By Brian C. Howard

By Catherine Zandonella

When my husband and I exchanged two decades of urban existence for suburban life, I didn't know a rhododendron from a Rototiller. We did know that we wanted to forgo the "weed 'n' feed" approach to lawn care. To our pleasant surprise, organic yard care is simple once you go through the steps of disconnecting your lawn from its chemical life-support system.

Curing this chemical dependency has its environmental benefits. One 40-pound bag of synthetic fertilizer contains the fossil-fuel equivalent of approximately 2.5 gallons of gasoline, and mowing for one hour with a gasoline-powered mower generates the same amount of pollution as driving a car for 20 miles, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). To keep lawns green, we apply about 10,000 gallons of water, which leads to fungal diseases and weeds that attract pests, so we douse our coveted green patches with approximately 67 million pounds a year of synthetic pesticides.

With Mother’s Day just around the corner, the following guide to calming and sustainable massage and bath oils, scents, and meditation and yoga accoutrements will help relax any mom.

by Emily Main

Meditation and relaxation encourage a balanced life and allow you to center yourself amidst everyday chaos. It's hard, however, to find an oasis of calm when mind and body products intended to soothe could potentially harm you, your surroundings and the environment as a whole. While hormone-disrupting phthalates and dioxin-producing polyvinyl chloride (PVC) seem to find their way into everything from yoga mats to massage oils, they're not in the products below.

Product Picks:

Add a little safety and peace of mind to kid's bedrooms, bathrooms, hallways and other wpaces with ultra-efficient light emitting diodes (LEDs).

The technology behind laptop computer screens, LEDs are greener than standard incandescent and fluorescent lightbulbs because they generate almost no waste heat. Most of the electricity used is output as light. LEDs remain cool to the touch, so they don't add excess heat into living spaces, which means less cooling is needed. They last for literally hundreds of thousands of hours, meaning they can go years before they need to be changed, thereby cutting down on landfill waste.

Many companies now sell LED nightlights, which are competitively priced with standard nightlights, and can be found at most home improvement, value and even drugstores. They cost only pennies a year in energy, and result in much lower carbon emissions than traditional lighting.

Find full article at: http://www.thedailygreen.com/going-green/tips/5134