Jan Haberlein's ecological retreat is a shining example of what can be done in our farms instead of growing grass. Jan is a teacher for 41 years who was a teacher and headmaster in public schools in the county schools. 28 years ago, she and her husband founded a natural park-like nature reserve in their backyard full of trees, shrubs and flowers with a pond, whereby all rainwater drains hold on.
This natural landscape design offers birds, butterflies and other wild animals an important habitat to protect air and water quality and to avoid American obsession with lush, green, perfectly maintained lawns that require massive doses of fertilizer and pesticides. It also serves the owners as a retreat in a park -like environment in a residential area of Annapolis.
A completely 1.2 million morning of Maryland's 6.3 million land areas is grass-covered-19% of the state's land mass. A million of these hectares are used for lawn areas in relation to single-family houses as for the cultivation of Maryland's main cultures of corn and soybeans. About 36% of Anne Arundel County are covered with lawn grass, including large areas of the lawn, which belonged to the district. The counties in Maryland keep 80,000 acres of lawn grass.
Our passion for great green lawns is associated with great environmental costs. Around £ 215 million pounds of Bay Choking nitrogen fertilizer are applied to grass every year on the 3.8 million morning bay-wide turfs on 5 million lawns in the water sheath of Chesapeake Bay every year.
If you apply fertilizer to your garden or garden, it is marked according to nitrogen, phosphorus and potash content. A bag with 10-10-10 fertilizer contains 10% nitrogen (s), 10% phosphorus (P) and 10% potassium (K). These elements make grass greener, thicker and healthier.
If the plants had applied 100% of the N, P and K, there would be no problem. However, plants do not decrease approximately 100%. What is not absorbed by plants can finally achieve our streams and the bay through rainwater drainage. Nitrogen also seeps into the groundwater and can have a problem for people on well water and alkalis in streams.
The law of the Rasin fertilizer in Maryland prohibits the use of fertilizers that contain phosphorus on established lawns, provided that a soil test specifies a defect or when setting up, patching or renovating a lawn. So you shouldn't usually use fertilizers that contain phosphorus. The Maryland Act also limits frenzy fertilizers that contain nitrogen or phosphorus from November 16 to March 1.
N and P are the most important pollutants of the bay that lead to dead zones that cause fish mortality and the spread of excess algae. This excess algae drives carnival diseases that threaten human life and limbs. Excess nutrients are also associated with the decline in important bay grasses and with red and brown tides.
While agriculture is the largest source for N, P and sediment, it is assumed that lawn owners use 10 -more fertilizers per morning than the farmers use for food plants. Many lawn owners exceed the recommendations for fertilizers, which incorrectly thinks more, means better. In 2024, the Americans spent an estimated 153 billion US dollar for lawn care and landscape design, with the lawn caring sector expired by more than 8.2% a year for three years.
While a good dose of these expenditure can finance ecologically sound land use practices, most of these billions of dollars that were spent on lawn care have a negative effect on water quality and wild animals. The sheer size of the frenzy in Maryland is a serious challenge for owners and caretakers to protect and maintain our natural systems.
How do you reach fertilizer our streams and the bay? In Anne Arundel County there are 33,383 storm drainer inlets that transport untreated, dirty rainwater drains to 5,215 storm outflow. This untreated rainwater drain flows directly into the next stream, electricity or directly into the bay through gravity. Or nutrients flow over their lawn.
In our district, rainwater is the main source for N, P and Sediment as well as bacteriological toxins transmitted by algae and infected people, dogs and fish. Yes, a large part of these rainwater pollutants come from other sources than lawns, but lawns are a large part of the problem in our region.
The K or the potassium in rasm fertilizers is used to strengthen the grass, improve the resistance to the disease and to improve the ability of the lawn, to resist stress by drought, cold and heat. It also supports nutrient and water absorption and promotes healthy root and stem development. While potassium in fertilizer is not directly harmful to insects or water quality, excessive amounts can indirectly affect you and the environment.
Spring also brings the beginning of a comprehensive war against weeds and insects. Around 19 million pounds of pesticides are used on Bay Watershed Rasene to kill crab grass and other weeds. And pesticides are blown up to kill every mosquito. These toxic chemicals also reach our surface waters through rainwater outflow and direct deposition and can penetrate our groundwater.
No pesticide is certain because everyone is designed so that they kill something. They influence the health of non-targeted plants, animals, pets and humans. The US butterfly numbers have dropped by 22% since 2000. The residues of DDT can still be found 53 years after its ban in the bay. For many with DDE, a DDT breakdown chemical and other pesticides contaminated species exist.
Pesticides are also involved in the collapse of global insects, whereby 40% of the species were radically removing and a third threatened with extinction, referred to as “catastrophic breakdown of nature” as “catastrophic collapse”. More than 3,500 species of local bees receive the harvest yields and 75% of the flowering plants are dependent on pollares. If possible, avoid the use of pesticides and always follow the label instructions.
The best environmental solution is to convert lawns into natural landscape design, especially through planting trees, shrubs and flowers to gain pollinators like Jan. Or on a smaller scale, as my good friend Steve Barry did in his house in Davidsonville. Steve converted the flooding of his sloping lawn into a natural area. See his six -minute video. These conversions can also help with carbon quests.
If you cannot follow Jan or Steve, remove or at least the use of fertilizer and pesticide and install rain gardens and set rain barrels to catch drain from your roof.
If you do not maintain a lawn, act the apartment complex in which you live to follow an ecologically solid plan, and do the same where you work or worship. We can all press to ensure that state real estate gives an example, especially if we pay millions of dollars together in our property tax bill, which better manage the county outflow.
Gerald Wintegrad represented the Annapolis area as a democrat in the Maryland House of Delegates and Senate for 16 years. Contact him at gwwabc@comcast.net and visit his presentation on April 16 in the Quiet Waters Park, Annapolis, at 7:00 p.m. about “Exploration of Cubas Wildlife, History and Cultural Agency” with Carol Swans Photos.