That was basically the jist of a lecture I attended Wednesday night.
King County, the Woodland Park Zoo and the City of Kent was meeting up with about 100 of us from the Scenic Hill neighborhood, or basically anyone within spitting distance of Mill Creek, an alleged salmon stream. I have posted earlier about what Auburn was doing with the plantings down near Peasley Canyon.
This is apparently Kent's attack on the pesticides and pollutants that filter into the stream each year. Samples recently showed 23 pesticides, and urine samples (that theme keeps popping during the lecture, doesn't it) from kids, are showing the same pesticides, from the grass they play on.
So the advice was to NOT buy Weed and Feed. It's useless and mainly washes down the drain. Use organic fertilizer in August. (Walt's Organic Fertilizer or Corn Gluten were mentioned.)If you need to get the dandilions out, then pull them and reseed with grass in the hole. If moss is bedeviling you, then a. rake it out and b. reseed, or maybe just let the moss win in shady or steep areas.
This is an interesting
NYT article on the topic.
Don't overwater the lawn and airate each year. Use ladybugs or praying mantises to take care of other bugs. Most bugs in your yard are beneficial, so don't try to nuke them.
Oh, and back to pee, if you want to keep gophers out of your yard, either put hair clippings down the hole or the urine of any male predator. Even if they walk on 2 legs and haven't had to kill their food since they accidently bit into a wormy apple. It apparently works.
I suggested my husband do this on the critter that keeps digging a hole into his green house and eating the orchids. I offered to be a lookout. All of course in the name of saving Mill Creek.
Moss on tennis shoes provided by the NYT.
