Our mission is to provide viewers of this web site with relevant, zone specific, up-to-date information on alternatives to pesticides, so that you can begin to practice pesticide-free yard care. We hope those who view it will choose to move toward eliminating the use of pesticides on lawns and gardens. Changing yard care practices really is about changing your attitude.

We promote sustainable gardening practices to protect our environment and our natural resources:

1. We encourage lawns and gardens which will thrive in our dry Southern Alberta climate, therefore dramatically reducing the need to use our precious water resources to maintain our lawns. This includes replacing your lawn with native species plants.

2. We encourage people with lawns to consider a push mower instead of a motorized 2-stroke engine mower.

3. We encourage people to mulch their grass clippings - important because it provides some fertilizer for your lawn, holds moisture and keeps them out of the landfill. You can refit most existing mowers with mulching blades.

4. We encourage composting to create healthy soil and reduce organics in our landfills.

As well, this web site will tell you why it is important to move toward pesticide-free yard care. It will provide information on scientific evidence, professional opinions, news releases, and physicians' information supporting a move away from pesticide use.

Why move away from our dependence on pesticides? Pesticides are poisons, designed to kill, and they are not without risk. While pesticides may keep your lawn looking like a golf course, you must ask yourself, is it worth the risk?

There is increasing evidence to indicate that pesticides pose a risk to our health, our children's health, our pets' health and the health of the environment. Young children, because of their size and under-developed immune systems are especially at risk. Although the effects of pesticide use over several years or a lifetime of exposure are not fully understood, the immediate health effects on people who are accidentally over-exposed to pesticides may include symptoms commonly mistaken as the flu:

- nausea
- tiredness
- stomach cramps
- headaches
- skin and eye irritation
- dizziness

[http://www.pesticidefreeyards.org/]

Remember, as our knowledge about the toxicity of these chemicals increases, the "safe" threshold of exposure has been continuously revised downward. Why take the risk?

Join the growing move toward Pesticide-Free Gardening!

The original article has a number of excellent links to further information on these topics. ~ RM