Excellent question. Perhaps I will face that in "real life" soon.
The reply "pull them or tolerate them" gives two options. In many cases the customer does not want to tolerate them. This is one of the great challenges in organic lawn care. Many organic books counsel that people should tolerate some weeds. But many customers don't want to hear about it. Perhaps many who are going to pursue organic lawn care will wind up working for those who can tolerate some weeds, as many people will increasingly be willing to do, if that is the price for forgoing the poisons. But I tend to think that we can do better.
Pulling weeds by hand is another interesting topic. Many people don't want to pay for that, and many LCOs would never be caught dead on their knees puling weeds. I think people have become very lazy and no longer even have any experience with such things. In many cases, it may be quicker and cheaper to pull weeds or pay to have them pulled, than to pay for chemicals to be applied. Sometimes it is a matter of educating the customer. I once pulled about 3000 cudweeds from a lawn in about an hour. I maintain several lawns where I keep weeds under control by handweeding weekly. In some of these the grass is good and thick and there aren't many weeds, in others things aren't as nice, and some may become more challenging as time goes by.
The solarization technique I have described before is very interesting but there is much more to learn about it and it may not always be appropriate. This may be a good way to kill weeds and maybe weed seeds before seeding the grass. Should not take long to kill new weed sprouts.
Back to tolerating weeds. That doesn't have to mean tolerate unlimited weeds forever. It can mean, OK there's weeds, we'll work on them. Maybe some regular handweeding. Maybe we mainly just work on improving the soil, improving the turfgrass and get the weeds under control over time. Some people can be patient.
The argument here is probably that to be successful with organic lawn care you have to make some exceptions. Maybe so or maybe not. That is something each person decides. And what is success? Or maybe just to point out that there is a lot of ground between the extremes. And it may be appropriate to use a chemical from time to time. I saw an amazing change in a really bad lawn after a visit or two from Chemlawn. From mainly weeds and dirt to mainly grass and no weeds. From that point it may have been really easy to maintain that lawn organically, but it may have taken forever to get it to where Chemlawn took it quick. A lot depends on the customer - do they want a certain quality of lawn, do they want it now or can they gve it time, do they want chemicals or not? And of course any of us can decide what we are willing or not to do. Some may define themselves as "chemical-free" and some may use different methods depending on circumstances.
The reply "pull them or tolerate them" gives two options. In many cases the customer does not want to tolerate them. This is one of the great challenges in organic lawn care. Many organic books counsel that people should tolerate some weeds. But many customers don't want to hear about it. Perhaps many who are going to pursue organic lawn care will wind up working for those who can tolerate some weeds, as many people will increasingly be willing to do, if that is the price for forgoing the poisons. But I tend to think that we can do better.
Pulling weeds by hand is another interesting topic. Many people don't want to pay for that, and many LCOs would never be caught dead on their knees puling weeds. I think people have become very lazy and no longer even have any experience with such things. In many cases, it may be quicker and cheaper to pull weeds or pay to have them pulled, than to pay for chemicals to be applied. Sometimes it is a matter of educating the customer. I once pulled about 3000 cudweeds from a lawn in about an hour. I maintain several lawns where I keep weeds under control by handweeding weekly. In some of these the grass is good and thick and there aren't many weeds, in others things aren't as nice, and some may become more challenging as time goes by.
The solarization technique I have described before is very interesting but there is much more to learn about it and it may not always be appropriate. This may be a good way to kill weeds and maybe weed seeds before seeding the grass. Should not take long to kill new weed sprouts.
Back to tolerating weeds. That doesn't have to mean tolerate unlimited weeds forever. It can mean, OK there's weeds, we'll work on them. Maybe some regular handweeding. Maybe we mainly just work on improving the soil, improving the turfgrass and get the weeds under control over time. Some people can be patient.
The argument here is probably that to be successful with organic lawn care you have to make some exceptions. Maybe so or maybe not. That is something each person decides. And what is success? Or maybe just to point out that there is a lot of ground between the extremes. And it may be appropriate to use a chemical from time to time. I saw an amazing change in a really bad lawn after a visit or two from Chemlawn. From mainly weeds and dirt to mainly grass and no weeds. From that point it may have been really easy to maintain that lawn organically, but it may have taken forever to get it to where Chemlawn took it quick. A lot depends on the customer - do they want a certain quality of lawn, do they want it now or can they gve it time, do they want chemicals or not? And of course any of us can decide what we are willing or not to do. Some may define themselves as "chemical-free" and some may use different methods depending on circumstances.
