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As landscape professionals, we can confidently say the #1 landscape trend in America is… LAWN! Nearly every residential and commercial landscape in America contains lawn. The ubiquitous turf knits together houses and neighborhoods in a bizarre dynamic of unification and cut-throat competition (whose yard most resembles a golf course?!)

Green Jay Landscaping follows a holistic, organic land management program. Our background in ecology and horticulture guides us to consider the entire ecosystem when caring for plants. We never use synthetic chemicals because of their indiscriminate toxicity, ability to spread easily, and the hazards they pose to human health. According to the EPA, 80 million US households apply 90 million pounds of pesticides and herbicides to their lawn and yard each year. Lawns require fertilization, but the average homeowner over-fertilizes, using improper timing and application methods.

It is no surprise that population growth and the associated development of once rural lands are impacting our environment. How and where we build matters. This year, Houston suffered the worst flooding in history, in part from record rainfalls from Hurricane Harvey, but also from urban sprawl, weak zoning regulations, and a disjointed storm water management strategy that failed to absorb some of storm surge.

Impervious surfaces are those that do not allow water to infiltrate into the soils (asphalt, concrete, roofs, etc); rather, they increase the flow rate of storm water by two to three times compared to vegetated areas.

I attended the Westchester County Government’s Pond and Lake Management Workshop at the start of the month and learned about the important work of the DEC in overseeing our public water bodies. Pond and lake management is a complicated issue that impacts many facets of the environment and our lives.

You may have heard about the Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) that closed eleven Hudson Valley lakes this summer, including two in Westchester. HAB describes a dense concentration of cyanobacteria, creating a distinctive, thick, blue-green muck on the surface of lakes. Cyanobacteria can be toxic and non-toxic, posing a risk to drinking water, human health, wildlife, and affecting lake recreation activities.