[caption id="attachment_4245" align="alignleft" width="540" caption="Can you name all the "weeds" in this photo?"][/caption] I mowed the lawn. Or, I should say, I prepared to mow the lawn. I should begin by telling you that I enjoy mowing; I always have, ever since we upgraded from the hellaciously heavy wood and steel reel mower when I was 9 and I was able to push our new gasoline-powered mower all across ...

[caption id="attachment_4240" align="alignleft" width="540" caption="The ConsumerAffairs.com web site features hundreds of pages of complaints about TruGreen (ChemLawn) lawn care."][/caption] In a surprisingly candid interview with his hometown newspaper, the Memphis Daily News, the CEO of ServiceMaster offered up yet another scathing commentary on the performance of TruGreen, the company formerly known as ...

[caption id="attachment_4234" align="alignleft" width="420" caption="From the book, The Organic Lawn Care Manual (Storey, 2007)"][/caption] More than a few SafeLawns followers and media members have called and emailed today about what to do with lawns after such a huge deluge of water along the East Coast. And a few other friends from Texas emailed to say, "Send the rain this way!" The good news is that law ...

By Jane Wingate The people in my town are well educated—claiming, among them, enough fancy college degrees to have kept a small university afloat. In pursuit of the healthy, sensible life, they engage in all forms of aerobic exercise, monitor their cholesterol levels and their daily fiber intake, serving wholesome raw-vegetable platters at every party, scorning foods containing chemical additives. The people ...

Anyone feel the earthquake today? Wow! It was my first earthquake experience in my 50-plus years and, for 30 seconds or so, the world literally seemed to be twisting and turning. I'm guessing it will be one of those "do-you-remember-where-you-were-when" moments. I happened to be at Glenstone, the modern art museum in Potomac, Md., where the grounds staff and management began working with SafeLawns 13 months ...

Cancer Claims Canadian Leader at 61 [caption id="attachment_4210" align="alignleft" width="540"] Thomas Mulcair, left, poses with Jack Layton, who passed away today at age 61.[/caption] SafeLawns and the environmental community lost an amazing ally this morning when Jack Layton, the leader of the New Democratic Party in Canada, passed away at 61 after a swift battle with cancer. A ferocious advocate for sen ...

While a study out of Sweden earlier this year reported a link between Type II Diabetes in the elderly and persistent organic pollutants, a more recent study out of Finland appears to have found that POPs cause Type II Diabetes in some people. According to an article published by CBS News, Finn researchers found that the presence of POPs in the body disrupts the endocrine system, which in turn effects the bo ...

We never know when they're going to strike next, but another one arrived today — adding to the growing legion of Kissing Bandits who protest their neighbors' use of toxic lawn chemicals wearing nothing more than our "Kiss My Grass" T-shirts. ...

A few weeks ago we blogged about a new product, Azasol, available for the fight against lawn grubs and other insects: http://www.safelawns.org/blog/index.php/2011/06/fight-japanese-beetles-and-lawn-grubs-with-new-neem-formulation/. In this week's video tip for NBC, we demonstrate how to use the product: http://www.wcsh6.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=168995. ...

As the country awaits the results of the Environmental Protection Agency's second review of atrazine since 2003, its manufacturer- Syngenta- is taking advantage of this feet-dragging process, funding research that exonerates the popular herbicide and submitting it to the EPA. According to Mother Jones Food and Ag blogger, Tom Philpott, the case against atrazine has gotten so strong, the EPA is considering j ...