Spring savings helps local residents

Seattle homeowner and landscape architect Jennifer Carlson today demonstrated the benefits of gardening naturally, using many natural yard care products available at a discount during the Northwest Natural Yard Days campaign.

King County, the City of Seattle and 24 other agency members promote environmentally friendly yard care by offering free classes at nurseries and by providing retail discounts on natural yard care products in the spring and fall.

"Practicing natural yard care is much easier than people think, and the month long campaign offers great discounts on gardening supplies that address common yard care problems," Carlson said.

"In just four years, we’ve transformed our garden into a great landscape, using all natural methods. We have mulch mowed our grass, added compost and manure to the soil, used bark mulch around planting beds and used soaker hoses and drip irrigation to cut down on our water use. Now we have a beautiful looking yard," Jennifer said.

King County’s "Yard Talk" host, Doug Rice, recommended using compost and mulch as one of the best methods to improve garden health, reduce weed maintenance and conserve water.

"Leaving grass clippings on the lawn by mulch-mowing adds nutrients to the lawn", said Gerty Coville of the King County Solid Waste Division.

"In addition to adding nutrients to your lawn, you save yourself a lot of work picking up grass clippings, since a typical city-lot lawn of 3,000 square feet produces about 1,200 pounds a year of clippings," Coville said. "Also, try mulch-mowing with an electric mower to cut down on air pollution. Operating a gas mower for one hour causes as much pollution as driving a car for 50 miles."

This is the ninth year for the Northwest Natural Yard Days effort, part of King County and Seattle's ongoing efforts to encourage the use of mulching lawn mowers to reduce collection of grass clippings at the curb, reduce pesticides use and cut down on water use.

Northwest Natural Yard Days encourages gardeners to practice 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.

Products are available at 78 participating retail locations from Bellingham to Olympia. For more information about natural yard care, contact the Natural Lawn and Garden hotline at 206-633-0224 or info@lawnandgardenhotline.org.

King County and Seattle have a variety of educational materials about natural landscaping available free of charge. The natural landscaping brochures and a full list of participating Northwest Natural Yard Days retailers are available at http://www.metrokc.gov/dnrp/swd/naturalyardcare/yard-days.asp.