HOW GREEN IS MY LAWN...HOW DEAD IS MY TREE

A SUPER GREEN AND WEED FREE LAWN...

...AND A SUPER DEAD MAPLE TREE

LEAVES DAMAGED BY HERBICIDES

Wednesday, 8:00 AM.  46 degrees F on the porch, 52 degrees at the ferry dock.  The sky is mostly cloudy but the sun has just found an opening.   Wind NE, very blustery.  The humidity is still high, at 88%, and the barometer is rising, currently at 30.01".
   I, like most folks, appreciate the beauty and utility of the lawn.  Lawn lovers are certainly in good company since, as Sir Francis Bacon, the 17th Century originator of the scientific method and lover of gardens wrote, "Nothing is more pleasant to the eye, than green grass kept finely shorn."
   When, however, I see a super green, weed-free lawn, I immediately look for collateral damage.  Most herbicides target dicotyledonous plants; most monocotyledonous plants, including grasses, tolerate 2,4-D herbicides, which is why they are used to kill weeds in lawns.  Unfortunately,  dicotyledonous plants other than weeds are often caught in the cross-fire, so to speak, and are killed by "friendly fire."
   The young sugar maple tree pictured was either inadvertently hit with liquid weed spray or was simply overwhelmed by toxic vapors rising off the lawn after granular weed killer was improperly applied.  In any case it is probably dead, at a replacement cost of at least a thousand dollars at its size (expensive dandelions, those). Lawn herbicides also eliminate clover, which used to be a welcome addition to a lawn and added nitrogen to the soil, reducing the need for artificial fertilizers.
   Are dandelions a problem?  Keep your lawn properly watered and nourished, set your mower at 3.5" or higher, and always mow the flower heads off before they set seed.  If you wish to be more particular than that, use a dandelion digger, and eat a few dandelion leaf salads as well (but not if they have been sprayed).