A Resource of Informative and Helpful Grass Care Facts

If you have a lawn, I’m sure you have worked through some grass care problems. You are not alone. Lawns will always be a work in progress. Nature doesn’t make beautiful lawns. A nice lawn is a planned process from start to finish. We owe a lot to the home grass care and professional turf maintenance industry. Turf managers have invested hours in refining methods to improving turf quality. There are also agricultural universities around the country that have thousands of grass plots sectioned off for grass care, for conducting research, improving techniques and for experimenting with new grass species.

Lawn care is a $30 billion a year industry. A large part of the materials we buy to maintain the 30 million acres of home lawns were produced in the United States. We all have a large stake in the grass care industry. Yet, even with all the research, it is still an area that is often filled with ideas and opinions based on misconceptions. Here are just a few grass care facts.

A few important facts about lawn grasses

• An area of grass measuring 5000 sq. ft. in size produces as much oxygen as two 100 ft trees. That is roughly the size of an average front yard. An area of grass 650 sq. ft. in size can provide the daily oxygen needs for one adult. In the process of gas exchange, lawn grasses absorb large quantities of carbon dioxide from the air each day.
• Grass has an air conditioning effect on the environment. Roadways and sidewalks can heat up in excess of 100 degrees while the adjacent grass will be cooler by at least 25 to 50 percent. A major complaint about artificial turf is that it absorbs heat. The temperature on these fields will often be 25 percent hotter than the air temperature in the stands. As a result, players have played in heat well into the 100s. Injuries also increase on artificial turf. Many stadiums have removed the artificial turf and replaced it with grass. The result: cooler fields, happier players and less injuries.
• Performing good turf maintenance practices benefits us in many ways. A good covering of grass helps protect soil from erosion by holding it together through a complex network of roots. A good stand of grass slows the flow of water, giving it time to be absorbed and helping to recharge the water table. It also shades the soil and slows evaporation.
• Lawn grass is a big part of nature’s air and water filtration system. Every year, enormous quantities of dust, pollution and harmful gases are trapped and filtered out by grass blades and roots.
• A well cared for lawn can greatly increase a home’s value. This is a well documented observation. A healthy, manicured lawn always adds a sense of increased value to the property.
• Plants also add a sense of peace in a fast paced world. Many have found relaxation in garden and lawn care. Experiments on the calming affect of plants were done on Russian Cosmonauts while in space. An area was built for green plants to be grown on board the space station. The scientists, back on earth, notice that the Cosmonauts showed reduced stress and their center of social activity always occurred near the plants. In patient care studies, hospital patients who were allowed to see and touch live plants felt better, healed faster and went home sooner.

How these facts affect us

What does that mean? Turf maintenance and home grass care is something we cannot take for granted. We have already begun to realize how much our health depends on the greenery around us. Home lawns and gardens are not only nice to look at, but are healthy for us. It gives us a sense of tranquility and order in a troubled world. Many take it for granted, not realizing that the combined value of plants and turfgrass far exceed any time or cost we invest in maintaining it. We were created for life in a green world and we can’t live without it.