How Not-So-Green is Our Valley

Spring has barely sprung only to find everyone from farmers to landscapers sowing the (grass) seeds of discontent.

Experts across several industries are pointing to a “perfect storm” of factors contributing to a grass-seed shortage that began last year and continues into this one. Start with Covid-19 – everyone’s favorite culprit – which found house-bound homeowners yearning for greener pastures and vying with landscapers, private clubs and public businesses last year for seed that was in short supply due to high heat, drought and wildfires in Oregon and southern Washington state, the prime growing areas. (Some seed farmers in this region have also decided to employ their land in other ways, instead of letting it go to seed, so to speak, deepening the problem.) Now add supply chain issues brought on by a Covid-inspired shortage of workers and rising energy costs, increasingly exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.

The result? Grass seed shortages that have seen prices rising anywhere from 50 to 100%. And it’s not just grass seed that’s increased in price but related products, including herbicides and fertilizer, which has gone up several hundred dollars per ton.

Many need or want their beautifully manicured lawns, no matter the cost, and that includes country clubs. They will have to be more judicious, however, about where, when and how much to seed and reseed this year. But for some homeowners, the time has come to rethink their relationship with a lawn that along with the house and the white picket fence has always been the sine qua non of the American dream.

That green expanse, which began as a status symbol on the estates of 18th-century Europe, is often difficult to maintain in the American topography without the use of chemicals. This has led some eco-friendly homeowners to reach for alternatives, including the trending gravel, bark and slate chippings, mulch, artificial turf, clover, moss, ground-cover plants like pachysandra, lilies of the valley turf and ornamental grasses. 

Questions? As always we at the Morano Group are here to help address the great grass seed crisis of 2022 and alternatives to the classic grass-green lawn.