As the Managing Editor at Lawn Chick, I have the opportunity to meet and speak to key people at some of the most exciting and reputable brands in lawn care. One of those individuals is Craig Elworthy, founder of Lawnbright, an exciting family-run business that focuses on delivering premium lawn care products that are easy to apply, safe to use, and provide a more sustainable approach to growing and maintaining a great lawn.
Ever since I first spoke with Craig (and tried some Lawnbright products on my own lawn), I’ve hoped to share some of his expertise and vision with Lawn Chick readers, and today I’m pleased that we have the opportunity to do just that in a short (but really interesting) Lawnbright interview.
I hope you enjoy it!
A Note to Our Readers – LawnChick.com participates in affiliate advertising, and we do have a partnership with Lawnbright. That said, you’ll notice that we don’t link to Lawnbright’s website from this interview, instead we share it within our ‘Expert Perspectives’ editorial series purely because we feel the responses will be interesting and of value to our readers.
About Craig, Lawnbright’s Founder & CEO
Craig Elworthy is the founder of Lawnbright, a DIY, natural lawn care system. After more than 15 years working in tech and obsessing about his lawn on the side, Craig decided to make the knowledge he’d developed through research and product testing available to everyone through Lawnbright. He brings his tech and operational skills to Lawnbright to allow the company to build out custom lawn plans for people across the nation at scale – and his passion for a great lawn and more sustainable lawn care products to continue innovating and expanding on the product line. Craig lives in the Boston area with his wife and three kids, all of whom tolerate his lawn experiments with varying levels of patience.
| Lawn Chick invites a broad spectrum of professionals to contribute their insights and expertise to our ‘Expert Perspectives’ editorial series. Although the viewpoints expressed in these articles may not always reflect our own, we recognize the importance of presenting a diverse range of experiences and knowledge. Our hope is to offer these expert opinions as a valuable resource to you, our readers. Read our editorial policy to learn more. |
Our Lawnbright Interview
Lawn Chick Editorial: Craig, with an increasing emphasis on environmental sustainability, what are Lawnbright’s top recommendations for homeowners to maintain their lawns in an eco-friendly way?
Craig Elworthy, Lawnbright Founder: A few things. First, don’t overdo it. The way many of us have learned to do lawn care is trying to control nature, but this is often a losing proposition. If your lawn wants to go dormant from a lack of water, just let it go. If there’s an area of your lawn that just won’t take no matter what you do, consider mulching or making it into another landscape feature. Not everything has to be a lawn. Just take what the environment gives you and you’ll be less frustrated.
Beyond that, know what’s in your fertilizer. Most of the products on store shelves contain ingredients that are either toxic and/or not sustainable. These can run off into our water supply and while they may green up your lawn, they have overall negative impact on our environment.
Lawn Chick Editorial: In your experience, what are some of the most common mistakes homeowners make in their lawn care routines, and how can they avoid them?
Craig Elworthy: Most people are getting the basics wrong. Watering, mowing, and fertilizing are the three biggest components to lawn care, with mowing perhaps being the single largest indicator of success. If you can mow twice a week, mulch your clippings (instead of bagging them), and make sure your lawn is getting at least 1 inch of water per week, you’re going to get better results than just about everyone else.
Additionally, most people just don’t know where to start with DIY fertilizing. They grab a bag of standard fertilizer off the rack and throw it down without much thought as to what the soil needs. We always recommend getting a soil test first, and adjusting your pH if it’s off, and only then starting your fertilizer program.
Too much fertilizer is wasted on uninformed applications.
Lawn Chick Editorial: Could you share some essential lawn care tips for transitioning from season to season, ensuring a healthy and vibrant lawn year-round?
Craig Elworthy: Try to plan at least one season ahead. In the early summer you need to get everything set for your fall over-seed and fertilizer applications. Get your seed, decide whether you’re doing to dethatch and aerate, etc. In the winter, get your mower blade sharpened, oil changed, etc. If you can do this the seasonal changes won’t feel so overwhelming.
Lawn Chick Editorial: When I think of Lawnbright, first I think of how effective your products are, and second I think of you as representing an innovative approach to lawn care. Can you discuss any new technologies or products you’re excited about that can help homeowners better care for their lawns?
Craig Elworthy: A couple things I can mention here;
- We love Tall Fescue grass here at Lawnbright. Tall Fescue has an incredible ability to withstand heat and drought, but it was always outshined by Bluegrass for its ability to repair itself. This is all changing now with new cultivars of rhizome based fescue, which spreads like bluegrass, germinates quickly, and can withstand the sweltering summer heat better than other cool season varieties. It really is the best of both worlds, and gives us a near perfect seed. In our first two seasons, we did not sell grass seed at Lawnbright because I couldn’t find one that jived with our overall philosophy, so we were really excited to introduce grass seed last year thanks to these innovations.
- I think robotic mowing is having a moment. Both in the consumer and professional space, advancements in the tech have reached maturity and consumers are finally seeing prices starting to moderate. And I think time has helped these products become more acceptable to consumers. Five years ago, it would have looked crazy to have a robot mowing your lawn, now not so much.
Lawn Chick Editorial: How important is soil health in overall lawn care, and does Lawnbright recommend regular soil testing? If so, at what frequency do you recommend homeowners test their soil, and what are the most critical items on their soil test results that they should focus on?
Craig Elworthy: In short, soil health is everything. We work with customers who have been unknowingly degrading their soil for years. They don’t realize how little organic content is in their soil, or why that’s important, since most soil tests stress the macro and micronutrients with little to no attention on everything else.
Our plan flips that on its head.
We start with adjusting the pH to make sure a healthy lawn can even exist while building organic content with bio-stimulants like humic and sea kelp. It takes longer to see the results than the synthetic stuff, but over time it’s much easier to maintain a healthy lawn.
We recommend a soil test every other year. If you test too often, you risk over-correcting and doing more harm than good. Our programs work by making incremental changes over time, and we find that a test every other year is the right balance.
Lawn Chick Editorial: Craig, as the CEO of a lawn care company, could you share what your personal lawn care routine looks like? Are there any specific practices you swear by and would never skip on your own lawn?
Craig Elworthy: I’d love to say I follow my own lawn care routine but in reality, it’s chaos. I am constantly testing out new products and formulas all the time, so I use it as a test bed. Here’s my ideal routine:
- Watering: I make sure the lawn gets at least 1.5 inches of water per week, using a rain gauge to collect irrigation and rainfall.
- Mowing: I try to mow twice a week, mulching the clippings with the exception of the first two mows of the year, and the last mow.
- Dethatch: once per year in the late summer.
- Fertilizer Schedule:
- I get a pre-emergent application down when soil temps are near 55 degrees – I always try to be early rather than late.
- Bio-stimulants every 6-8 weeks, and liquid fertilizer on the same schedule throughout the growing season.
- In the fall I use a boost pack followed by a fall fortify pack and close the season with a mix of sea kelp and humic acid
Lawn Chick Editorial: There’s often a debate between using organic and natural products versus synthetic treatments for lawn care. What questions should homeowners ask themselves as they choose products for their lawn?
Craig Elworthy: Synthetics tend to get a bad rap, but there’s certainly a time and place for synthetic products, and we’re not trying to use the term as a pejorative.
Our lawn care program includes some synthetic ingredients. Where we draw the line is the over-use of synthetic chemicals, which run off into nearby watersheds and cause environmental concerns. Over the course of an entire season, our programs use a fraction of the synthetic material found in just one 25lb bag of the leading fertilizer brand.
So if I were going into a big box store and buying fertilizer, I would just ask ‘what would happen if only half of this were used by the lawn, and the other half was washed away?’ Am I OK with that? If I am, what happens to the local body of water if everyone in my town has the same approach? Is it worth it?
Ultimately we need to face these harsh truths to be responsible stewards of the environment.
Lawn Chick Editorial: Looking towards the future, how do you see the lawn care industry evolving, and what role do you envision Lawnbright playing in shaping that future?
Craig Elworthy: From a consumer perspective, the lawn care industry has been largely the same for the last 40+ years, so it’s natural to see some things starting to change.
Looking forward, I can envision more choices for homeowners as more towns start to shift towards sustainable lawn care practices and put more focus into what goes into the ground. We’ve already seen outright bans on fertilizers in some counties during certain times of year, and I see that accelerating going forward.
Lawnbright will continue to adapt to these market shifts and will be an option for anyone who wants to responsibly care for their yard.
Before You Go
If you enjoyed this brief Lawnbright interview with founder Craig Elworthy, we invite you to browse other articles in our Expert Perspectives’ editorial series. In this series you’ll find interviews like this one alongside interesting articles written by hand-picked professionals with a wide range of experience and areas of topical expertise we feel align with the interests and landscaping goals of our readers.
And if you’d like to read more about Lawnbright’s soil-first philosophy and the role soil pH plays in your lawn’s ability to utilize the fertilizer you spread, read this article before you go.
