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Frederick Lawn Business Sees Green Growth FREDERICK, Md. (AP) - Philip E. Catron loves the lawn-care business but says the chemically dependent industry didn't like his organically oriented ideas. So after butting heads for nearly a decade at companies such as TruGreen ChemLawn, the young agronomist started his own firm, NaturaLawn of America http://www.nl-amer.com, in his Montgomery County basement in 1987. Fifteen years later, NaturaLawn has grown into a $23 million franchisor with 55 offices coast-to-coast and plans for nearly 100 more. Catron, president of the Frederick-based company, said environmentally responsible lawn care is catching on with people concerned about excessive chemical use. "One of the things that really kind of led to the birth of this company is when people said, 'You can't do this. It's impossible."' Catron said. "And when somebody says you can't do it, it's kind of a challenge." He said he and partner Beecher Smith, based in Conifer, Colo., near Denver, have gone their own way in an industry in which liberal application of fertilizers and pesticides has been the norm. "It's very easy to pull a chemical trigger," Catron said. "It's a lot harder to sit back and make the changes to solve the problem and stop treating symptoms, which is typically what our industry does - they just treat symptoms." NaturaLawn begins with the premise that the picture-perfect lawn is a myth. "Lawns will always have some weeds and insects and most lawns will always have some bare spots and tend to go brown during the summer or other stress periods," a company brochure says. Instead of pouring on pesticides and inorganic fertilizers that can damage microscopic plants and animals in the soil, NaturaLawn educates its customers on the science of soil and turf health and lets them choose from a range of organic-based, biological and synthetic materials that can be applied by the company or the consumer. "We've been able to reduce and almost eliminate the unnecessary use of chemicals and pesticides by well over 85 to 90 percent in most cases. You don't need all that. It is a truly holistic approach of how to care of a lawn," Catron said. "It's the exact opposite of the TruGreen ChemLawn approach." TruGreen ChemLawn, the Memphis, Tenn.-based leader of the $17.4 billion lawn-care industry, objected to the characterization of its practices as wasteful and harmful. Spokesman Norman Goldenberg said the company applies chemicals selectively and has reduced its use of pesticides for surface insect control to 20 percent to 30 percent of the amounts used in the early 1990s. He said TruGreen ChemLawn offers an organic-based fertilizer program but that fewer than one-tenth of 1 percent of customers choose it. "They want to see results right away and the orangic-basd program doesn't afford the opportunity for the customer to see results within the growing season," Goldenberg said. Others in the lawn-care industry are skeptical of NaturaLawn's claims but the American Horticultural Society was sold. The group chose NaturaLawn this spring to repair and restore the turf at its headquarters, George Washington's River Farm, in Alexandria, Va. Catron said NaturaLawn uses more costly materials than other lawn-care companies but its treatment fees are comparable because it uses the materials sparingly over the long term and tends to retain its customers. The typical charge of $48 per bimonthly treatment "may be $1 or $2 higher per visit, but sometimes it's less," Catron said. A self-taught businessman, Catron has made enemies in the industry with his attacks on TruGreen ChemLawn, his former employer. One NaturaLawn print advertisement from 1992 showed a family outdoors in gas masks. "Is this your idea of a backyard barbecue?" it asked. Another posed the question, "Are your children playing in a chemical dump?" Tom Delaney, executive vice president of the Marietta, Ga.-based Professional Lawn Care Association http://www.plcaa.org, refused to discuss nonmember NaturaLawn by name but said consumers should be wary of organic lawn-care claims. "A company might say they're an organic lawn-care company but all they're talking about is their fertilizer. There are very few organic-derived pesticides that work on lawns," Delaney said. He said many mainstream companies offered organic-based alternatives 10 years ago but pulled back after consumers balked at the higher cost and longer time it took to get the results they wanted. Besides, "a grass plant doesn't know what it's getting," Delaney said."That's a people preference, not a plant preference." Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides http://www.beyondpesticides.org, a Washington-based environmental group, said NaturaLawn seems earth-friendly in its responses to the group's queries but consumers must ultimately decide what goes on their grass. "If the customer says, 'Look, we only want to use your cultural, biological or biorational options,' NaturaLawn will work with you, but this is where the customer needs to get involved," Feldman said. "Consumers have to be more environmentally savvy to wade through the rhetoric." |
