Blooming deals found during fall planting promotions

2005 Archived News

Cool savings, great deals and beautiful landscapes were a result of the recent Northwest Natural Yard Days: Fall is for Planting retail campaign designed to encourage King County gardeners to remember the environment when planting this fall.

"We found our Northwest Natural Yard Days: Fall is for Planting program to be one of the most visible and important ways we can increase public awareness about natural yard care practices and the benefits to the environment," said Jeff Gaisford. King County Solid Waste Division Recycling and Environmental Services Manager. "This year's discount retail sales were launched together with free workshops held throughout the county. We had great responses from both retailers and consumers who participated in the promotions and the workshops."

Northwest Natural Yard Days is supported by King County, the City of Seattle and 39 other agency partners to encourage local residents to purchase and use environmentally preferable yard care products. Offering discounts of 20 percent or more on environmentally friendly gardening products, more than 45 retail and gardening stores participated in the program throughout King County and the region.

This year's addition of free gardening classes offered a great benefit for county residents. Over 200 people attended these workshops and learned how to practice natural lawn care, select plants that thrive with less water and fewer chemicals, and improve the health of gardens through mulching and soil preparation. Gardening classes were taught at five retailers by gardening experts and authors including Marianne Binnetti, Don Marshall, Ciscoe Morris and Marty Wingate.

"Our most popular class was Goodbye Lawn...Hello Garden, which drew more than 90 gardeners looking for answers on how to remove their lawn and which plants to use for replacing it," said Liz Fikejs, Seattle Public Utilities program manager.

King County's Northwest Natural Yard Days program encourages people to practice the five steps to natural yard care: build healthy soil, plant right for your site, practice smart watering, think twice before using pesticides, and practice natural lawn care. The five steps of Northwest Natural Yard Days help to establish healthy lawns and gardens. Fall is an excellent time to feed and protect soil by fertilizing, adding compost and applying bark mulch. Healthy soil leads to healthy lawns and gardens.

The Fall is for Planting program evolved from the Northwest Natural Yard Days campaign, a very successful promotion held in the spring. For more information about natural yard care and the spring (April) and fall (September) retail program please visit: www.yarddays.com.

Northwest Natural Yard Days is sponsored by a partnership of local government agencies, cities and local water providers. The full partner list can be found at: http://www.metrokc.gov/dnrp/swd/naturalyardcare/partners.asp.