Lawn Treatments

[Guest greydreams]

I read somehwere: it is not good to have a place like Tru-Green lawn care treat the yard where a greyhound plays/lives in, correct? Meaning fertilize, weed treatment, pest control treatments. Can I still have the front yard treated? The dogs don't go on the front lawn at all. What about mowing. If I have the front yard treated, will the mower carry it to the back yard?

[Guest SoulsMom]

I don't treat my lawn, so I can't say for sure, but I would hazard a guess that yes--the lawnmower will bring traces of the chemicals into the back yard

[brandimom]

We treat our front yard with a fertilizer but do nothing to the back yard. In the five years we have lived her there has never been a problem with a mower transferring something to the back yard.

[Guest Energy11]

Most people I know, don't treat their lawns if they have greys. Too many chemicals involved. I live in the woods, so I am not one to ask, but there have to be organic and safe treatments for the lawn. Good Luck. I'd Google organic lawn treatments.

[PatricksMom]

If you treat the front yard, you will still be tracking pesticides, etc. into the house on you shoes, etc. Is there a reason not switch to something organic? Really you can end up with healthier plants/grass, etc. although the results aren't as fast.

 

eta. There are lawn care companies that will use all organic products. I don't have one to recommend since I do my own gardening, but your current company might even offer an organic alternative.

Edited February 19, 2010 by PatricksMom

[MaryJane]

Depending on how powdery the fertilizer is, the wind can carry it into the back yard.

 

I also watch to see when my neighbors are putting fertilizer down and if it is a windy day, I'll keep my dogs inside.

 

As others have mentioned, there are organic options that can do the trick and are healthier for your dogs and people. If you have the room, you can start a compost pile and use that for fertilizer in the spring.

[Guest mcsheltie]

Tru-Green does our front lawn. But I do nothing where the dogs are. Once it is dry you would not be tracking anything into your house. We have six foot privacy fencing, so there is no over spray. If you have wire fencing that should be considered.

 

I do not think that what would be carried on the mower would be significant. But you can always mow the back first and knock off the clippings from the front after you are done. I am as picky and paranoid as they come and I don't bother with this.

 

Our Tru-Green does have an organic option. And it does work well. But I would not do where the dogs go, organic or not.

[ahicks51]

Just hose down the mower when moved from front to back. Not a big deal; the main component you'd be trying to get rid of is the 2,4-D, which has proven to be a bad actor when it comes to pet health, depending upon whose studies one wishes to believe- there are links to leukemia, but it's gone back and forth in the literature. I don't know where the funding comes from, so I can't speak as to how biased the work may be. Anyway- it's pretty insoluble stuff, so a water stream is going to bust loose particles, rather than dissolve it. I can't speak to the other pesticides as I'd have to know what all else is in there.

 

Fertilizer doesn't bother me at all; the salts are pretty much harmless unless ingested in very high concentrations. Herbicides- stuff like 2,4-D, anyway- have acute and chronic effects. The pesticides I'm split on, as most are very clever these days, focusing on pathways that are specific to insects, and the ones that a consumer can buy are short-lived in the environment. But there's that creepy thing about how the new stuff we use today has some weird toxic effect we won't know about for twenty years (and the results will be kept under wraps by the agriculture companies anyway), so I prefer to minimize exposure.

[Guest greydreams]

Thanks, everyone, for the great comments. I think I'll look into the Tru-green (they are the ones who do my yard) organic (duh, I didn't think of that) and just do the front yard. Our Pug and Yorkie never had any problems, I always waited until it was dry to let them out, but I realize Greys are a different story. I will forgo the pest treatments.

[RobinM]

We treat the front, not the back.

[ahicks51]

Our Pug and Yorkie never had any problems, I always waited until it was dry to let them out, but I realize Greys are a different story.

 

Note that there are acute effects, and chronic effects. An acute effect would be when the dog gets a fairly large dose of a toxin, and there are immediate results- panting, vomiting, illness. A chronic effect would be how, 2-4-8 years down the line, a serious illness results from low dose exposure. While the former would be very easy to blame on chemical poisoning, the latter would be extremely difficult. The chronic effects of compounds like 2,4-D are more insidious, as well as contentious in the literature.

[Guest SusanP]

I wouldn't use lawn chemicals even if we didn't have dogs. I hate walking the dogs and knowing we're walking through other people's lawn chemicals and tracking them back into our house. Most of the time, the stuff is all over the sidewalk as well as the lawns. I may be paranoid, but I don't feel like a "perfect" lawn is worth all the toxins we are exposing ourselves and other creatures to and flushing into our waterways.

 

You can spread corn gluten on the lawn in spring and fall to inhibit weeds and fertilize, and leave the clippings on the lawn when you mow. You can eat dandelion greens and roast the roots as a coffee substitute. You can eat plantain and purslane. And the bunnies love clover. Our grass isn't the eye-jolting green our neighbors' is, but I feel it's a lot safer for wildlife and humans.

 

I'd love to see a ban on lawn chemicals. It's gotten way out of hand in the years since my childhood.