Bees aren`t making the only buzz around suburban lawns and gardens this year. Concerns raised by environmentalists and consumers wary of chemical treatments are influencing growing numbers of Du Page homeowners to look for gardening alternatives, experts say.
”There really is an increased interest throughout the whole area in how to reduce the use of pesticides on lawns. It`s not limited to lawn care. It`s gardens, too,” said Susan Grupp, a horticulturist with the University of Illinois Cooperative Extension Service of Du Page County.
”Proper lawn maintenance, if you`re doing proper cultural controls, can go a long way to preventing disease,” said Grupp. ”We`re seeing a lot of comments from homeowners with regards to not using pesticides in controlling pests.”
William Borden, executive director of the Du Page Environmental Awareness Center and staff member at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, agreed. ”More and more people are recognizing the benefits of a diverse landscape,” he said.
”I think we`re changing. We are recycling more. We`re aware of the benefits of composting, we`re aware that leaving grass clippings on the lawn is beneficial to the lawn.”
While the debate rages over the relative risks to health and environment posed by herbicides, insecticides and pesticides, local experts say there are alternative ways to nurture healthy, attractive suburban flora.
”Assuming you want a carpet-like lawn, that is going to require healthy grass. Healthy grass can be organically grown,” Borden said.
”To have a chemical-free healthy lawn, you have to pull the weeds and make sure the grass is cut properly. The blade must be sharp. That means sharpening the blade perhaps every time you mow the lawn. If you don`t sharpen the blade, you`re liable to tear the grass instead of cut the grass,” Borden said.
Also, he said, grass should not be closely cropped.
”Never mow more than one-third of the grass stalk off,” he said, to prevent injury to the root system.
A not-for-profit organization that focuses on public education, the Du Page Environmental Awareness Center ”disdains the misuse of pesticides,”
Borden said.
”All pesticides are designed to kill. Most of the commercially available pesticides are called broad-spectrum pesticides,” Borden said, meaning their target is not specific. Along with the weeds and bugs they are intended to eliminate, they often kill desirable plant life and microbes necessary to maintain ecological balance.
Though a smooth, unblemished carpet of green has long been regarded as an ideal, usually achieved with a strain of grass known as Kentucky bluegrass, people are beginning to consider alternative approaches to a beautiful lawn, Borden said.
”Is a monocultural lawn in harmony with the natural processes of northeastern Illinois?” he said. ”Ever since the glaciers retreated from the area, we`ve been blessed with, or cursed with, clay soil, flat terrain, swampy conditions.
”In many people`s minds, a lush, green carpet (is the goal). That`s okay. We`re not condemning that. (But it) goes against the grain of nature. Nature is very diverse, which is why we have weeds in the yard. This is how nature works. Nature finds ways of adapting.
”We just don`t see enough diversity. All of these things can be done in a very attractive manner, but it takes some work and a commitment on the part of the homeowners.”
George Joch, a 30-year resident of Westmont, has maintained an organic flower and vegetable garden for 10 years. He grows begonias, petunias, marigolds and impatien, and vegetables including broccoli, cabbage, kohlrabi, green beans and parsnips.
”I figure they grow better that way,” he said. ”As far as chemicals, I`m afraid of those. I just don`t believe in them.”
He said he has purchased pesticides, only to leave them on the shelf, unopened.
”I read the labels and I get afraid to use it,” he said. Besides, he said, they`ve never been necessary to keep his garden in good shape.
”I have quite a garden,” he said.
”Generally, if you`re making the decision not to use pesticides, what you want to do is have plants that are well adapted to the site,” said Kris Bachtell, a horticulturist on staff at the Morton Arboretum.
Plants that can tolerate the site`s conditions, such as level of precipitation, wind and temperature, undergo less stress and are therefore better able to stand up to threats from garden pests or weeds, Bachtell said. ”The key is to use plants adaptable to the locality that you`ve got,”
Bachtell said.
Among some of the toughest trees that do well in Du Page suburbs are most ashes, catalpas, Kentucky coffee trees, disease-resistant crabapples and elms, hackberrys, hawthorns, and some maples, oaks and willows, he said.
Homeowners probably shouldn`t plant non-bore-resistant birches and expect them to thrive in this area, he said. In the suburbs, new homes are frequently built on recently cleared lots. Often, Bachtell said, the soil is scraped off, then put back down over clay compacted by heavy construction equipment such as bulldozers. The top soil isn`t always layered thickly enough to promote the growth of healthy root systems, he said.
To combat this problem, he suggests homeowners add berms, or gently curving hills, and topsoil and keep the soil well mulched. The idea, he said, is to alleviate the stress to plants, bushes and trees so they can more effectively defend themselves against pests.
Frederic Miller, an entymologist with the University of Illinois Cooperative Extension Service in Oak Brook, agrees that good plant health protects them from being attacked by weeds or insects.
”You need to put the plant in your yard properly, mulch it, fertilize it, just take good care of it. They have stresses just like we do,” Miller said.
A common threat to yard trees and plants is one that can be easily eliminated, what Miller refers to as lawn mower blight.
When a shrub or tree is hit with the lawn mower, he said, ”it causes wounds and allows insects to enter the wounds.”
Suburban homeowners should also be on guard for tent caterpillars. This prevalent insect, Miller said, spins tents or webs in tree branches and its larvae feed on the foliage.
Damage can be prevented, he said, by tearing the tents with gloved hands. A way to get around using chemical insecticides, Miller said, is the application of insecticide soaps. Made from fatty acids found in plants,
”it`s considered an insecticide but it`s not the same,” Miller said, because they don`t kill a broad spectrum of pests and desirable plant and animal life.
The soaps, he said, are generally available at garden centers and should not be substituted for soaps that contain both animal and plant fatty acids.
And homeowners should apply any insecticide conservatively, he said.
”When we run into problems is when people see aphids on a plant and run out and get insecticides. Many times they wipe out what we call the beneficial plants. It`s realizing you just don`t spray for the sake of spraying. A lot of it`s a judgment call.”
