care is to pay a professional service to come by three or four times a year and treat the grass with a variety of scientifically balanced chemicals.

Mowing a steep, weedy slope isn't easy. Unless, that is, you have four legs, a knack for climbing, and a voracious - and indiscriminate - appetite. The 16 goats that have been keeping the hilly grounds neatly trimmed at a 21-acre Burlington County wastewater treatment plant are saving the company more than $3,000 a month and showing up the two-legged workers who used to have the chore. "They do a better job than a mower would ever do," said Jim Huntington, chief inspector for Applied Water Management Inc., which runs the plant in growing Mansfield Township.

Plenty of adults can spin endless tales of enthusiastic youthful rebellion involving blatant forms of adolescent acting out. By comparison to my contemporaries, I was a bit of a straight arrow when it came to rebellion. I just never felt the need to scream "You're not the boss of me!" to my parents in any of the traditional ways. Instead, in fomenting my own little revolution and fighting the powers that loomed over me, I took a firm stand against - mowing the lawn. OK, so it wasn't as much of a refusal as it was consistently begrudging acquiescence.