GRASS ISN'T ALL THAT'S GREEN
In a world of heightened environmental awareness, especially on Nantucket where so much of the island's economy revolves around the high quality of our harbor waters, landscapers are beset by town officials and by customers who want them to be kind to the environment through light application of slow-release, earth-friendly fertilizers.

"It's becoming part of the community, to ask for organic care: keep yourself healthy, the lawn healthy and the world healthy," said 'Sconset Gardener owner Marty McGowan.

Many landscapers and gardeners operate under the Nantucket Landscape Association's Best Management Practices, a doctrine of environment-friendly landscaping that espouses little or no fertilizer use, and the planting, where possible, of native species and those that work best on Nantucket.

Looking to the future with these progressive landscaping techniques in mind, McGowan sees fewer and fewer full-service lawn-and-garden companies like his and Ferrantella's and more specialization.

"Landscaping in the future on Nantucket is multiple subcontractors," he said. "I'm not sure there will be a lot of companies that will encompass full service like I do. It's not easy to encompass trees and turf and hedge and stone and gardens."

- Peter B. Brace