Yard Waste

Yard Waste accounts for up to 25% of our total refuse material.  Immediately outside your front door there are ways to reduce waste hauled to landfills, and ways to help conserve the environment.

•  Grass Clippings - Adopt the "Don't Bag it!" program through the County Extension Service.  Publications and promotional items are available.  The theory is to mow the lawn before grass gets too high to leave a thatch.  Throwing the clippings back on the lawn to provide fertilizer for lawn.
  

•  Plant Material - Select plant material that is adaptive to the environment you are putting it in.  Use proper spacing now to avoid over grown hedges that need major hedging or removal later.
  

•  Re-use -  Re-use weeds, leaves and grass clippings, and spent annuals in a compost pile.  Use compost to help amend the soil and fill low spots.
  

•  Water usage - Water when plants show stress.  Water until the plant material responds.  Infrequent, long  watering is best.  Let the plants tell you when they need water and how much.
  

•  Mulch - Mulching plant material conserves moisture, suffocates weed seedlings and buffers temperature extremes, thus eliminating weeds and limiting summer or winter kill.  Buy mulch in bulk form to avoid the waste of plastic bags.

Recycling is becoming the way of the future.  Practice proper cultural practices to reduce yard waste.  Don't bag your clippings, use adaptable species of plants properly placed, and let plant material tell you when and how much water they need.