The Grass is Greener at DC’s National Mall

Four acres of the National Mall in Washington, DC will go organic© National Mall, Washington

The National Park Service (NPS) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have teamed up with the nonprofit SafeLawns.org in making over a four-acre section of the National Mall in Washington, DC according to sustainable, organic lawn care practices. SafeLawns.org is currently working to plow the plot, and over the next two weeks will add compost along with other natural soil amendments and fertilizers before reseeding the area. The organization, which formed just last year with the goal of creating a broad-based coalition of for-proft and nonprofit organizations committed to educating society about the benefits of organic lawn care and gardening, will oversee a two-year organic maintenance program on the acreage, and NPS and EPA will compare the health and integrity of the plot to other parts of the Mall managed along traditional (non-organic) lines.

"This is exactly the kind of high visibility project we had in mind when we conceived our organization in February of 2006," says Paul Tukey of SafeLawns.org. "If we can grow resilient grass on the National Mall, where 27 million people trample the lawn each year, then we will have demonstrated that we can grow grass anywhere. Most importantly, we"ll have proved that you can grow grass without relying on chemical fertilizers and pesticides that can harm wildlife and contaminate drinking water, as well as cause harm to people and their pets."

Sources: Landscape Management; Safe Lawns