Earth Day SHOUT OUT for Go Green Park Ridge

Another Earth Day, and many communities are having events this weekend. At Sage Advice we SHOUT OUT to Go Green Park Ridge, a community group in our own municipality that has worked tirelessly to teach and model sustainability throughout our city. When the group started a couple years ago, we already had natural lawn care in our parks, thanks to enlightened staff an the leadership of Park Board Commissioner Cindy Grau. Recently, with the support of Go Green Park Ridge, the city council voted in favor of natural maintenance practices on parkways and all city properties. Most recently, Go Green Park Ridge and other local groups are working with and supporting the school district, where staff are testing natural lawn care at one school.

To keep up the effort and do more in the future, Go Green Park Ridge also helped elect two sustainably-minded members to the local school board and two to the city’s park board.is

Natural lawn care eliminates the use of herbicides to keep lawns healthy and replaces these with several techniques to care for lawns: enriching the soil with compost and organic fertilizers that are not harmful, cutting grass no shorter than 4 inches, mulching grass clippings back into the lawn, using natural weed control applications when necessary, core aerating the lawn once or twice each season to help create space for oxygen around the roots, and overseeing each spring to keep the lawn thick and healthy.

Why is this so important? Because herbicides are harmful to anyone who spends time on the lawn, especially children and pets.

If you wish to read more on this topic, Paul Tukey is an expert on the reasons WHY to do this.

We’ve followed this approach for 10 years in the Sage Advice test garden (pictured below), and we have a lawn that stays green, seldom if ever needs watering even in midsummer, and is always healthy for those who work and play on it. We save water. We save our health. We help save the planet, even by the little bit that we are doing to make our lawn safe. We do have some dandelions to pull in May when they first bloom, but for the rest of the summer — no problem!

Why not make the change in your own lawn and in your own community? At Sage Advice, we know providers who can help! And you can do so much beyond your own yard if you work together.