April is one of the best months of the year to improve the growing conditions of your lawn, and a healthy lawn requires fewer inputs for maintenance.

Lawn growing is a passion for some, an obsession for others and a business for many. It's important to remember that the lawn maintenance industry is an important contributor to local economies across the country. In the Canada and the U.S., lawn maintenance service providers can earn between $200 and $600 per day, or more, servicing residential and commercial lawns. Lawn maintenance companies employ many people, provide a valuable service for our aging population and contribute to the beautification of our communities.

Of equal importance is the fact that concerned citizens who are working to change the lawn care industry by enacting cosmetic pesticide bans are not trying to "demonize" the lawn care industry, we simply want change and a healthy environment. No one is trying to put the industry out of business, but the industry must change its practices to suit the new green realities of this century.

I suggest that the Canadian lawn care industry stop spending hundreds of thousands of dollars annually fighting cosmetic pesticide bans, and instead spend that money developing organic lawn care practices and products to sell to the consumer. A 2008 Ipsos Reid poll shows that 85 per cent of people in British Columbia with a lawn or garden say they would be willing to try organic alternatives to pesticides.

No one is trying to destroy the lawn care industry; we just want the industry to get on the same page as the rest of us by eliminating the use of toxic poisons like 2,4-D and unnecessary pesticides. For anyone who might say, "Todd, you don't know what you are talking about; you cannot maintain lawns and gardens without pesticides and fertilizers": I was once a fully indoctrinated and committed follower of the spray-and-feed religion. But I successfully converted to growing intelligently, or if you prefer, organically. The spray-and-feed mentality is costly and less beneficial overall than growing intelligently, when all costs are considered.

A 2008 study by Seattle Public Utilities concluded that "each household converting from synthetic to natural lawn care practices produces nearly $75 in annual ongoing public health, ecological, water conservation, and hazardous waste management benefits. Broken down, these costs are between $16 and $21 of environmental benefits from reduced use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides; $8 of environmental benefits for switching from gas to electricity for lawn mowing; $42 in cost savings due to reduced irrigation; and $5 to $6 from lower hazardous waste management costs." These are significant cost savings and they provide real opportunities for lawn care companies to improve their business by converting to organic practices.

The implementation of effective provincial cosmetic pesticide bans combined with the participation, instead of resistance, from lawn care companies in going organic, could add up to millions of dollars a year in savings for our economy, without killing the industry. Since the Halifax Regional Municipality banned cosmetic pesticides there has been a 50 per cent increase in the number of landscaping companies; growth is primarily attributed to new organic landscape companies fulfilling customer needs. Sounds like opportunity is knocking on the lawn.

Here are some intelligent ways to maintain and improve your lawn this spring so you can eliminate the use of cosmetic pesticides:

- Topdress your lawn annually with a product suited to your particular grass growing conditions. Manure, compost or rich soil is ideal for lawns growing on sandy or lean soils. Compost and manure are holistically antibiotic and no fertilizer or pesticide can make such a claim. Coarse sand that is angular is ideal for topdressing heavy soils that drain poorly. Avoid using round, fine sand for topdressing; round, fine sand will actually attract water to each particle of sand, thereby worsening any drainage problems.

- Aerate the lawn using an aerating machine that pulls cores of soil out of the lawn. Rake up the cores and put them in the compost. Then topdress the lawn and fill in the aerating holes with compost, manure or sand.

- Do not excessively dethatch your lawn. Thatch is a necessary component of a healthy lawn, acting as a compaction buffer that protects the lawn's roots from drought and foot compression. Dethatching is not required every year on the average lawn. Dethatch once every two or three years depending on how much thatch exists. Always follow up dethatching work with topdressing to cover and protect the exposed grass roots.

- Remove grass from areas of the garden where there is no chance of it growing acceptably, such as under the shade of trees -- plant a garden instead; in heavy traffic areas, install stepping stones or a walkway; or on the boulevard, plant groundcover plants.

Todd Major is a journeyman horticulturist, garden designer, writer, lecturer and horticulture teacher. For garden advice, write to him at stmajor@shaw.ca.