Trends of gardening are looking greener

By JOE LAMP'L
Monday, March 05, 2007

Am I the only one that finds it odd that every time the lawn fertilizer / chemical company treats your yard, they stick a sign warning you and your pets to stay off of it for 24 hours or so?

Thankfully, more and more products, organizations and Web sites are cropping up, devoted to providing additional eco-friendly education and solutions to our chemically dependent lawns and gardens (and weekend warriors).

Even Scotts Miracle-Gro Company, an industry giant, is making changes in how they convey their message and products to consumers worldwide. In a recent conversation with Rich Martinez, their chief environmental officer, Martinez shared with me the strengthened focus the company is placing on environmental stewardship. For example, Miracle-Gro recently hosted a teleconference with garden writers on an unexpected but encouraging topic: Consumer Trends in Organics & Naturals Gardening.

The company also is introducing more environmentally responsible products, including a lawn spreader that combines the efficiency of a broadcast spreader but with the protection of a side deflector to reduce the chance of chemical distribution onto impervious surfaces and into waterways.

Although not a complete transition to a chemical free lawn and garden, this is a commendable approach and a step in the right direction. Especially when you consider there always will be those who choose to utilize traditional chemicals when it comes to their personal outdoor domain.

As Martinez correctly pointed out, how the consumer uses and applies a product has a lot to do with environmental stewardship. For those die-hard chemical users, providing tools to facilitate more eco-friendly applications are a welcome compromise.

But for those who are looking to ditch the chemicals altogether, especially when it comes to their lawns, organizations like safelawns.org are dedicated to spreading the gospel of organic alternatives when it comes to lawn and garden care.

Safelawn's mission is "to create a broad-based coalition of non- and for-profit organizations committed to educating society about the benefits of organic lawn care and gardening, and affecting a quantum change in consumer and industry behavior."

And the time seems right for the opportunity. Retail giants like Home Depot and Wal-Mart are finally devoting at least a small amount of shelf space to organic lawn and garden alternatives.

But it's not enough to simply provide the retail presence. Tom Szaky, CEO of TerraCycle, whose all-natural fertilizer-based products are enjoying tremendous popularity from large retail buyers, sums it up this way: "It's one thing to get the products on the shelf. More importantly, they have to move off the shelf."

It is believed that the biggest driver behind this surge in interest by consumers and retailers for 'green products' is demographic in nature. Baby boomers are, in many differing ways, consumed with living a healthy lifestyle.

And now that they are spending more of their free time outdoors at home with family, it is essential to them that their backyard environments are healthy, too. That includes herbicide and pesticide-free alternatives to lawn and garden care.

The result is a lawn and garden industry offering hundreds of eco-friendly products to more eco-educated, environmentally responsible and health conscience consumers. If this trend continues, and it should, then the winners in all of this is all of us ... and generations yet to come.

(Joe Lamp'l, host of Fresh from the Garden on the DIY Network and GardenSMART on PBS, is a Master Gardener and author. For more information visit www.joegardener.com and www.DIYnetwork.com.)