EDITORIAL: The Green Issue

A very famous frog once said, “It ain’t easy being green.” 
 
Everywhere you look, green is in. Green is good. And it doesn’t matter if a company really is green. Heck, many corporate giants have designed their advertising to reflect their environmental messages. Green is sexy. Green sells.
 
Our industry – the original “green” industry – should be the standard bearer for green. For decades, even more than a century, lawn and landscape professionals, irrigation contractors, nursery growers and arborists have provided aesthetic services to homes, parks, campuses, boulevards and sports fields.
 
Just look at the longevity of our industry’s national associations. The Associated Landscape Contractors of America started in 1961 and the Professional Lawn Care Association of America in 1979. They merged into the Professional Landcare Network in 2005. The Irrigation Association was founded in 1949, American Nursery and Landscape Association in 1876 and the Tree Care Industry Association in 1938.
 
Yet, for all of the professional groups and alliances that exist, the green industry is often targeted as the antithesis of green. Noisy, dirty mowers and blowers; gas-guzzling trucks and pickups; overuse of pesticides; water waste. These are the images our detractors draw upon to depict our industry.
 
What happened to our green messages? Like the fact that more green space within a city’s boundaries regulates air quality and climate, reduces energy consumption by countering the warming effects of paved surfaces, recharges groundwater supplies and protects lakes and streams from runoff? Or, how landscaping mitigates nitrate leaching into the water supply, reduces surface water runoff, keeps pollutants out of our waterways and prevents septic system overload. Or, how turfgrass surfaces absorb harsh sounds significantly better than hard surfaces. Or, how a single tree can remove 26 pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually, negating 11,000 miles of car emissions. 
 
As stewards of the environment, we encourage you to support and promote your green practices internally and externally. Because of the visibility and importance of all things green – and the obligation our industry has to stake its green claim – Lawn & Landscape dedicated the September issue to the topic of green and whether our industry lives up to its green moniker.
 
In this issue, our editorial team (pictured) examines what is green and how it has evolved in the lawn and landscape industry? How is our industry defining green compared to those outside the industry? And how alternative fuels, hybrid trucks, debris management, smart irrigation, green roofs, IPM and green practices contribute to the green movement. We look forward to your comments ont this subject. LL