You can start a wise yard care plan for the ground around your home so excess fertilizer nutrients aren’t running off downstream. This is the season when lawns get the most feeding, spraying and watering — and not all of it stays put. Some travels downhill into a storm drain, a creek, a river and eventually the ocean. Too much nitrogen or phosphorus feeds algae that overgrow and smother corals.
A wise yard care plan is a step on the Water pathway, and it touches Habitat, too. A reef-safe yard is a direct connection to our planet’s ecosystem, where the choices you make for the patch of grass you can see join millions of others draining through the planetary water cycle.
Peggy’s take: I try to think of the area surrounding my apartment in Brunswick as feeding the headwaters of another shoreline. It’s odd to keep in mind its impact on coral reefs, but it’s true — every property can be upstream of something entering our marine ecosystem.
Care about the ground around your home
Whether you own or rent, you have some influence over your yard. Caretaking doesn’t require controlling the fertilizer bag yourself — if a lawn service, landlord or homeowners’ association does the work, your first move is learning what’s applied and when. Ask the company for its schedule, ask a property manager what the crew uses or read the label on whatever sits in your garage.
Create a ‘reef-safe’ yard
Corals grow in clear, low-nutrient water. Excess nitrogen and phosphorus feed algae that overgrow reefs and block their light. Pesticides and herbicides carried off lawns disrupt coral growth and reproduction, and pet waste and failing septic systems add pathogens that stressed corals can’t shrug off. Farms send far more pollution downstream than yards do, but that’s no reason to ignore the smaller part we all play when it comes to runoff.
Even far from the ocean, and we’re not far at all, individual practices matter. Each summer, nitrogen and phosphorus carried downstream feed an algae bloom that dies, sinks and pulls oxygen from the water near the seafloor; in 2025, that total U.S. “dead zone” measured about 4,402 square miles — roughly the size of Connecticut. The same mechanism is degrading Florida’s coral reef and reefs worldwide. NOAA’s guidance, even to inland residents, is essential to consider: protect your watershed.
Your plan, starting today
A reef-safe yard care plan is a short list of standards you build up over a season.
• Hold off on summer feeding. Cool-season lawns grow vigorously in spring and fall, not midsummer heat; EPA guidance suggests timing feeding to coincide with active growth.
• Get a soil test through your state’s extension service before feeding on autopilot. Most established lawns already hold enough phosphorus — if yours does, choose a phosphorus-free product (a zero as the middle number on the label).
• Never spread fertilizer before rain. A storm soon after application washes soluble phosphorus off the surface at far higher concentrations than usual.
• Keep fertilizer and clippings off the driveway and sidewalk, where they run straight into a storm drain. Leave clippings on the grass instead, where they return nitrogen to the soil.
• Go easy on compost, too. It improves how soil absorbs water and cuts long-term fertilizer needs, but it carries phosphorus — especially manure-based compost — and heavy or poorly timed applications load runoff just like synthetic fertilizer. Match the amount to what the soil needs and keep it off pavement.
Suggested steps for this week
Start with two moves. First, find out what care your yard actually gets: Check the products in the garage or ask whoever handles it — your service, landlord or property manager. Second, set a reef-safe standard for any applications: Skip fertilizer the lawn doesn’t need, switch to phosphorus-free if your soil test shows you’re covered and avoid spreading before heavy rain.
The same standards apply to balcony pots and garden beds.
A reef-safe yard isn’t a single purchase or a one-time fix; it’s a mindset you hold for the ground in your care, season after season.
Find out this week what fertilizers your yard is fed, and do what you can to keep water cleaner all the way from leaf to reef.
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Sustainable Practice empowers you to protect our planet in practical ways. Share this article with a neighbor — or whoever mows the grass where you live — and create one more reef-safe yard this week.
Fred Horch and Peggy Siegle are principals of Sustainable Practice. You can pick up their new 2026 edition of “Your Earth Share: Seven Pathways to Sustainable Living” or any of their other publications at SustainablePractice.Life. Join their community of sustainable practitioners at that address for both benefits and books.