Managing a landscape with or without pesticides is a difficult decision. What’s so difficult you may ask? Pesticides are created to kill things. They are an inherently dangerous product. This should be an easy decision. However, the pests they seek to eliminate also bring a danger. There's a reason one of the Four Riders of the Apocalypse was pestilence. After immersing myself, at the request of a client, in the study of this subject and trying to separate the science from the emotion, I find that the subject is, as in most things, far more nuanced than I initially believed.
I, like most people, initially approached the subject from the aforementioned position that pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides are designed to kill things and therefore must be bad for the environment and bad for human health. I also assumed that organic products, being ‘natural’ would be better. When you are asked to counsel a client on their landscape management plan, you will probably find that it's not quite so simple.
