Resources
Explore our library of guides, toolkits, and case studies designed for students, community members, and groundskeepers. Learn how to replace toxic pesticides with organic, regenerative landcare practices.
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8 Steps to a Toxic-Free Lawn
This quick fact sheet is a guide to the basic principles of non-toxic lawn care. It highlights different practices and guiding ideas for transitioning these spaces off of synthetic chemicals.
Tags: Lawn Care, Alternatives, Soil, Cultural Practices
Region: All Regions
The Common Sense Gardening Guide to Natural Lawn Care
This Common Sense Gardening Guide offers practical advice for maintaining an attractive and healthy lawn “the natural way,” while reducing the use of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, and water.
Tags: Alternatives, Lawn Care
Region: Northwest
Earth Easy’s Organic Lawn Care Guide
This guide provides the basics of caring for an organic lawn. It provides tips for managing pests, routine care, and going organic. Although it’s primarily focused on residential lawns, it also offers a few tips applicable to larger lawns and golf courses.
Tags: Lawn Care, Pest Management, Water
Regions: All Regions
Ecological Landscaping Tools for Massachusetts Homeowners
This guide recognizes that “our traditional lawn and garden care replaces native forests, wetlands, and other wildlife habitats with monocultural landscapes.” It seeks to remedy this by giving ideas and tools for how to make one’s yard fit into the larger ecosystem, conserving water, preserving biodiversity, and saving time. It includes both a design guide and a maintenance guide.
Tags: Homeowners, Water, Native Plants, Design, Pest Management
Region: Northeast
Florida Friendly Landscaping Guide to Plant Selection and Landscape Design
This guide features eight real design scenarios that highlight what can be done to create healthier, more environmentally sound lawn landscapes. While these designs were created to minimize negative impacts on the landscape, they are not all completely organic.
Tags: Basic Overview, Design, Fertilizer, Homeowners, Native Plants, Pest Management, Water
Region: Southeast
IPM at School: A How-to Manual for New Jersey Schools
A guide from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Pesticide Control Program for school district superintendents, local school boards, principals, IPM coordinators and other administrators for implementing an IPM program. It was created in response to the School IPM Act, which mandated that schools have an IPM program. This manual outlines day-to-day and site-specific issues including how to handle certain pests.
Tags: IPM, Schools, Pest Management
Region: Northeast
Least Toxic Control of Weeds - Beyond Pesticides
General information on weed prevention, management, and solutions. This guide provides alternatives to toxic pesticides.
Tags: Product Swaps, Alternatives
Regions: All Regions
Least-Toxic Control of Pests: Lawns/ Landscapes/ Gardens
This is a database of more than thirty different potential pests in lawns, landscapes, and gardens and a resource for evaluating various types of pests, including invasive plant species.
Tags: Pest Management, Alternatives
Regions: All Regions
Mom’s Across America Guide to RoundUp Alternatives
Provides the everyday person with easy and safe RoundUp/glyphosate alternatives.
Tags: Product Swaps
Regions: All Regions
NOFA Organic Lawn Care Guide
A comprehensive guide to organic lawn care. This guide provides resources on the effects of pesticides, the importance of soil health, the financial implications of going organic, the culture of organic land care, and dealing with specific pests.
Tags: Fertilizer, Pest Management, Alternatives, Soil, Turf, Cultural Practices
Regions: Northeast, All Regions
North Carolina Extension’s Organic Lawn Care Guide
This guide describes how to establish a new lawn and maintain it organically and how to transition an existing lawn into an organic lawn.
It relies on IPM principles and highlights organic solutions to pests and weeds common to North Carolina.
Tags: Turf, Pest Management, Disease Control
Region: South East (North Carolina)
Ohio State University Extension’s Organic Lawn Care Guide
This guide is on how to evaluate the health of one’s lawn as well as how to manage the lawn in an organic way.
Tags: Fertilizer, Transition from Synthetic, Irrigation, Pest Management, Maintenance Schedule
Region: Midwest (Ohio)
Organic Land Care Project (Rutgers University)
New Jersey based guide to organic lawn care. This guide is for landscaping managers and landscape contractors on “best management practices for effectively conducting organic land care.
Tags: Alternatives, Basic Overview, Compost, Disease Control, Invasive Species, Lawn Care, Native Plants, Pest Management, Product Swaps, Soil, Transition from Synthetic, Turf, Water
Region: Northeast, All Regions
Organic Landcare Best Management Practices Manual
An in-depth guide to transitioning your land to organic management. It provides information and resources on the initial assessment of the soil, wildlife, pests, and irrigation.
Tags: Soil, Turf, Pest Management, Water, Native Plants, Invasive Species, Emergency Treatment
Region: Northeast
Turf Comparison Report
This report offers a comparison of the cost of managing conventional turf versus natural turf. Based on mid-level turf management programs, this study found that natural (organic) turf management can lead to a 25% increase in savings compared to conventional management.
Tags: Cost Comparison
Regions: All Regions
Turf Management Mobile
A website that provides recommendations for treatments depending on the turf disease, turf weeds, and/or turf pests.
Tags: Product Swaps
Region: Midwest, All Regions
University of Wisconsin’s Organic and Reduced-Risk Lawn Care Guide
This guide is meant for Wisconsin homeowners who aim to have a completely organic or “reduced-risk” lawn, meaning they utilize the ‘safest’ pesticides on the market in minimal amounts. It provides soil testing resources and how to understand the soil test results.
Tags: Basic Overview, Compost, Pest Management,
Region: Midwest
