Summer

Editor’s Letter: Good, Better, Best In the Turf Summer 2021 issue, we focus on Sustainability & Going Green—a topic close to my heart. In my jobs over the years (park naturalist, garden center worker, floral designer), I’ve encountered the ironies that can exist within the green industry. Specifically, how the creation of a beautiful lawn, garden, or even flower arrangement, can sometimes involve practices ignorant of, or even harmful to, the environment. The issue is particularly timely now. Climate change, water shortages, and a new generation have increasingly put lawn care practices under examination. As Vegas officials eye a “useless” grass ban and municipalities adopt leaf blower laws, it’s easy to feel under attack. So when I read a column in the Kansas City Star talking about the benefits of grass, I knew it was the sort of good news landscapers needed and contacted the author. See his article, “Defending The American Lawn,” written specifically for Turf. Yet how do you balance aesthetics with stewardship? Must they be mutually exclusive? With Nature as an industry player, answers aren’t easy. Today’s introduction of beneficials will be tomorrow’s invasive requiring chemical control. And on it goes. But the discussion matters. It requires honoring experience and time-tested methods. (Whose grandparents threw kitchen scraps in the garden long before “composting” was trendy?) But it also requires a willingness to embrace different ways of doing things as our knowledge — or technology, such as battery-powered equipment in “Getting Equipped” — advances. It might mean taking ...