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'Green' Lawns Spur Neighborhood Wars
Wall Street Journal ^ | secret apparently | Gwendolyn Bounds

Posted on 07/13/2007 8:48:32 PM PDT by Lorianne

Finally the grass is greener on my side of the fence.

I've spent the past year converting my lawn to organic care. After some early setbacks, my lawn looks pretty great, and the only herbicide I've used is an all-natural corn substance that's safe enough for my dog to eat.

The same scene is playing out in yards around the country -- but it's not a peaceful transition. As the organic lawn movement grows, so are tensions in some communities. The latest front is over whether lawn-care methods are the horticultural equivalent of secondhand smoke: a choice that affects the whole community. Neighborhood activists argue that using pesticides on one lawn exposes everyone nearby to the chemicals, including kids and pets.

Enthusiasts are trying to shame their neighbors into joining them with pro-organic lawn signs, prompting some residents to apply their chemicals covertly. Homeowners who want to stick with pesticides say how they groom their lawns is their own business. Even spouses are facing off over which comes first -- eliminating chemicals or creating a dazzling no-fuss lawn. The lawn-care industry, meanwhile, is walking a tightrope, hoping to profit from organics without turning against their traditional products.

In Wisconsin, the village of Whitefish Bay has become a microcosm of the new turf wars. Intent on switching the community over to an organic approach, a citizens' group is hanging tags on residents' doors urging them to lay off pesticides and posting "All Living Creatures Welcome" signs in their own yards.

"It's really dicey, and some people are receptive and some are hostile," says Sandy Hellman, age 37, a member of the Healthy Communities Project. "I look at it as the secondhand-smoke issue. Kids run back and forth between the yards and windows are open all the time."

(Excerpt) Read more at realestatejournal.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS: grasses; lawncare; lawns; plantgrowth; suburbs
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1 posted on 07/13/2007 8:48:33 PM PDT by Lorianne
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To: Lorianne
"All Living Creatures Welcome"

Until they get fleas or lice.

2 posted on 07/13/2007 8:50:47 PM PDT by glorgau
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To: Lorianne

The day someone tries to tell me what to do with my own property is the day that someone gets a fat lip.


3 posted on 07/13/2007 8:51:44 PM PDT by TheZMan (Texas is no place for pansy-ass liberals. Ya'll move back to California er Mexico er somethin')
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To: Lorianne
Enthusiasts are trying to shame their neighbors into joining them with pro-organic lawn signs, Typical lefties. Always acting like tyrants. Sticking their noses in everybody else's business. Time to chop their noses off. Figuratively of course.
4 posted on 07/13/2007 8:53:47 PM PDT by Seruzawa (Attila the Hun... wasn't he a liberal?)
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To: Lorianne
Use cow manure on your lawn if you want to go ‘au natural’.

Your down wind neighbors won’t be too happy though...

5 posted on 07/13/2007 8:54:07 PM PDT by joonbug
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To: glorgau
"All Living Creatures Welcome" Until they get fleas or lice.

Or Bed bugs. I have to say, I do wish them on Liberals...
6 posted on 07/13/2007 8:55:22 PM PDT by Danae (Anail nathrach, orth' bhais's bethad, do chel denmha (Smoke clears and Fred Thompson is President))
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To: glorgau
If I had a lawn in such a neighborhood I would be tempted to hang a sign saying...

"This Lawn Kept Green With DDT"

7 posted on 07/13/2007 8:55:39 PM PDT by chaos_5
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To: Lorianne

Hate to be the little old man but, don’t like my chemicals? Get off my lawn!


8 posted on 07/13/2007 8:56:10 PM PDT by Rastus
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To: Lorianne
The man at the end of my block has a FABULOUS lawn--the envy of the entire block! He just swears by 15-15-15 fertilizer once every month. I tried it and it works!

Don't turn us in to anyone, shhhhh!

9 posted on 07/13/2007 8:57:32 PM PDT by NordP (HUNTER: "The real question for Mexico--Why are your people crossing burning deserts to get away?")
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To: Lorianne
Yeah, all living creatures welcome. I like creatures. But thousands of Japanese Beetles were consuming my Princeton elm like locusts.

I worked hard to plant that tree. I don't want it to be eaten. I sprayed it down with Triazicide, problem solved. Let them eat some other plant.

And the dogs and children are all healthy.

10 posted on 07/13/2007 8:57:58 PM PDT by Sender (Be subtle! Be subtle! And use your squirrels for every kind of business.)
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To: glorgau
"All Living Creatures Welcome"

Until they get fleas or lice.

Until??? Most of these wackos probably already have fleas or lice or worse.

11 posted on 07/13/2007 9:01:17 PM PDT by vox humana
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To: Danae

This is how it started with smoking, its for the chilren


12 posted on 07/13/2007 9:03:15 PM PDT by italianquaker ("blue dog democrats", that dog don't hunt)
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To: Lorianne
With Libs, it's always the same crap. They want to do something that they consider to be "good" or "healthy", but then decide that EVERYONE ELSE has to do it as well.

Friggin' nazis.

13 posted on 07/13/2007 9:07:26 PM PDT by SIDENET (GOONEY GOOGOO!!!)
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To: Lorianne

the Organic lawns here in alabama are real easy to spot -— they are the really nice green lawns dotted with the two foot high mounds of dirt full of fire ants.<P.
meanwhile my lawn is nice and green, weed and bug free.


14 posted on 07/13/2007 9:14:46 PM PDT by commish (Freedom tastes sweetest to those who have fought to protect it.)
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To: TheZMan

If I had a greenie living next to me I’d plant thistles and dandylions, add a few ponds to breed moskitoes. Then I’d raise barn swallows to eat those Moskitoes and dive crap on his car, all in the name of going back to natural order of course...


15 posted on 07/13/2007 9:18:16 PM PDT by Nathan Zachary
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To: Nathan Zachary

If they have any vegetation over 4 foot tall in the back yard the best advice I can give is honeysuckle and poison ivy. Every tree in my backyard was covered up with that crap and practically dead when I moved in. Thank God for RoundUp! >8)


16 posted on 07/13/2007 9:25:05 PM PDT by TheZMan (Texas is no place for pansy-ass liberals. Ya'll move back to California er Mexico er somethin')
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To: joonbug
"Use cow manure on your lawn if you want to go ‘au natural’. Your down wind neighbors won’t be too happy though...

Why not pig crap? smells even better. Easier to apply the liquid stuff too. I'd have way to much fun if a greenie lived next door... My danylions would bloom the biggest, fullest white clouds of seeds, and my thistles would have white billows of cotton like seed pods as well. All edible plants of course. Nobody can deny me my home grown salad...

17 posted on 07/13/2007 9:25:30 PM PDT by Nathan Zachary
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To: italianquaker
"This is how it started with smoking, its for the chilren"

Until it comes to smoking dope, which is just as bad as smoking cigarettes as it contains all the same toxins as tobacco smoke minus nicotine of course.

Then these same loons march up and down to legalize smoking pot, and giving their kids brain damage from second hand pot smoke. (as well as cancer and the same stuff which is claimed for tobbacco smoke)

18 posted on 07/13/2007 9:30:02 PM PDT by Nathan Zachary
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To: TheZMan

I use 2,4D a lot. It’s tried tested and true, plus safe (no matter what greenie lunatics try to tell you) Roundup is part of the arsenal as well,(and completely safe) but 2,4-d leaves the lawn green.
Also it’s better to alternate between the two for broad leaf control to prevent resistance. There are a few 2,4-D variants as well, plus it’s cheaper than roundup. But if you want to kill everything and start a new lawn or keep a garden black for a season, roundup is the way to go.


19 posted on 07/13/2007 9:41:45 PM PDT by Nathan Zachary
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To: Nathan Zachary

Please don’t derail this into a marijuana argument.


20 posted on 07/13/2007 9:43:19 PM PDT by John Will
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