Environmental Services
Green Gardening
You can have a beautiful lawn and garden, and protect the environment too!
Composting
Composting is a great way to recycle your yard trim into a rich soil amendment that you can use in your garden. You can compost all sorts of yard materials, such as grass, leaves, and plant trimmings. Find out more on our composting page.
Grasscycling
Grasscycling is a great way to recycle the nutrients from your grass clippings back into your lawn. And, it saves you time by not having to bag the grass clippings!
Lawn Care
The Northern Virginia Regional Commission has created a list of professional lawn care services in Northern Virginia who have signed the Water Quality Improvement Agreement with the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR). These companies offer their customers lawn care services to minimize pollution in order to protect our waterways while maintaining green and healthy lawns.
Clean streams, lakes and rivers are vital to healthy communities. You may have heard that overuse of lawn fertilizers is considered a source of pollution in local streams, the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay. Excess fertilizer results in excess nutrients which are washed by rain into local waterways and on to the Chesapeake Bay where they harm fish, crab and oyster habitat as well as pollute local waterways.
If you use a professional lawn care service, please consider a firm on the list below and help keep your neighborhood streams clean and safe for aquatic life.
Click here to view the list of Green Lawn Care Companies in Northern Virginia.
For additional information, please call Randy Shank, Urban Nutrient Management Specialist, 804.371.7489, or Robert Shoemaker, Nutrient Management Engineer, 540.351.1570.
Native Plants
When selecting plants to use in your garden, plants that are native to this area and are well adapted to the climate are best. Native plants will survive better than non-native plants and do not require as much watering or maintenance. Find out more about native plants and invasive plants and check out our local native plant guide, Keeping it Natural.
Rain Barrels and Rain Gardens
Some additional beneficial things that homeowners can do to protect water quality is to install a rain barrel, cistern, or rain garden. Rain barrels and cisterns collect rainwater that runs off your roof, storing it for use for irrigation, and reducing the amount of stormwater that enters our local streams. The County and partners started a rain barrel program in 2007, or there are many commercially available rain barrels - search on the internet under "rain barrel. Rain gardens are vegetated areas that collect and absorb rainwater, and contain plants that thrive in wet and dry areas.
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