Try Natural Yard Care
Use natural yard care to grow a healthy landscape that also protects people, pets, and Puget Sound. With natural yard care, you get beautiful gardens and delicious chemical-free food while helping to fight climate change, prevent waste, conserve water, and protect water quality.
Use the clean water tips below:
- Build Healthy soil with compost and mulch. Healthy soil absorbs more rainwater, leading to less runoff. Healthy soil can also filter and break down many pollutants.
- Use organic fertilizer, and only apply when it is needed. Organic fertilizers release slowly into the soil, which helps plants use them throughout the growing season, rather than quick-release chemical fertilizers that often get wasted and cause damage when they wash into streams and lakes.
- Avoid pesticides and herbicides, and in particular, don't fertilize or spray chemicals, even organic chemicals, before a rainstorm. Pesticides and herbicides in your yard can wash off into streams, harming aquatic life, fish, birds, and even our children and pets.
- Choose the right plant for the right place. Plants that are in a location that meets their optimal soil, climate, and sunlight conditions will do the best and need fewer inputs.
- Contact the Garden Hotline to help answer questions about your garden, including weed pest problems, soil care, and plant selection. This is a free service to Seattle and King County residents. Learn more about natural yard care for residents.
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