I’ve gone through many of the common issues faced in our business from the day-to-day diseases, to the answers that dwell below. This article will be based more on a topic about which I speak often, and it is all about minimizing our derailing of a self-regulating system. This story is one that I’ve told many times and I feel that it explains all that we do so beautifully, that I can’t believe I never put it in print.

Taller and taller, producing leaves and shedding them.

In this world, a tree captures the energy it needs from the air, the rain, and the soil. The
leaves compost year after year and the grasses shed their stems. The sunlight warms the
soil and the life beneath goes to work. Everything is working together like the cogs in a clock.

Again, no one has touched this tree, no one has mowed or harvested these wild grasses,
things are natural and in balance. Until… the city goes up around this beautiful scene.

Our hill is now the center of the town, the tree is the pride of all who live there. It’s old, it’s beautiful, they want to do everything they can to protect it. They begin to groom the land around the tree; they put in beautiful turf, add irrigation, and begin to pick up after the tree
because no one wants to see leaves on the ground.

After some time, the tree begins to show signs of stress.

An arborist is hired, then a pest company, then an engineering firm to see if this needs to be moved. Over and over people come and go and put in their 2 cents. Committees are formed, fundraisers and campaigns are held. Our withering tree has become an eyesore.
There must be something we can do!

There is something WE can do. But for the poor people in this story, it’s too late. In our industry, over care is just as bad if not worse than under care. Nature has a way of self-regulating and it’s very simple and heartless; natural selection. When something isn’t working in an environment there is a quick and effective method of disposing of the problem. As humans, with our need to care for and make things better, we unknowingly interrupt this cycle every chance we get.

In our story, the tree was great, there were no problems to speak of aside from maybe, drought or frost, these things are overcome in nature all the time. But if this tree is in a drought in a landscape, provisional water will be applied and this tree will not be prepared for the next time a drought comes along. We break a very key cycle: Natural Stress. Plants need to be put into stressful situations in order to reach their full potential. A babied plant is the first one that dies when you go on a three-day weekend trip.

People have a tendency to do just a little more than what a label says. In some cases, allot more. It’s almost as if it’s a dirty little secret, a quiet sin if you will. Everyone does it and you know what I’m talking about. The funny thing about it is that there are little to no grounds for us to think that way. If a little is good, more must be better. In my life, that line of thinking only applies to a few things; one that I will not mention as its not appropriate in an article and the other is roots or possibly bacon and sausage gravy. If you don’t believe me, ask a southerner.

Back on track now; the issue at hand isn’t the fact that people don’t know any better, it’s that they think they are doing more to help. Companies spend millions on testing to find out rates at which homeowners can apply chemicals without killing themselves. Fertilizer companies spend millions to find out the highest rate they can apply without killing a lawn. It’s all about the maximum inputs without a negative result. Once these are turned over to the general population, it’s another story. So without realizing it, they’ve created a break in the cycle. They’ve weakened a plant’s defenses, they’ve made the turf not want to look for and cycle its own nutrients, and they’ve thrown a wrench in the system.

Now, this is the point where I have to say that I am not anti-human, nor am I critical of the way people handle what they find important, this is merely observation. For me, the quest has been to develop products that support the natural cycles without disruption, create maximum beauty, and overall, enhance an already damaged ecosystem. So here I am trying to solve problems in the industry that created them. It’s a very hard to reconcile mode of action for me, considering the above article. The only solace I have is that we are breaking the mold. The thinking that created the problem is not the same as the thinking that is creating a solution.

What I want for everyone to take away from this is very simple; the elements of our fertility program are for everyone. Balancing the soil to healthy and highly efficient functions is critical. Driving roots deep into the earth creates more life and more insurance that plants will thrive through the ups and downs of the environment. Slowing the speed at which turf grows creates a more manageable food source when the grass is cut. I find myself saying this allot lately…. “Less is more people, less is more.”

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