There it is, right beside the flats of pansies. The arsenal of chemicals that home gardeners will unleash on the environment. I love those “Wild West” themed commercials that make spraying your dandelions the manly thing to do. The man whose dandelion dies the quickest wins the shootout at the suburban driveway.
Whatever happened to pulling? Or burning? Or, heaven forbid, ignoring?
And that wasp and hornet killer. Are you sure it’s not going to kill beneficial insects like bees and dragonflies? How many people store this stuff properly, as per the instructions on the container, and how much of it ends up leaking and forgotten on a shelf in a shed or basement?
The name “Home Defense” is absurd. If you have a serious problem on the level of defending your home from truly dangerous invaders, you should be calling a professional. It’s much more effective, and safer for you, too.
When it comes to your lawn, do you fall for that “4-step” hype when all it takes to grow turf is really good soil? These products are energy-intensive to manufacture, hazardous to the environment, and do nothing to enhance soil quality. In fact, lawn chemicals kill beneficial organisms, creating grass that is a chemically-dependent desert.
Most people don’t care about that, I guess, but a few of us do. Please consider alternatives before you spray.
Digging RI 
We inhale all this crap, eat it when it lands on our food and drink it when it ends up in our water. Isn’t that cool? :0 I’m not a fan of products that poison us, and all the little creatures we share the planet with!
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I hear you. What really bothers me is not having a choice, or even knowing what they’re poisoning us with.
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I have a large yard and can’t handle the mowing and all that kind of stuff that goes with lawn maintenance, so I hire a wonderful guy who takes care of it for me. In the early days, he’d say that he needed to spray my yard to get rid of weeds and vines and other things that wanted to take over. When I told him “no chemicals” he thought I was crazy. Through the years, he’s come to understand that I love the critters more than I hate the weeds. Instead of spraying something, he mows it. Isn’t that a better solution? OK, maybe my yard doesn’t look like a golf course, but I rest happy knowing that each year my yard recovers a little more from all the years of chemical treatment.
These chemicals could cause a lot of damage (or death) to the wildlife in my yard. I’m telling you, my yard looks like a Disney movie with all the little critters happily scurrying about. I can’t tell you how much joy it brings me. A lot more than a sprayed weed or wasp nest ever could.
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Your yard sound like a chemical-free haven, CJ. Too bad everyone doesn’t think like you.
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