Posts from — June 2008

On a recent trip to the Morton Arboretum I had the chance to walk through the Schulenberg Prairie. Despite the many visitors on this particular Saturday, Kate and I were the only two in the prairie and had the landscape to ourselves (and the billions of bugs, insects, birds, and few cacophonous cars).

I felt very at home in that set of plants and critters and it made me think of the cultural geographer Yi Fu Tuan and his description of comfort in the American southwest. And while the beauty of the prairie is in plants such as Purple Coneflower Echinacea purpurea, the power of the prairie is up to twelve feet deep where roots are storing water, carbon and nutrients necessary for survival. Hence, of course, the fertility of midwest soil and the ongoing growth of corn for cars and cattle.

The unfortunate reality of our historical cultivation is that we released more carbon expunging expanses of prairie than we will ever release from all the cars in United States combined. According to the Nature Conservancy, less than 4% of the original tallgrass prairie remains.

We have crossed a cliff where conservation will not be enough. Conservationists cannot do enough. It is time for regenerationists. Regenerationists will have to recognize that humans are part of the current ecology (and will be for the foreseeable future, but if not…) and must intertwine human action with ecological balance. Prairie museums will not be enough. Prairies are going to have to take over front lawns, rooftops, building facades, and highway medians. Their regeneration must be aggressive and stealth; beautiful and functional.

Morus rubra

In my dreams I was picking ripe persimmons and bowling ball size pommegranites from trees along a shaded street. The persimmons were somehow more orange and tasted like sunrise. In my day life, I have been lunching on mulberries Morus rubra and serviceberries Amelanchier arborea, both now ripe in and around the dc area. The looks I get as I pick fruit from trees and pop them in my mouth are those of confusion and disbelief. It seems that we have grown accepting of pesticide bathed, individually wrapped, laboratory grown and cross-continent shipped fruits and vegetables but aghast by the thought that these thing once grew on a tree or in the ground. Under fluorescent lights, with a *SALE* nametag we notice and respect these things but beneath the cover of green they fail to catch our eye.

ChemLawn and the movement of beauty

While I was eating mulberries from the tree in the photograph above I was thinking about ChemLawn. Imagine a company being called ChemLawn; that’s what was plastered on the trucks and yard stakes that would decorate the street and lawn I grew up on. I was remembering that logo and thinking about beauty and how fluid it is. Of course, great efforts are still made in the pursuit of monocultural lawns of neon grass, but cultural eyes seem to be awakening to the toxicity of the pursuit. The word chemical is in a dive. As beauty is re-defined it will be interesting to note its dripline. Will well placed weeds and edible berries overtake chemical fertilizers and relentless lawns under the protection landscape logic and ethical aesthetics? Without a sure answer, I continue spending my days Influencing the flow of beauty towards something less ridiculous…

TruGreen ChemLawn is now TruGreen, because one word is all you need for a great lawn. We have shortened our name to make it easier for you to remember that we are the experts of lawn care. While we are known as “TruGreen”, the name ChemLawn will always be a part of our Company. The two companies merged in 1992 and we kept both names for the last 15 years because ChemLawn was a respected and trusted name in lawn care.

Recently, we have refocused our company to be much more customer oriented. Enhanced service levels, the introduction of Lawn Quality Audits (LQAs), EASYPAY and the customer benefits of the new TruGreen.com are just a few examples of the many customer initiatives here at TruGreen.

This name change is symbolic of these fundamental customer improvements. The “new” TruGreen is dedicated to Superior Service and Visible Results by proving to you, our valued customers, that to us, Your Lawn Means More. (http://lawn-care.trugreen.com)

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