Where the Grass Is Never Greener
The "lawns" of the National Mall are notoriously dustbowl-esque.
But for a few glorious months, several acres of grass were looking pretty swell. (They're easy to find in the photograph above. Hint: look toward the top.) This spring, people were even spotted taking off their shoes and running around.
The reason? SafeLawns.org, a Maine-based nonprofit, was managing two roughly two-acre plots of land, using only organic products; meanwhile, the National Park Service had replanted and cultivated another plot of land.
Then sadly and abruptly, part of SafeLawns' new lush carpet of green turned to a depressing brown mat. Employees at Safelawns discovered the change in May. The effects were traumatic for, well, some.
"It was like seeing your child with a scar," says Paul Tukey, founder and director of Safelawns. "Your heart bleeds. But your child, if you put a bandaid on it, and continue to nurture the child, it will get better."
Tukey's organization advocates for natural, "environmentally responsible" lawn products, in favor of chemical pesticides, which made Tukey sick in the early 1990s, back when he owned a lawn care company.
"[The chemicals] affect everyone differently," he explains, "It’s like alcohol. Some people get drunk on one beer. Some people can drink and not show any effects. These lawn chemicals don’t make everyone sick. But they make enough people sick that it’s a really big problem."
Safelawns coordinated the Mall project through a partnership with the National Park Service. The experiment was a test run to see if "environmentally friendly soil treatments such as compost tea can improve the viability of the soil enough to make grass more viable under the extreme compaction conditions of the National Mall," according to the agreement.
Yet, Safelawns always knew that its land would not be protected from the usual trampling and ongoing festivals, ceremonies, and protests. That was part of the deal.
When word got out about the newly-browned lawn, some local gardeners were none too pleased. "What a wasted opportunity to teach the public that they CAN really give up the poisons and pollutants without incurring the scorn of their neighbors," wrote Susan Harris on the blog Garden Rant.
The rumor mill started churning. Soon, a culprit had been fingered: George Washington University. The school had held its graduation on Sunday May 18 on the National Mall.
"Black, plastic tarp was laid over the entire site, then chairs were set out and the lawn just cooked and cooked and cooked," according to DC Urban Garners News (the post was also compiled by Harris).
Not so, says Bill Line, spokesperson for the National Park Service.
"No 'permitee' is allowed to put down any tarp, so I can disabuse you and I can disabuse Paul Tukey of any tarp," Line told the Washington City Paper. "That issue is off the table. There is no tarp involved." But there are two approved materials that can be used for vehicles driving equipment or materials onto the Mall.
And GW was not the offending group, adds Line. As far as he knows, the GW folks just set up their chairs and stage one day, and took 'em down the next. The Council for Excellence in Government, a national nonprofit, actually laid down the destructive material during their time, April 28 to May 8, on the Mall.
The group did put down a deposit for damages, like all other groups that obtain permits to hold events on the Mall. They were not billed additionally.
6:02 pm
Thanks for doing the legwork on this, Ruth! I guess I should insert a sarcastic comment here about "excellence in government" oxymoron and how could this organization could devastate such an important experiment on organic lawncare and our National Mall. So was the deposit returned to the offending group? I hope not, and are the funds going to be used to bring back the lawn organically? Re-seeding and any renovation cannot take place until September. We shall be waiting and watching.
6:35 pm
That link to the DC Urban Gardener News story didn't work, so here it is: http://www.gardenrant.com/dc_urban_gardeners/2008/06/the-sad-state-o.html
Those words about how the grass "just cooked and cooked" were those of a SafeLawns spokesperson.(And in case THAT link doesn't work, it's a June 27 story on dc-urban-gardener-news.com. Susan
9:09 pm
Thanks to the City Paper for correcting the record on this. But why not ask the NPS and The Council for Excellence in Government to address the problem directly and to say who is going to foot the bill for SafeLawns.org to restore the lawn. And ask the NPS why they don't establish standards that require users of the Mall to protect/restore the lawn as a result of their events. This would be more complete journalism.
9:15 am
If it looks like a tarp and smells like a tarp, its a tarp.
Perhaps they should ban the mysterious black looking plastic sheeting was laid over the majority of the site in May, that as a runner I saw EVERY DAY. These "approved materials" certainly seem to be doing as much damage as any tarp could.
I don't know what lawn, organic or not, could survive this beating. Its time to start taking more pride in our National Mall and not let people absolutely destroy it whenever they see fit.
Good news however, it seems to be coming back strongly, regardless of this travesty.
12:05 pm
DC parks need sprinklers. Both DC parks,and NPS.
10:19 am
We had plenty of rain this year - so much so that NO supllemental watering has been needed in our area - unless you have containers under a roof or balcony overhang.
I'm visiting the Mall again tomorrow and will see how the section is returning back - but July-Aug is our traditional drought time when turfgrass should die-back for a while and give it a rest. It is unrealistic to expect thick green grass all year round, but we should at least expect that our "national lawn" be healthy and chemical-free.
7:27 pm
I am surprised that Washington Gardener says that no supplemental watering has been needed this summer except for containers under overhangs. I garden in Arlington, 4 miles from DC, and I can assure you that I am watering my containers daily, sometimes twice daily. However, it is correct that no other watering has been needed other than for tomatoes. Certainly July and August are dry periods here and it is unrealistic to expect lawns to grow and remain green now; during my many years working at the Smithsonian on the Mall, I have seen the grass go brown and die back every summer, but it always regenerates in late September with the arrival of cooler nights and fall rains. This said, maybe the NPS could devise a program which would protect some of the lawns on the Mall from the most harmful effects of foot traffic.
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