The purpose of the fertilizer program is to provide landscape professionals and homeowners science based guidelines for fertilizer use and other landscape practices that, when followed, reduce the loss of soil nutrients from excessive, incorrectly timed, or inappropriate fertilizers. On Nantucket, lost nutrients find their way rapidly to the coastal waters, harbors, ponds, and streams where they may cause contamination that is harmful to aquatic organisms as well as to human health and welfare.
Program Objectives:
- To provide landscape professionals and homeowners with information for making environmentally sound landscaping decisions that take Nantucket’s unique conditions and natural resources into consideration
- To promote the protection of water resources while maintaining healthy and vibrant ornamental landscapes
- To reduce the amount of fertilizer use by promoting cultural practices that help reduce nutrient inputs
- To offer site-planning guidelines and suggestions for ecological restoration that help reduce island-wide fertilizer-dependent landscapes
- To provide science-based guidance for nutrient management of lawns and gardens on Nantucket