As a homeowner, it’s essential to maintain awareness of new and changing laws that impact your home and your lawn and landscape. Recently, the Maryland Department of Agriculture (MDA) posted important information on its website regarding Maryland’s New Lawn Fertilizer Law, which affects homeowners, lawn care professionals and fertilizer manufacturers and distributors. We’ve extracted some of the information here and recommend visiting the MDA website for further details.
The MDA website states:
“Maryland’s new lawn fertilizer law is designed to protect the Chesapeake Bay from excess nutrients entering its waters from a variety of urban sources, including golf courses, parks, recreation areas, athletic fields, businesses and hundreds of thousands of suburban and urban lawns.
Nutrients, primarily nitrogen and phosphorus, are key ingredients in lawn fertilizer. When it rains, excess nutrients can wash off the land and into the streams and rivers that feed the Chesapeake Bay. Once in our waterways, excess fertilizers fuel the growth of algae blooms that block sunlight from reaching Bay grasses, rob the water of oxygen and threaten underwater life.
Lawn fertilizer now accounts for approximately 44 percent of the fertilizer sold in Maryland. While certain restrictions on fertilizer use have been in place for farmers since 2001, additional stakeholder involvement is needed if Maryland is to meet new nutrient reduction goals outlined in its Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP) to restore the Bay. Maryland’s new lawn fertilizer law affects [homeowners, lawn care professionals and fertilizer manufacturers and distributors].”
Learn more about how this law affects:
- Homeowners and Other Residential Users
- Lawn Care Professionals
- Fertilizer Manufacturers and Distributors
Since 2004, Complete Lawn Care (CLC) has been a local leader in environmental stewardship, focusing on responsible nutrient management, environmentally sensitive lawn care solutions and protection of our natural resources. At CLC, we’re attuned to the effects that new and changing laws have on our clients; we understand the critical need to share this kind of information with you.
Should you have questions about the new fertilizer law, we encourage you to visit the Homeowners Links and Resources section on the MDA website. This section includes fact sheets and other useful PDF documents, which are downloadable, printable and shareable.
To learn more about CLC’s services in responsible nutrient management and environmentally sensitive lawn care, please contact us at info@growinglawns.com.
The Staff at Complete Lawn Care, Inc.
www.growinglawns.com | info@growinglawns.com