At Ecoyards, we get lots of calls from customers who need help renovating their lawns. Their grass may be thinned in some areas, diseased in others. Sometimes, it’s so overrun by dandelions and weeds (more than 50 percent) that it’s just better to start from scratch. A healthy new lawn drains properly, and discourages moss. It also requires less maintenance, water and fertilizers over time.

Once we decide that your lawn needs renovation, here’s what Ecoyards does:

1. Remove the sod. We remove the old turf and haul it away for composting. Some people recommend killing grass by spraying it with herbicide. We don’t do this, as we try to avoid herbicides where possible.

2. Improve the soil. Healthy soil is the key to healthy lawns. Grass grows taller and thicker, and competes better with weeds. We’ll mix in mature compost,  abundant in nutrients and microorganisms, with your old soil about six inches deep, so you’ll have a good thick  layer of rich topsoil.

3. We roll out sod that uses mostly a blend of ryegrass, which is very well-suited for western Washington. Voila. Instant lawn.

4. Once the sod is in place, water it enough over the first few months to maintain healthy conditions. Once it’s established, water deeply every week, so you get about one inch of water. Water it in the early morning, preferably before 10 a.m. to reduce the amount of evaporation.

5. Fertilize the lawn about 30 days after we install it, using a slow-release organic fertilizer which releases nutrients gradually into the soil and reduces the amount that runs off into our streams, rivers and Sound. Use fertilizers moderately. Look for the words “natural organic” or “slow release.” Please avoid weed and feed products, which broadcasts weed killer on every inch of your yard. That excess runs off into the waters, harming salmon and other fish.

A telltale sign that you’ve got moles in your yard are the presence of mole hills. Pesky moles form mounds with dirt forced up in a cone shape.   The dirt is usually cloddy, rather than smooth, and the hole won’t be open (gopher mounds have open holes).

Moles are commonly found in western Washington, and can damage yards and plants as they tunnel or push up soil in search of worms and other food. The most effective way to get rid of moles, however, is no longer legal in Washington state, since a law passed in 2000 banned the use of body-gripping traps.  “Common rat and mouse traps” are allowed but aren’t very effective.

According to the Washington State University Cooperative Extension, mole-baits and chemical repellents aren’t very effective either. Here’s more from WSU:

Digging moles out or killing them with a shovel when they are actively mounding can be effective but is time-consuming. Repellent plants, chewing gum, flappin windmills, and other reputed remedies don’t work.

So the short answer is: you may have to learn to live with the pests. But if you must get rid of them, this handout from WSU suggests trying one of the non-body-gripping traps recommended on this site.

When it comes to picking plants for our landscape or for yours, we prefer to go native whenever possible. Trees, shrubs and other plants native to the Northwest — vine maples (right), sword fern, salal, beach strawberry, and Pacific dogwood — simply do better in our climate. In addition to requiring little maintenance, birds and other wildlife in our area have come to rely on these plants over decades and centuries to supply them with food, shelter and other needs.

Native plants create a natural landscape. It has the added benefit of reducing runoff — one of the biggest causes of pollution in Puget Sound — by controlling erosion and curbing flooding.

Sometimes finding native plants is the trickiest part of all. Ecoyards has secured and planted many native trees, shrubs, ground covers and other plants for our customers. We have good relationships with nurseries in the area, and can recommend some of our favorite native plants, such as red flowering currant, evergreen huckleberry, mountain hemlock, trillium, kinnikinnick, and mock orange.

King County’s Native Plant Resources site includes good suggestions on which native plants to put in sunny, shady, wet or  dry conditions. The Washington Native Plant Society also has a list of plants suited for most occasions.

One of the downsides to being a plant-a-holic is not knowing what to do with all those empty plastic nursery pots that stack up over time. Most cities or counties won’t accept plastic nursery pots in its curbside recycling program. But many nurseries do!  (Edit – Feb. 12, 2009 – starting March 30, 2009, city of Seattle residents will be allowed to toss plastic nursery pots in curb-side recycling bins.)

Don’t toss them in the trash. Recycled agricultural plastics are used to make truck bed liners, black plastic landscape supplies, drain pipe, plastic lumber for benches, posts and pilings, pallets, automotive components, tool handles and black trash bags.

If you’re a regular Ecoyards maintenance customer, we’ll pick them up for you at no charge. Just set them out the next time we are scheduled to visit, and we’ll recycle them for you. We try to reuse the nursery pots, where possible, and have teamed up with volunteers from the Longfellow Creek Community Garden and the Longfellow P-Patch, the Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle and the West Seattle Edible Garden Fair.  They plan to reuse the pots for several community gardening projects in West Seattle.

Check the following resources to see which nurseries take what. Make sure they are empty, clean, unbroken nursery pots. For example, West Seattle Nursery, one of Ecoyards’ favorite local retail nurseries, accepts 1-gallon pots or larger. Flowerworld Nursery in Maltby takes pots of all sizes.

The Washington State Nursery & Landscape Association provides a list of about a dozen nurseries in King County that take pots.

Here’s a list put together by Seattle Public Utilities and Resources (PDF), a nonprofit environmental group  works with cities and farmers to recycle agriculture plastic and other items.

If you live in Clark County, click here for a list of nurseries that will recycle pots.

Gus, right, and Max head to the job site

Two of our Ecoyards members have a crazy knack for chewing stuff up — sticks, nursery pots, you name it. One day I came home to find these hellions (culprits pictured at right) had chewed up a lovely indoor fig tree. What if it had been toxic? It got me thinking about what’s in my garden that my dog, if he was good, should avoid.

Here are some poisonous plants for your dogs to avoid, says Cornell University Animal Sciences. The ASPCA also keeps a list of plants toxic to pets. Some like elephant ears and tulips may cause vomiting or excessive drooling. Others like oleander could be deadly. Lest I freak you out, in some cases there may be little risk because your dog may not prefer that plant or chew on/ingest enough to cause severe problems. If that does happen, the ASPCA has a 24-hour Animal Poison Control Center, 888-426-4435.

I’ve listed some toxic plants that are common in Northwest, but you should browse the Cornell database or ASPCA list for more in-depth information.

Plants toxic to dogs and other pets:

Flowering plants: hyacinth, narcissus, daffodil, bleeding heart, foxglove, iris, lily of the valley, autumn crocus.

Vegetables: rhubarb.

Ornamentals: azaleas, daphne, jasmine, laurels, wisteria, yew.

Trees and shrubs: black locust, elderberry, bitter cherry.

If you are coffee-addicted like me and the Ecoyards crew, you probably end up with a lot of coffee grounds left over. You could toss it in with yard waste, but why not add coffee grounds to your compost pile or mulch acid-loving plants?

Mulching helps keep weeds down and retain moisture. Coffee grounds are very acidic, so use it judiciously and only on acid-loving plants such as azaleas, rhododendrons and blueberries. Don’t lay it on too thick, and mix it in with the soil.

Better yet, add coffee grounds to your compost pile and let it help break down other yard waste and turn it into rich organic matter that you can then use in your yard. Composting requires a balance of nitrogen-rich “greens” and carbon-rich “browns.” Coffee grounds are, despite common logic, a “green,” like vegetable waste, fresh leaves, alfalfa pellets, or fresh grass clippings. “Browns” provide carbon and include fallen leaves, newspaper, wood chips or straw. The city of Seattle offers good tips for how to backyard compost.

At Ecoyards, we practice mulch-mowing, or “grasscyling,” when we mow lawns, so we’re always a little short of “greens” to add to our home compost pile. That’s where coffee grounds come in handy.

It may be too early to start planting, but there are plenty of things that can keep you busy in your garden in January.  Here are a couple things to put on your to-do list:

Sharpen your mower blades and tune up your mower (we recommend Aurora Lawnmowers, 7323 Aurora Ave Seattle, WA 98103).

Snowbound in Seattle

While you’re at it, try to stay off soggy or frozen grass to keep it from being compacted.  Be sure to keep wet and soggy leaves from piling up on the lawn as they can smother the grass.

It’s never too early to pull weeds. Get them early, get them young.

Clean up landscape beds. Pull out or dig up annuals after they have been killed by a freeze and cut herbaceous perennials to the ground. With the beds clean and open, it’s a good time to top-dress landscape beds with mulch as long as the ground is not frozen.

Now is a good time to plant or move trees and shrubs.

Selective pruning of evergreen and deciduous shrubs and trees can be done at this time of year.  Cut out deadwood, crossing branches, and branches that are damaged by storms.

Winter can be a grey and dreary one in the Northwest, but not if you have plants that provide year-round interest. Some of our favorite plants, such as daphne and sarcococca, put on their best show during this time.

If you’re looking for suggestions or just want to see these winter plants in action, head to the Washington Park Arboretum to see what’s blooming this time of year. The J.A. Witt Winter Garden is filled with witch hazel, hellebores, mahonia and sarcococca that peak in the winter months. Click here for a map and list of plants (PDF). From January through March, you can enjoy dogwood, rhododendron, flowering cherry, camelia, forsythia, heather and many other plants.

If you’ve ever been overwhelmed by all the choices at a nursey, the folks over at Great Plant Picks have made the decision-making process easy. Every year, the staff gets together and comes up with a list of great plant picks.

We at Ecoyards rely on their picks because they weed out fussy perennials, trees, and shrubs that require a lot of water and lots of maintenance.

The Great Plant Picks staff chooses only plants that are hardy to the Seattle area (USDA Zones 7 and 8). The plants are vigorous, easy to grow by the average gardener, and mostly drought-tolerant and disease-resistant.

Check out their booth at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show Feb. 18-22 at the Washington State Convention Center. They usually provide free posters with pictures of their picks for each year.

One of our favorite plants from the list is the flowering currant, a native deciduous shrub that is a magnet for hummingbirds. This plant tolerates poor soil, is drought-tolerant once established, and requires little maintenance or pruning.

Link to Industry News

The Ontario government’s new lawn pesticide ban -which should come into effect in early 2009 -will do much to protect human and environmental health. But it’s also becoming clear the legislation will be a boon to our economy -boosting business and creating green jobs.

Communities across Canada which already have pesticide restrictions have enjoyed a major expansion of their lawn care sector. For example, in the five years following a pesticide ban in Halifax the number of lawn care firms in the city grew from 118 to 180 -an increase of 53 per cent, according to Statistics Canada. The number of employees in the sector also grew. Stats Can also reports the number of landscaping and lawn care businesses in Toronto has grown each year since its ban.

Why does the non-toxic route help the economy? For one thing, it relies less on chemicals and more on workers -meaning it creates local employment. It also requires some specialized knowledge of plant and soil ecology which homeowners often lack -hence their increased reliance on organic professionals.

Ontario’s organic lawn care providers are booming. Barriebased Turf Logic Inc. will be doubling its business by next spring. Oshawa-based Environmental Factor has grown its business 10- fold over the last eight years.

It’s also the case that many organic lawn products (such as corn gluten meal, horticultural vinegar, compost, and beneficial nematodes) are produced right here in Ontario -which means more business for our manufacturers. (By contrast, many of the toxic lawn chemicals are made in the U. S. or Europe.)

Two questions often raised during discussions of market change are, “Will the transition happen smoothly and will the new services be affordable?” In this case, the answer to both is yes.

More than five million Ontarians live in municipalities which already require non-toxic lawn care, Peterborough among them. So the industry already has the know-how and products to provide pesticide-free services province-wide. As well, major retailers are now committed to the non-toxic approach, meaning do-it-yourselfers have everything they require.

What about costs to the consumer? A recent survey of Ontario lawn companies showed the price of pesticide-free services is competitive with traditional services and is sometimes exactly the same. (One company charges $159.88 to treat a 2,500 square foot property – whichever service the customer picks.) And as more firms go organic, prices will drop. Non-toxic lawn care not only produces beautiful properties -just look at the Stratford Festival lawns, the campus of Trent University, or the grounds of the Ontario legislature -but is also very cost-effective.

Scientists have long told us that pesticides are associated with cancer (such as non-Hodgkins lymphoma), neurological illness (such as Parkinson’s disease), and birth defects. Health authorities – including the Canadian Cancer Society, the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, and the Ontario College of Family Physicians -have long supported cosmetic pesticide bans.

But now we know that, in addition to its health benefits, going pesticide-free also makes good economic sense.

GIDEON FORMAN Executive Director, Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment