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Our Mission
The Living Lawn Project advocates for the use of organic methods to establish and maintain lawns, playing fields and parks. Pesticide use is a known hazard to the health and development of children and pets. Our educational mission is to provide information about the health and environmental impact of pesticide use, and to teach safe and effective turf management practices.
We participate in town forums, teach classes in organic lawn care and support other communities in their efforts to educate their municipal government in the environmental and health benefits of organic methods.
Through the work and commitment of dedicated volunteers, we maintain an organic lawn and garden demonstration site - The Living Lawn. It is open to the public and demonstrates the truth about organic grass - anyone who is willing to learn the basic concepts of soil biology can have a beautiful and safe lawn.
The Living Lawn Project is located at the end of Everett Paine Blvd. in Marblehead, MA. We are grateful to the Marblehead Board of Health, the Marblehead Recreation, Parks and Forestry Department, the Marblehead Museum and Historical Society, and all of our garden clubs for their on-going support of our work. The project's mission is supported through speaking fees, the sale of organic herbs and flowers sold through the Marblehead Farmer's Market, and donations.
Friday, June 27, 2008
9 - 11:00 a.m.
Transitioning from lawn to ground-covers
Everything good evolves. This Friday we'll begin removing the framing and soil from the raised bed near the back slope. Even though this section of the garden provided us with many beautiful flowers for the Marblehead Farmer's Market, we had to wage war every spring to rid the bed of the Japanese Knotweed (Polygonum cuspidatum) that sprouts heavily every spring. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_knotweed
Fighting invasive plants aside, we are replacing the turf in the right back bed with ground-cover plants. They'll be low-maintenance and a beautiful alternative to mowing grass. The locally hewn timbers from the departing bed will be used to repair raised beds in other sections of the lawn. We'll note our progress and supply some informative pictures in the next few days.
If you can come by and help out, or just want to visit - please do. We enjoy visitors.
2008 Summer Project
From Grass to Ground Cover
This summer one of the Living Lawn's turf beds will be converted to ground cover. Grass isn't inevitable in our lawns and this project will teach us how to prepare, design and care for a beautiful, low-maintenance alternative to grass. We'll need photographers (to document the process), hands to remove the turf, prepare the site and plant, and some tough-minded judges to help us choose from the many plant options available. After all we can't plant everything we love! This is bound to be a rewarding project.
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