What a healthy Lawn Does for you

Stress Relief

Enhances your mood, lowers your stress and calms the mind.  Studies have shown that the smell and look of a well-groomed lawn helps create a feeling of well being and accomplishment.  The calming effect is created when the chemical that’s released from a lawn beginning its regeneration process from being recently cut.  This chemical is often referred to as GLV (Green Leaf Volatiles) and is responsible for the wonderful aroma.

Natural Air Conditioner

Lawns are typically 5-10 degrees cooler than concrete surfaces; this helps keep you and your home stay cooler Lawns absorb the suns energy rather than radiating it back into the air and raising the temperature.  Don’t believe it? Next time on a hot summer day try standing on concert in your bare feet and compare how hot the pavement is compared to how cool your lawn is.  This temperature difference makes lawns the perfect heat sink and can take away the suns heat from your home and can save you money on your air conditioning bill.

Saves Water

Thick, dense, turf requires less watering than a patchy arid lawn full of weeds.  The grass leaves provide shade to the soil below from the sun’s rays, preventing evaporation and allowing the grass to utilize more water more effectively.  This helps during those hot summer days when rain is no where in sight.  Proper lawn maintenance such as cutting at a higher mowing height, and watering infrequently will not only do wonders for your lawn but it will help save you money on your water bill as well since you won’t have to water as much or as often.

Increase in Property Value

When people look at your home the first thing, they see is the outside and its curb appeal. A green lawn, beautiful trees and maintained walkways will make it more aesthetically pleasing and could boost your resale value as much as 5-12%. On an average home in Calgary it can mean an extra $20,000 to $48,000 that you could see if it came time to sell your home.

Lawn Care & The Environment (Title)

Cleans the Air

Like all plants, grasses absorb Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) and release Oxygen (O₂ ) through photosynthesis.  A lawn that’s around 2500 ft² (232 m²) produces enough Oxygen to provide a family of four fresh air every day. But that’s not all, it helps control pollution as well, by absorbing pollutants such as Carbon Dioxide, Sulfur Dioxide, Hydrogen Fluoride and even Peroxyacetyl Nitrate a pollutant present in Smog into their leaves.  When it rains, the water helps push the pollutants into the soil, once there the soil microbes begin breaking down the pollutants through a process called Biodegradation into nontoxic substances such as water, salts, or harmless gases.

Purifies Water

As water passes through the soil membrane the soil microbes begin to break down any chemicals that may be present in the water providing filtered water.  In fact, this filtration system is so effective that rainwater that gets filtered vs normal rainwater that is running off the sidewalk is as much as 10 times less acidic.  This water is known as effluent water and it can be used for Turf Irrigation in parks and/or golf courses or it could be filtered to be drinkable water but would require a high level of treatment to do so.

Controls Erosion

Healthy turfgrass acts as the best defense against soil erosion. Soil erosion can occur from several different ways most common ones being through water runoff and heavy wind storms.  Grass  has a strong root system it binds more effectively than any other plant, reason being is that 90% of the weight of a grass plant is in its roots.  A single grass plant can have over 300 miles of roots under the right conditions.  This also means that during heavy windstorms it has a strong foundation keeping the soil intact and can protect the soil from being blown away by trapping flying dirt into its leaves returning the dirt back to the soil over time.