Natural Yard Care
Upcoming Classes
Branching Out - Choosing the Right Tree for Your Yard
September 14, 2022, 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Join us for a FREE online class all about planting just the right tree for your yard. Our experts will teach you how to choose the right tree for the right place, and how to plant it properly so it survives and thrives for years to come.
Sign Up Here
Recent Classes
Summer Gardening - Keep It Growing!
June 8, 2022
Class Presentation(PDF, 4MB)
Resource List(PDF, 186KB)
What’s the Problem?
Our yards can enhance the beauty of our homes, be a source of pride and be a great place for relaxing. But when we take care of our lawns and gardens, we often use water inefficiently, produce a lot of yard waste and overuse chemicals that are bad for the environment and our families’ health.
What Can We Do?
By making some simple changes in how we care for our yards, we can have great looking landscapes that are easier to care for and healthier for families, pets, wildlife and our environment.
Start with these 5 steps:
Build healthy soil with compost and mulch
Adding compost and mulch will improve the health of your soil and your garden, while reducing your water bill, improving water quality in our creeks, and making your yard lower maintenance.
Plant right for your site
Get to know your yard and its unique set of conditions. Where is it sunny, shady, dry, or wet?
- Choose plants that are well adapted to your yard's particular conditions.
- Pick plants that resist pests and use less water.
- Group plants by their needs for water, sun, and soil.
Practice smart watering
Water wisely to keep your plants healthy. Too much or too little water can stress plants and make them targets to pests and disease.
- Water your plants deeply, but infrequently. Moisten the whole root zone of your plants to build deeper, healthier root systems.
- Make every drop count. Choose low water use plants and use drip irrigation or soaker hoses to save water.
Think twice before using pesticides
Use chemical pesticides as a last resort. Overuse of these products can damage soil health and plant life, as well as our local creeks and wildlife.
- Start with prevention. Pull weeds before they go to seed, build healthy soil, and clean up diseased plants.
- Identify the problem. Whether it's a bug, disease or weed, you need to identify it to know how to effectively manage it.
- Learn to live with a few insects. Most bugs in your garden are actually helpful. Killing them all eliminates the beneficial insects too, making problems worse.
- Use pesticides as a last resort. Use the least toxic solutions to manage weed and pest problems.
Practice natural lawn care
Grow a healthy lawn with less water, chemicals, and work!
- Mow higher (1-2 inches), mow regularly, and leave the clippings.
- Use "natural organic" or "slow-release" fertilizer, or compost to feed your lawn.
- Water deeply, but infrequently.
- Improve poor lawns with aeration, over-seeding, and top-dressing with compost.
- Think twice before using "weed and feed" or other pesticides.
Other Things You Can Do