Are Lawn Inputs a Hazard

As lawn historian Virginia Scott Jenkins concludes, front lawns are the product of two elements the ability and the desire to grow and tend lawn grasses. To say that a coherent lawn aesthetic had been established in the late 1900s and that the land economics of the mid-twentieth century made available the space for its creation and the condition for its desire (Chapter 2) by no means assures 

4-D = dichlorophenoxyacetic acid MCPA/MCPP = meta-chlorophenylpiperazine 2-methyl-4-chlorophenoxy-acetic acid 

Plants and Gardens. (1956). Handbook on lawns. Special Issue oiPlants and Gardens 12(2). Rockwell, Frederick Frye. (1929). Lawns. New York The Macmillan Company. 

Schery, Robert. (1961). The lawn book. New York Macmillan Company. Schery, R. W. (1973). A perfect lawn The easy way. New York Macmillan. Sprague, H. B. (1940). Better lawns for homes and parks. New York McGraw Hill Book Company. 

Parsons Barron Rockwell Dickinson Spr ue Dawson Gardens Schery Schery 

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Thus, the American Lawn is a political and economic (and not solely cultural) object that by its design (and not by any form of ecological accident) demands inputs. Many of these inputs are hazardous, and knowledge of these hazards is easily available to lawn people. 

First, the modem lawn cannot be an expression of culture outside of a political and economic history in which property, citizenship, and proper consumer behavior are conjoined. Second, lawns (although not necessarily grasses) must at some level require the inputs invested in them by people, and these demands must enforce human practices and behaviors. Third, chemicals for lawns must also represent real problems, ones bom of a risk society where hazards and... 

The short list of chemicals represents only a small fraction of the inputs applied throughout North America. Lindane, malathion, MCPP, metolachlor, metribuzin, oryzalin, pendimethalin, and pronamide are just a few other of the dozens of formulations for insect and weed control available at any hardware or home maintenance store. All of them are toxic to some degree or another, and question marks hang over many of them as to the risk they may pose for people and the ambient environment. The potential hazards of each of the chemicals described above hints at the range of contemporary hazards associated with lawn care. 

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