Organic lawns: it's easy being green

The Safrans could be on to the next big thing. About 4 out of 5 US households have private lawns, according to a 1998 academic study. They are typically about a third of an acre, and in 2003, Americans spent $38.4 billion tending those yards and gardens, about $457 per household, says the National Gardening Association. A growing portion of that money appears to be going organic, observers say.

"Hybrid mowers, water conserving sprinklers, and organic fertilizers are all potential gold mines for industry players," wrote Don Montuori, acquisitions editor for Packaged Facts, in a market-research report last spring. "Consumers who want to tend their yard in an ecologically sound manner will pay big money for the right tools, and as the industry stands right now, the big players are missing out on all of that revenue."

That may be changing. Scotts, the big fertilizer and yard-care products manufacturer, is developing a new line of organic lawn-care products.

But whether lawns really represent an environmental threat remains hotly debated. Environmentalists point out that all those lush, weed-free acres sop up gargantuan quantities of water and chemicals. In a typical year, the average lawn consumes about 10,000 gallons of water over and above rainfall, the Environmental Protection Agency reports. Nearly a third of urban water use in the Eastern US goes to watering lawns, it adds.

In addition, millions of pounds of chemicals get dumped on lawns. In 1999, the last year such figures were available, 78 million pounds of yard insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides were sold to US households - not including professional applications, the EPA said. If they're overused (and some would argue even when they're not), pesticide and fertilizer runoff can pollute rivers and groundwater.

Then there are the millions of gallons of gasoline used in lawn equipment, whose engines are generally not as efficient as cars and can cause significant air pollution, California Air Resources Board says.

"The consumer, science, and the private sector have interacted in a way to come up with the 'industrial lawn,' something that's always green and always watered and fertilized," says Gordon Geballe, coauthor of "Redesigning the American Lawn: A Search for Environmental Harmony."

He argues that a new set of ethics and expectations is needed to put lawn care more in sync with nature. "Why put out a bird feeder to feed birds, but put pesticides on the lawn and kill worms so they have no food?" Dr. Geballe asks.

Each year, the US adds about 2 million acres of residential property, a 2001 US Department of Agriculture study reports. The result is a loss of habitat for birds and other animals, says Tess Present of the National Audubon Society. "We recognize that lawns are near and dear to everybody. But we'd like people to start thinking about whether they need as much area in lawn."

Even industry officials agree that more needs to be done to educate consumers.

"We're making sure we're communicating with consumers that applying the right amount of fertilizer is important," says Jim King, spokesman for Scotts, the Marysville, Ohio, company that is the largest US yard and garden products manufacturer - and part of the new Lawn and Environment Coalition. "Applying twice as much fertilizer or insecticide is not going to get them results that are twice as good."

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