On St. Patrick’s Day we celebrate the green in our lives. Pubs serve green drinks and green foods, and many people dress up in green to truly get into the spirit of the occasion. St. Patrick’s Day, which initially began as a celebratory feast to honor the patron saint of Ireland, has now become an internationally recognized annual religious festival where Irish descendants celebrate their culture with traditional Irish folk dancing, lively parades, specialty Irish food and drinks, and loads of green.


WHY GREEN?

The age-old tradition of wearing green clothing and accessories, including shamrocks, on St. Patrick’s Day dates back to 1600s, and is commonly referred to as ‘wearing of the green’. Green is the color of the Irish flag and is traditionally associated with everything Irish. The term ‘wearing of the green’ hails from a song with the same name, whose lyrics lament how United Irishmen supporters were persecuted for dressing in green clothing in a show of solidarity. Legend has it that St. Patrick used the 3-leafed shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity to Irish pagans. From the 1600s till today, the color green, as well as the shamrock, has continued to be associated with St. Patrick’s Day.

GO GREEN! THE GREEN SOLUTION TO AQUATIC WEED CONTROL

While it is fun to dress up in green to get into the spirit of the occasion, this would also be a good time to focus on going green in other areas of our lives. For example, with the weather starting to warm up, aquatic weeds can quickly take over ponds and lakes. Instead of turning to harmful chemicals to eradicate these invasive weeds, why not opt for a greener solution to the problem? Chemical herbicides do not discriminate which plants they kill; as a result both weeds and beneficial plants that are essential for keeping the aquatic ecosystem healthy are killed when they are applied. A greener, eco-friendly solution that won’t harm every aquatic plant in the water body is available in the form of an innovative lake bottom blanket. The blanket is spread out on the bottom of the lake or pond, positioned over any weeds that are growing from the bottom of the lake, and is weighed down to keep it submerged. It works by blocking sunlight from reaching the weeds growing on the lake floor. If you own a lakeside property and need to control aquatic weeds so that you can gain access to the lake, a lake bottom blanket provides the perfect ‘green’ solution for eradicating problem weeds that have accumulated or expanded since last summer. A lake bottom blanket can be strategically positioned to kill off aquatic weeds without affecting non-target vegetation or aquatic animals that are dependent on that vegetation for food, shelter and/or protection from predators. Let’s not simply go green to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, let’s go big and embrace going green in other areas of our lives, making a concerted effort to live more sustainably and tread a little lighter on the planet.