107 | Dangers of Artificial Turf

Narrator 0:04

Music. How would you like to improve your health and keep your family safe? You're listening to the Healthy Home hacks podcast, where we firmly believe enjoying optimal health shouldn't be a luxury. Healthy Home authorities and husband and wife team, Ron and Lisa will help you create a home environment that will level up your health. It's time to hear from the expert. Listen in on honest conversations and gain the best tips and advice. If you're ready to dive in and improve your well being and increase your energy, you're in the right place. All right. Here are your hosts, bio biologists, authors, media darlings, vicarious vegans and avocado aficionados, Ron and Lisa Beres,

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Ron Beres 0:50

I got a question, real or fake, which do you prefer? We're talking about grass, people, grass. Jeez, get your head out of the gutter.

Lisa Beres 0:59

Synthetic grass may look picture perfect and appear to be maintenance free, but environmental and health concerns are prompting many people today to rip out their artificial Elans. Yep, you heard that right. You've heard of microplastics showing up at alarming rates in our drinking water, our food and more, but you've probably never considered that that perfect green artificial grass that you and your family love to enjoy and play on could be hazardous to your and your family's health.

Ron Beres 1:29

Big grass can release microplastics and forever chemicals known as PFAs. So it's no surprise that many people now think that their artificial lawns are hazmat sites, and they're ripping them out.

Lisa Beres 1:43

Oh, but what precautions are needed to do so safely? Are there better solutions to replace artificial plastic products, and where and how does someone get started? Hang tight friends. We're going to cover this and more on this episode. California homeowners in particular need, responsible, responsive environmental landscapes that naturally adapt to changing climate conditions.

Ron Beres 2:07

Our guest today, Danny North is a horticulturist and a turfgrass professional at West Coast turf specializing in caropia, drought tolerant ground cover, sod and turfgrass management with degrees in horticultural science, sports turf management and integrated pest management, it is a personal goal of Danny's to assist others in achieving a successful and esthetically pleasing outdoor landscape or plane surface. Welcome to the show, Danny.

Dani North, Horticulturalist 2:41

Boy, yeah, thank you. Ronalisa, thank you for having me. It's such an honor. Oh, we're so excited to have you. This is a really important topic. It really is. I really appreciate you guys having me on the pod today to talk about Terp brass and to answer your question. Ron real real is always the way to real, real. And we're talking grass, right? We're talking grass today. Grass, yes, real is always the way to get not the good stuff. We're talking about turf grass, turf grass, turf grass. Get your minds out, guys. Okay, well, Danny, I want to dive right in. We did an episode with Rama, a landscape designer, on native landscaping, and this really parallels to what we're going to talk about today. They really go hand in hand, and I think your philosophies are very similar. So I want to dive right in. What are the current challenges California homeowners with lawns are facing today, right? So the lawn is a fundamental to the American garden, but recently, we've been facing really this lawn versus nature battle. We have hot summers and long periods of drought, and now we're facing mandated water restrictions, and so this is really leaving us with some difficult outcomes. We're limiting our water and that's leaving us with dead or patchy lawns, and we're having large water bills, and this is forcing us to really reduce our long size. 75% of our rainfall occurs north of Sacramento, but 80% of our water consumption comes from the lower two thirds of the state. Oh, wow. A third of our water comes from the Colorado River. So we also have these water wars that I'm sure you've been hearing of the other two thirds. So we are getting from local sources, or we're getting from our state's water projects, which would be our dams and our canals and our pumping plants. But really, we're still fighting this challenge, and we're needing to find new ways to overcome how do we compete with this? And thankfully, we have our state and our local water districts really coming up with these amazing rebates and programs where it's really encouraging homeowners, and not just homeowners, but cities and even golf courses can use these programs to utilize to either switch.

Switch the types of grasses they're using, or switch their irrigation systems to a more water saving, more environmentally friendly type of program and allow them to benefit from and allow them to pay for them as well. So I'll mention this further along too, and I'll remind you along the way, but really utilizing those sources are going to be the best way to do that. It'd be

Lisa Beres 5:23

great to list some of those resources and put that in the show notes. Guys, if you are concerned about your yard, and do you guys only cover California? And if so, is it the entire state?

Dani North, Horticulturalist 5:34

So us at West Coast, we cover quite a few states here in the Western US, Germany, outdoor brands as a nation. They have a network that will cover the entire US. They use different sod farms all over the US. And again, Bermudas are going to be utilized mostly in the warmer states. I know that the two of you come from mostly cooler states. From what I've seen, I know Washington, DC and Boston, but you also Lisa, a

Ron Beres 6:04

researcher, Northern Virginia.

Dani North, Horticulturalist 6:11

So Lisa, you came from Arizona. You spent some time in Arizona. Was that in a cooler climate, or was that in a warmer climate, warm

Lisa Beres 6:18

I grew up in Lake Havasu City. Okay, yes. And you say 125 degrees in the summer? Yeah, I've definitely spent some time, yeah. And then I went to college. I graduated from ASU. I went to U of A for a few years, and I graduated from ASU. So, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, everywhere.

Dani North, Horticulturalist 6:36

So you might be familiar with some of these things that I that I'm going to talk about today. Well, I'll tell

Ron Beres 6:41

you what I'm familiar with is the water utility bill. I swear at one time price for water, right? It used to be, I think they would bill you quarterly. No, it used to be nominal. It used to be quarterly. And the price that I'm paying now monthly is twice as much as the quarterly price, I think from a few years ago. Wasn't it quarterly? I

Lisa Beres 6:58

swear at one time it was around, I remember that too. Yeah, it just keeps inching up every

Ron Beres 7:03

time. So you have our ear, Danny, you really do exactly,

Dani North, Horticulturalist 7:07

and that's really they're just trying to wake the public up and try to figure out, how can we let the public know that this is an issue and something needs to be done? And what more can wake the public up than by shaking their pockets. You know, right? Another really big way to really get the public in the know is doing something like you guys doing educating, educating the public is a really, really big way to let the public know what their options are. What can we do? Okay, my water bill is super high. What now? How can I change what's happening now? How can I get my lawn that looks terrible because I'm following all the rules. I've reduced my water, but now I've got a lawn that's my kids can't play on, or just looks terrible, great.

Lisa Beres 7:54

What's the point of the lawn at that? Right? What

Dani North, Horticulturalist 7:56

are my options? Yeah, so many have turned to synthetic turf, because that was a big option not too long ago, but as we're continuing to see, may not have been the best option.

Lisa Beres 8:11

Yeah, and I feel bad for all the people that did replace their lawns with the artificial turf, feeling like they were doing the right thing, to not only save water, but have this perfect looking yard, and now we're finding out these micro plastics, which not only from turf, as I mentioned at the top. I mean, micro plastics are a massive, massive problem right now for health. Everyone up in everything. We live in a plastic world. I mean, everything's PLA even the clothes are plastic, right? I mean, if you buy polyester clothes, guys, that's plastic, like anything petroleum derived, and pee poly. So, yeah, it's getting kind of crazy,

Dani North, Horticulturalist 8:47

yeah. And it was a huge discovery in the, you know, the 50s. This was the new plastic. I mean, we can do so many things with this, and it's only later that we've found out that, oh,

Lisa Beres 8:56

yeah, oops, oops. They seem to do that with a lot of

Dani North, Horticulturalist 9:00

right goals, and really it's most man made things. Most man made things. If it's not nature made

Lisa Beres 9:07

it's, yeah, gonna bite you in the butt at some point. That's what I say most of the time. What should

Ron Beres 9:12

someone do if they have artificial, synthetic turf? I mean, what are your thoughts on that? I know you obviously don't like it, but what if someone already made that decision, or they inherited that decision. Obviously,

Dani North, Horticulturalist 9:20

I'm a little biased here, because so when I say I'm a Turfgrass specialist, if you haven't figured out a natural turf grass specialist. So when you hear the word turf, it doesn't always mean synthetic or artificial turf. Was actually originally known for natural turf. I mean, they kind of stole the name from us. But at first, it's important to kind of know why we're finding negativities with synthetic or artificial turf. The first thing that many people have already noticed is that it's very hot. Not only is it very hot to the touch, but it's going to really increase that heat index. It'll increase that air above the surface by 40 to 70 degrees. Researchers are finding. If it's 100 degrees outside, that air above the turf grass is going to be 175 even. Whoa, right?

Lisa Beres 10:10

How far up are we talking?

Dani North, Horticulturalist 10:12

I mean, we're just talking, you know, even a few feet. But that heat index is going to continue to rise right as we continue to install more and more synthetic turf, and we don't need that already. We already have asphalt. And culprit, it's a concrete jungle here in LA. We know that. So as we continue to take out plants and lawns and put more synthetic materials like astroturf and astroturf,

Lisa Beres 10:38

we had that in our house and Lake Havasu,

Dani North, Horticulturalist 10:42

right? And other materials where it's not necessarily a natural material, we're going to continue to increase that heat index, and we already know what that's going to do with our climate, right? It's already too hot. It's already time to do this in the summertime, right? Yeah, right. Exactly. Another negative thing we're saying is that it's not self cleaning. So unlike natural brass, where it can filter out all of that bad stuff, we're going to need to apply products, chemicals again and water water again to remove any of those pet odors or bacteria. We see this lot in sports turf when athletes are playing on synthetic turf, they're getting fungal bacteria and fungal infections from sliding on the turf, things like that. They're actually breaking out in staph infections and other type of infections from using these sports fields. And

Lisa Beres 11:35

it didn't hurt, right?

Ron Beres 11:38

You're speaking to a junior high athlete,

Dani North, Horticulturalist 11:40

oh, there you go.

Ron Beres 11:41

There you go. An ankle biter, football player. I remember playing artificial grass, and when you hit the grass, when it skins your knee or skins part of your leg, oh my gosh, there was a big difference between that and grass. Definitely. They're like you're playing on grandma's wool rug. I

Lisa Beres 11:57

don't know what it is, but that was a long time ago. I think the grass is softer now, correct? Danny, they're

Dani North, Horticulturalist 12:03

trying to make some changes to alleviate that, but I don't think that it's changing fast enough. I know that at least many sports players in Europe, some of them in their contracts, will actually require that they're playing on natural turf. They're actually signing this in their contracts that they are wearing that they're playing on natural because they know how unhealthy it is to play on synthetic, right, right? Many reasons? Yeah, higher probability

Ron Beres 12:27

of knee injuries too. Yeah. So that's part of the issuance. Hard, right? You don't have that. It doesn't give basically, your cleat hits that artificial grass. It doesn't move. And if you're trying to plant yourself and twist in a different direction. Sometimes your knee doesn't go there, and it's so, yeah, it's

Lisa Beres 12:46

weird. How much like we're in Orange County. So there's a lot of resorts and places like nice places, and they've, I mean, all of the resorts now are using it because it looks so perfect. It's this perfect bright green lawn. But how do they clean that? Are you supposed to hose it down? What is the cleaning process?

Dani North, Horticulturalist 13:05

So there's actual products that they recommend that you purchase, which, again, you're putting more money into that. That was the initial buy in was, Oh, I just have to put this money up front and then I just set it and forget it, right? But no, there's lots of actual products you have to buy, you know, brushing equipment, cleaning equipment, you really have to hose it down a lot. There's a lot of water that still goes into synthetic turf, whether it's used to be housing it down to cool it down, closing it down to clean it. So there's still a lot of water and a lot of money that still needs to be going in. And hopefully it got installed correctly, and you're not seeing weeds and bungs coming apart, right? Right?

Lisa Beres 13:43

And I'm wondering too, because when we talk about toxins in the home, there are so many toxins hiding in adhesives, right? Formaldehyde, perhaps would right, a biggie that's in a lot of adhesives, like for MDF particle board, what kind of adhesives do they use when they lay down this turf,

Dani North, Horticulturalist 14:01

you know, I'm not too sure about that, because I deal more with Nashville brass, but I do know that when I talk about removing there is a site that I recommend on where you can go for some cleaner lists of glues, right? And blue, not glues, but kind of glue removal products, right? But in terms of what they use, I'm not as familiar with, right? I'm

Lisa Beres 14:25

sure it's something toxic. Because if it was, Oh, I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure, right? They want the hardest, stickiest thing exactly they wanted to stay, and they want to stay for a good long time, right? Yeah. So there's got to be some off gassing going on there. Well, probably major off gassing, exactly, exactly. We

Dani North, Horticulturalist 14:40

want to talk about that chemical makeup of the syntheter, because really, that's what we're kind of here to talk about the most concerning part of synthetics. Yeah, we've got toxic materials. You have carcinogens, but you have those PFAs, those forever chemicals. And without jumping too far into it, I just want to talk about PFAs for a. Little

Lisa Beres 15:00

bit. Yes, let's go there. We did a whole episode on it, guys with scientists from the Environmental Working Group. I think it's episode 33

Dani North, Horticulturalist 15:06

but I'm okay do that. I could touch some bases, but not get too far into it. It looks like you've got that base covered. Yeah.

Lisa Beres 15:13

Let's talk about that, though, because listeners might have forgotten so PFAs is perfluoroal and perfluoroalkyl substances that we all think of, nonstick cookware, okay, that it's stained grease water. It makes a stain, grease and water resistant, coating on whatever you put it on. So cookware, maybe a gore tex piece of clothing, maybe your stain master rug and in this case, on artificial grass to keep it from staining, I'm guessing, and all of that too, right? Water resistant, grease resistant,

Dani North, Horticulturalist 15:45

yeah, back in 2019 they started to find these an artificial turf. And really there's multiple ways that this can be exposed to the person. It can be inhaled, which is really the number one way that it can be exposed to the person. And again, we have kids and dogs and people playing on this stuff, not just for just normal outings, but in kids sports, it can be absorbed through the skin. So when you have again, kids playing soccer or football, where they're really sliding and getting really down and dirty on that somatic field, they're really coming in contact, yeah, with that material. And the last is ingestion. And though we don't really see that maybe being a big thing, imagine those cleats really hitting that material, and the black material that they use for filler that's all like rubber tire material, and that gets thrown into the air a lot with those plates. And you know, usually when you're playing a sports, you're using your mouth to inhale, exhale, and quite easily end up in the mouths of these players, you know, so getting it that's most commonly how we see this being exposed to people, to pets. So PFAs can weaken the immune system. It can cause disruptions to reproduction and development. It can cause issues with the endocrine system, so we're talking your thyroid and your hormone and your hormone levels. It can cause metabolic changes and changes in the liver, and it can increase the risk of cancer. So so many, so many things that we're finding out about PFAs, and we're just really cracking open the shell. Yeah, this is just the beginning of the reason it's with PFAs, yeah, which is scary. You know, it's

Lisa Beres 17:31

very scary. Yeah,

Dani North, Horticulturalist 17:32

we really want to do what we can, and

Lisa Beres 17:34

it doesn't break down, which is why it's also nicknamed the Forever chemical, because it doesn't, yeah, it doesn't break down the environment. So it's not a one and done, and then it's gone. It stay, yeah, right. We're

Dani North, Horticulturalist 17:44

finding these in our body, and our body can't get rid of it,

Lisa Beres 17:47

right? So everybody can break it down in days. And you made me think when you were talking about the pets and little kids. I mean, especially little kids are putting their fingers in their mouth. They're touching that grass, so they're like, directly ingesting that same with pets, you know, licking, sniping, right? And so that's usually the people using this artificial grass exactly on it. I mean, adults might not get unless they're in a sport, but they might not get down there, but kids and pets for sure. So that's it.

Ron Beres 18:14

What have a good point when a pet goes on an artificial lawn? Let's say it goes out to do its job. What happens to that, does it even seep through the artificial grass, or is it kind of just stuck there? They're

Lisa Beres 18:25

not supposed to go to the bathroom on that? I don't think. Okay, let's

Ron Beres 18:28

say the neighbor Fox's dog on your lawn, right? Or, let's say a squirrel or something. I mean, what happens to

Dani North, Horticulturalist 18:34

it is it? Hopefully it's getting picked up, obviously, the solids, the liquids. I mean, there are layers to it, and some of that will be able to seep through. And then hopefully, your soil is going to be able to absorb and filter that, because soils, again, will naturally be able to filter that. Unfortunately, it's also filtering whatever it's breathing into that from the arithmetic material, yeah, right, your chemicals will see your carcinogenic chemicals will see your PFAs. All that stuff is getting filtered through the soil, which we know groundwater will eventually end up into the ocean. So yep, just start back into

Lisa Beres 19:12

our waterway, and PFAs is showing up, like we talked about in the water that we drink. That's whether you are using tap water or even filtered water, exactly, even bottled water. I mean, I shouldn't say filter, because a lot of good filtration systems will remove PFAs, but your typical, cheap bottled water isn't doing that, and your tap water is definitely not doing that. So you're ingesting this that way too. And then with every chemical, it's the dose, the dose, that makes the poison. So it's these cumulative effects of all of these areas where we're getting exposed to these chemicals. So like, synthetic grass is one, your water is one, your food is now one. Now it's getting to a point where it's like, whoa. This isn't a small amount anymore that we're being exposed to exactly. So thank you for touching on that. Now, how can a homeowner who's listening and their you know, mouth is dropped to the floor? Sorry, right now, how can they safely remove their synthetic turf?

Dani North, Horticulturalist 20:04

Right this way? Really need to know that we really kind of

Lisa Beres 20:07

scared everyone. Right this you

Dani North, Horticulturalist 20:10

always have the option to contact a professional. It's going to be safe and the convenient option. But if you are going to go the DIY approach, I can give you some helpful tips and steps and again, check those local water rebates, see what's available. So

Lisa Beres 20:26

you would call your water municipal company and ask them what kind of rebates you have. Okay, yes, you

Dani North, Horticulturalist 20:30

can check their website. They're going to offer a phone number and contact information on there. Much of the information is going to be on their website. They may also put you in touch with your even more local water district as well. There's rebates that may be offered through your Municipal Water District, but also even more local as well, and you can kind of double up on those as well. Great. That's

Lisa Beres 20:54

what our guest said before, double up on those rebates. Now, do you have water companies that are encouraging artificial grass because it saves water. Or do you feel like most of them are on board now

Dani North, Horticulturalist 21:05

with some still are allowing it? I see a lot more going towards water wise grasses, more native varieties. So really coming back to the natural senses and kind of trying to stairway again, like I mentioned, we were just trying to get out of the heavy water users and go towards anything and everything that would really kind of stop that. But now that we have more education behind our backs, we are kind of regrouping and redirecting towards a natural step. Yeah, so when we're talking about taking out that synthetic turf moving towards something more natural. We want to have our safety goggles, hair gloves and a dust mask on hand. This is going to protect us, exposing ourselves against those potentially toxic chemicals that can be released during the removal. We want to be able to have a utility knife or carpet cutter on hand, because we want to be able to section that grass into strips. This is going to make it easier to manage and minimize the release of microplastics and other hazardous compounds. Then we want to carefully remove any nails pigs or glue holding the turf in place. So for glued surfaces, use a low toxicity solvent or adhesive removal to release the turf without damaging any underlying surface. So this is where I was talking about I have that resource you want to look for products that carry the Environmental Protection Agency, Safer Choice logo, or visit epa.gov, forward slash, safer choice or a safer chemical ingredient list. Apa.gov, forward slash, safer choice for a safer chemical ingredient list. Then you want to roll those strips tightly and clean the remaining debris. Secure each roll with tape or rope. This will help contain potentially harmful chemical particles within the rolls. Then use an outdoor vacuum to collect any potentially harmful materials, carefully empty the vacuum into a sealable bag or container and dispose of it, along with the artificial turf rolls. And most importantly, we want to research local disposal regulations. This is a big one, because it's such a toxic product that we're disposing. And as of right now, there's really no way to recycle synthetic material, right? It's really critical that you research this and find a place where it's actually safe disposal site. So you want to visit California's Department of Toxic Substances Control, or dtsc.ca.gov, so that's Delta, Tango, Sierra, charlie.ca.gov, or call the dtsca headquarters office at 916-551-1313,

Lisa Beres 23:55

very far. Thank you for those resources.

Ron Beres 23:57

Thank you, Danny.

Dani North, Horticulturalist 23:58

So now that your synthetic turf is gone, we can now move forward, and we want to test that soil. Testing the soil will help guide any remediation decisions, to ensure that the soil is safe for planting, so we still might have some of those chemicals. Yeah, so we really would just want to check and make sure that we don't have anything left over, that everything is good to go for replanting. This is a process.

Ron Beres 24:21

Oh, my goodness. I

Lisa Beres 24:23

was reminding me of the EPA guidelines to what you do when you break what's the bulb? Oh, yeah. Well, the old, the old the halogen bulbs. Wait, I'm forgetting. No, the mercury. What's the ones that have mercury? Well,

Ron Beres 24:36

they have mercury too, right? The halogen bulbs,

Lisa Beres 24:38

the green, the CFL, CFL, yes. Oh, my God, legal anymore. Are they? They had the longest list on the EPA what to do if you break one, because mercury can be released into your house. And it was such a long list, and yet you can go down to any hardware store and buy these with no warning, but that mercury vapors you can inhale and all that, right?

Dani North, Horticulturalist 24:57

And it's just again. I mean, professional dude, they know these steps, but when you're trying to DIY, you really just want to make sure that all the steps are there, and that we're really being cautious about doing this, knowing that we're out there, we're on our hands and knees, we're right there in front of the beast, kind of exposing ourselves to what we know. And

Lisa Beres 25:20

I think also, like what we talk about so much on this show is a lot of these chemicals, I'd say most of them we can't see most of the time. We can't smell them, and so it's easy, especially if you're a DIY er, to go out of sight, out of mind. I'm not going to be exposed to these, you know, cancer causing chemicals, these flame retardants, these asbestos, formaldehyde, all of these really toxic chemicals that DIYers get exposed to all the time. And I see so many people doing this with no masks. I mean, a mask at the minimum, an N 95 like minimum, when you're dealing with anything like this, that's good. We should be used to that. I know. I know. Yeah, right. We had

Dani North, Horticulturalist 25:57

two years practice. We might be a little sick of it, but we're used to it, right, right? Well, Danny, you

Ron Beres 26:03

scared us some synthetic turf. You completely scare us gonna use it now, right? No one's using it.

Lisa Beres 26:08

I had one more thing I wanted to say. And when you were talking about disposing you can look up in your city the household hazardous waste drop off, and cities will often have, like, a day, couple days a month, where you can drive through in your car and they'll take your household hazardous waste, and that would include paint solvents, toxic cleaning products, like anything, even batteries, I think, anything that would be considered hazardous waste that you don't want to dispose of. So

Dani North, Horticulturalist 26:33

just double checking and making sure that it's a source that you can drop off before you load it up in your car and taking it use those resources and yeah, get rid of get rid of it. Goodbye

Lisa Beres 26:45

synthetic turf. I'm never going to look at synthetic turf the same. I'm going to give it a dirty look next time I see it. Dare you

Dani North, Horticulturalist 26:52

absolutely. Well, Danny, now

Ron Beres 26:54

let's say we're not talking about synthetic turf, and we're moving on. We're moving on from here. But now let's say a homeowner is struggling with a more water thirsty lawn, or they simply want to prepare a space in their landscape or a more climate appropriate lawn.

Dani North, Horticulturalist 27:09

What steps should they take? Right? So getting back to your soil test, let's start with your soil test. You want to do that first, and with your soil test, you want to grab soil from different parts of your yard, not just one area, but different parts of your yard, and you can send that. You can again, pull up and research where your local soil testing facility is, if I may plug, but again, not intentionally. Yes. Danny plug site one landscape supply takes both landscapers and homeowners soils, and they do offer soil tests as well. They are all over the place. So that is a good resource to use that you can actually go on site. That's amazing, but a great service. Yeah, it's awesome. And so while you're waiting for that result, you can start removing just because it might take a little while. You can start moving on with the process you want to remove. What is there so your existing lawn for quicker removal, you can rent a sod cutter from your local hardware supply store, a shovel work just fine. I'm one of the more lazier types, so I'll go right one of those sod cutters and start removing that top layer. But other options include solarization. So that would be placing a clear plastic tarp over the area, and you're really just heat treating that whole area, just kind of like that greenhouse effect that we learned back in bio, in our in our wet elements, middle school days, and really just kind of killing everything that's there with the heat. This works better in the summer months. As you can imagine, the hotter it is, the better that trip will work. And then obviously there's a more chemical removal, like herbicides. But we will hush hush on that topic on this podcast, no

Lisa Beres 28:51

Roundup. You're listening. You're still using Roundup. Get with the program, right? Exactly. No. The

Dani North, Horticulturalist 28:56

third step would be just to kind of loosen and decompact the soil there. Many of us have just kind of had our lawns there for a couple of decades. Over time, that will just become pretty compacted. So this is your time to kind of just loosen up that area, lighten the soil a bit, and after that, this is your time to make adjustments on your irrigation system before those new plants are in, whether it be a lawn, or your native plants, whatever you're planting in that area. You really want to make sure that your irrigation is working, or that your irrigation system exists at all. Okay, this is your time. If you need to dig new lines, or if you need to fix those irrigation heads, this is the time to do it, and you want to make sure the irrigation has what we call head to head coverage, and that means that all areas should be covered twice. So it should be covered by at least two heads, and that will ensure that your area is getting enough water from those sprinklers. Next you want to make sure that the area is cleared of any plant material and debris. So this will be making sure that your grasses weeds raw. Yes, there's lots of areas where I've come across that there's a lot of just naturally, there's a lot of rocks in the soil. We just want to make sure those are cleared away from the area, because that's going to prevent roots from being able to really grow down into the area and things like that. So next would be amending your soil. So by now, hopefully you've gotten your soil results back, and you'll be able to know what you're kind of lacking in your soil. This is when you can go into your local nursery or even your hardware store, and they'll be able to assist you in kind of finding those whether it's macronutrients or micronutrients, really helping to add in those amendments that your soil is missing.

Ron Beres 30:42

When you grab a soil sample, is it a small sample? What does that look like? Are you just doing a little mini scoop, putting in a bag and then, yeah.

Dani North, Horticulturalist 30:48

So usually you can take, like, kitchen cup size, like we're talking about measuring cup size from each area. Usually you can bring, like, a gallon size, maybe it's like, halfway full of soil, into the plant lab, or wherever you're taking it, if, usually, if usually, if you're sending it into a plant lab, you're usually marrying it in. If you're taking it into a site one location, then you're actually physically taking it in. So it just depends on where you're taking it, but usually about a half a gallon size sample of soil is going to do the trip, which is made up for multiple parts of the law, right? Because you want to get a true idea of what your entire area is missing or lacking. If you're just going from one area, say, you know you that's where you typically wash your lawn or wash your car, and that's where a lot of the soaps that seem to go, that analysis is going to be a little bit different than, say, much of your other parts of your lawn where that's not happening. So you really want to get a mix of what can be happening on your lawn altogether. This the time when you want to add topsoil to the area, if maybe you don't have enough soil there, you can add some extra soil there to really make sure that you have enough for a full top layer of soil for the area. And then you want to smooth that surface out. You want to make sure that it's nice and firm too. Obviously, you obviously don't want to recompact that soil that you've just nicely loosened, but you want to be able to walk on it firmly without your boots sinking in to that soil as well. And then once that's done, and you know your irrigation is working beautifully, you're ready to choose your natural and environmentally friendly replacement.

Lisa Beres 32:17

Perfect segue into my next question, and before I get to it, how many people replace, say, their sod, and don't do all that soil testing, and then they end up putting the sod on bad soil, and then it just dies. Is that pretty common? I would

Dani North, Horticulturalist 32:31

say a lot of people miss that step, and quite a few of the natives will still do okay, because they are natives. Here. I would say most people struggle with it is because they tend to over nurture. They will over water. We're used to watering them aggressively, so that's the same to think many times. You can still make adjustments and tweaks. You can add those fertilizers later. This is just a great time to really find out with that soil test. It's not just finding out what your soil is lacking, but is my soil more of a heavier soil? Is there more clay in my soil? Is my soil more Sandy? This will also help me kind of figure out, does my soil hold water longer? Does it bleach the water faster? This will kind of help me also determine how frequently or how less frequently I want to water as well. So that soil tests and composition tests will really help me just learn more about my soil in general, right? Is there something called a pH test, as I'm sure you guys know, because we all kind of learned that when we start drinking alkaline water, and that whole trend was the thing. So it's the same with your pH level and your soil as well. There's so many things you can find out about doing a soil test, yeah, but yes, many people will skip that step. Many people aren't even aware that that needs to happen. So again, it's educating public that that is something that they can do

Lisa Beres 33:46

just to really going to save you money in the long run, because if you got your soil healthy Exactly, exactly, yeah, you not waste that money. Okay, so we saw that there is a lot of information on the real California lawn.com website. But would you mind just explaining what it is and why it's the best lawn for California?

Dani North, Horticulturalist 34:05

Right? Exactly. So for a California climate, we need a real California lawn, and a real California lawn should save water while maintain the curriculum and functionality of a beautiful natural law this California Climate appropriate brass, also known as Bermuda grass is durable. It's resilient, it's drought resistant, low water user, pet mess friendly. We talked about that one, but it's also rabbit resistant, deer resistant. We have a lot of issues with that here.

Lisa Beres 34:35

Yes, rabbits are an issue for a lot of

Dani North, Horticulturalist 34:37

people, right? They really love full season grasses. So gearing towards barn season grasses is the automatic thing. Really gonna pit those bad guys out?

Lisa Beres 34:45

What is it? They just aren't attracted to it. They won't even eat

Dani North, Horticulturalist 34:47

it. They're really not a fan of it, and I'm honestly not too sure why. I don't know if it's because maybe it's more fibrous, but they really love their cool season grasses. And Californians, a lot of us have a. Fescue here and tall biscuit, even though it's a more drought tolerant variety of the closest in grasses, it's still closest in grass, so it does need more water, and they love it.

Lisa Beres 35:09

Oh, okay.

Dani North, Horticulturalist 35:10

And unfortunately, with fescue, it grows in bunches. So when they chop on it as a whole bunch, it dies back as a bunch, which means it slowly grows back as a bunch. So that's why we saw bunches of our fescue lawn missing when there's rabbits around or when we don't give it enough water. So is it like that actually kind of leads into my next thing. So with our Fescue lawns during the warm months, we're having to water that daily to sometimes twice daily when we're non coastal. So for my coastal customers, you may not be seeing that as much because it's a cooler climate, but for me, being much more inland, the residents out here, we're having to really give that fescue a good long drink on a twice daily occurrence, just to really keep it thriving and looking like a healthy lawn. But now we're really seeing a shift towards these burrito lawns, from homeowners to parks and schools even to golf courses to really benefit from that reduction in water use. Yeah. I mean, Danny, what

Ron Beres 36:10

do you do if someone wants to plant a tree? There's a lot of lemon trees in California. Do those absorb a lot of water? Is would you look at a lawn, do a soil test and say, okay, that lemon tree is not going to survive here, and if so, you make it well, I know, but just the lawn, just in

Dani North, Horticulturalist 36:26

general. So I do know some about citrus, yeah, so at the beginning, I mean, anything is going to take a little bit more water to get established. But these warm season grasses, they have a deep root zone, so you're actually going to be watering your grasses kind of similarly to how you'd be watering your citrus. So like a fruit tree or a citrus, you're gonna be watering deep and infrequent. So citrus actually don't like to have wet feet. They prefer to have less water. They prefer to be soaked and then not water a while, completely. Oh, interesting, right? So I believe you guys mentioned avocados and avocado farm recently, so it's gonna be very similar to avocados as well. Deep in watering

Lisa Beres 37:03

we love avocados. Yeah. We

Dani North, Horticulturalist 37:07

eat them almost every day. Yeah. So it's, again, it's a very similar watering system as well. With these Bermudas.

Lisa Beres 37:14

Can you tell the difference? Like, could the average consumer tell the difference between the Bermuda versus your other traditional water hogging lawn. Can

Dani North, Horticulturalist 37:23

you see it physically? They do look slightly different. So the burritos typically have a finer leaf blade. But when it comes to just standard breasts, most, I would say Americans in general, grass is grass, and that's that. So why not save the water if you can, and Beres can save so much more water, over 50% more water than your Fescue lawns. Oh, wow. 50% right? So I talked about, you know, daily watering. So I have Bermuda in my front lawn. We have temps in the high 90s, low one hundreds. Right now, I'm watering my Bermuda twice a week for 20 minutes. Oh, wow. Huge difference between the two and these newer varieties that are coming out tip top and Tacoma, 31 those varieties have been out for a couple of years. Those require even less than what I'm watering my varieties now. So again, these and these water frequencies are to maintain high quality, esthetically pleasing lawns. But unlike this few lawns, Bermuda's are highly durable and have the ability to survive while periods of drought by conserving energy and shutting down. So if I decided to shut my water off completely, or even bring that down even more so, just like a bear hibernating for the winter because of that food scarcity, Bermuda is going to do the same exact thing. So it's going to shut down, and instead of dying, it's going to really conserve its energy, going to dormancy for that summer, and then as soon as you decide to turn that water back on, that drought resistant Bermuda is going to green right back up. Another great example would be like our California hillsides in summer, they brown out, and they reserve their energy, and then as soon as we get some rain, knock on wet. As soon as we get some rain, we've been seeing a lot lately, but yeah, right now we're a little sick of it, but as soon as we get that rain, those hillsides green right back up. So that's exactly what you can really experience with the burrito. With those fescues, once you start cutting back that water, it's not going to come back and again, with pretty much all those cool season grasses, when you start reducing that water, it does not recover. But these Bermudas are really, is

Lisa Beres 39:28

it going to be brown? Then? What color will the Bermuda be when you're not watering it, right? So

Dani North, Horticulturalist 39:32

it'll turn that yellow brown. But again, you have that option during summertime, okay? Summertime, it thrives in the heat, so that is the time for it to shy. It's going to be green grass over time, right? That's when you have the option to decide to cut back the watering, because that's when your water bill is going to be the highest. That's when they're going to be charging you the most. But of course, you know you can water your lawn again. I'm watering mine twice a week. Again, these newer varieties, you can be able to water those even less, but you can make that decision to push it into. To the drought resistance that it is capable of.

Lisa Beres 40:02

Wow. Hybridized grasses, or are they? These are, yeah, so

Dani North, Horticulturalist 40:06

common Bermuda is really a native weed here in North America. These are all going to be hybridized and studied and to really have the tweaks that will really go with our climate. Wow, yeah. What

Lisa Beres 40:18

do you suggest for people in their backyards. Do you suggest a patch of grass, maybe to play cornhole or something on and try to keep that to a minimum? Or do you feel like, with these grasses, it doesn't really matter, you can have it as big as you want.

Dani North, Horticulturalist 40:33

I'm definitely all for the bigger the better. I feel like we're kind of straying away from being outside, and, yeah, we lost that a little. I mean, we all have memories of playing outside, whether it be, you know, rolling down grassy hill or finding those Easter eggs or team sports, yeah, right, even if it was just walking around the park or having a picnic, we all have these ingrained memories of being in the grass and on the grass, and it's not just that, but there's actual studies that show that even touching real grass significantly changes brainwave rhythms and reduces both systolic and diastolic blood pressure. And it's also just having that grounded feeling, yes, physically having your feet on the ground, yeah, in hell with depression and anxiety. So I am, again, biased, but I am definitely all for keeping the lawn size, and instead of reducing it, coming up with a solution like this, California lawn of Bermuda, or we can have the best of both worlds. We can keep our lawn size and be able to reduce our water bill by installing water conservative lawns and grass varieties like Bermuda. I really think that we can have the best of both worlds and not have to pick one over the other, right? That's

Lisa Beres 41:59

really well said, really well. Said, Okay, so someone who wants to get started, where can they go right now to learn more?

Dani North, Horticulturalist 42:06

So again, you can go to the real California lawn.com for everything that we've talked about and more. You can also find and connect with one of harmony outdoor brands, network of local specialty growers, including West Coast, turf and others. Just to get started. Yeah, nice.

Lisa Beres 42:23

Get started. Learn more. Find out about those rebates. We're going to put those links now you're a horticulturist, and so is your husband. Right? I want to know what your dinner conversations are like. Should we get a wheatgrass right? Start with a wheatgrass shot.

Dani North, Horticulturalist 42:40

We love to not bring our work home, which is quite funny. Actually, people expect to walk in our house and find lots of house plants and a whole, you know, lush garden in the back. And we're neglectors. We work long hours, and like I said, we've got a three year old and a cup, and we've learned after the years that we can't own plants because vectors. Oh no, yeah, so we are great at educating, not as great as putting forth those words of knowledge. That's

Lisa Beres 43:09

so funny. Do as you say, not what you do exactly. Okay? Well, guys, I want to leave you with one of my favorite quotes, until man can duplicate a blade of grass nature can laugh at his so called scientific knowledge. Thomas Edison, Oh, yes. So thank you, Danny, thank you for being with us today. This was amazing. Is there anything you want to leave listeners with, or did we cover it? Pretty good.

Dani North, Horticulturalist 43:34

No, I just want to thank everyone for listening. And again, I appreciate again to go back to Ron's question at the beginning, go real.

Lisa Beres 43:44

Go real. Go Real. Real is always better. Thank you for real. So you guys, thank you for being with us to learn more about the real California lawn. Head to the real California lawn.com We'll put the link in the show notes

Ron Beres 43:57

as always. Head to the healthy almahax.com for all the links and show notes, and be sure to subscribe to this show so you don't want to miss another episode and get ready to uplevel your health. We greatly appreciate your support. Make sure you put some reviews down there and give us five star ratings. Thank you so much everyone. Have a great day. Bye, thank

Lisa Beres 44:17

you, Danny. Bye, thank

Narrator 44:18

you this episode of the Healthy Home hacks podcast has ended, but be sure to subscribe for more healthy living strategies and tactics to help you create the healthy home you always dreamed of. And don't forget to rate and review so we can continue to bring you the best content See you on the next episode you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai