Turning Over a New Leaf

The Palisadian-Post has partnered with locally founded environmental organization Resilient Palisades to deliver a weekly “green tip” to our readers. This week’s tip was written by the Resilient Palisades’ Gas-Free Gardens Campaign.

On behalf of the Resilient Palisades Gas-Free Gardens campaign, we are excited to tell you about our New Leaf Blower Program: Palisadians partnering with their gardeners to go electric!

In California, gas-powered gardening equipment is the dominant source of smog—more than all of the passenger cars on our roads (CA Air Resources Board, 2017). This equipment is also an unnecessary source of greenhouse gases and localized air pollution, including benzene and formaldehyde.

Going gas free moves us away from archaic technology that is impacting every gardener and residents’ health, as well as air and water quality. It’s a win-win for everyone. So why aren’t homeowners and gardeners shifting to gas-free equipment?

To find out, volunteers with Resilient Palisades’ Gas-Free Gardens campaign have spent the last two years meeting with numerous gardeners and homeowners.

It turns out that many gardeners do want to switch to gas-free equipment, but the main barrier is the upfront cost for new equipment, which is $2,000—$3,000 for the commercial-grade equipment they need. All commercial-grade garden equipment, but especially leaf blowers, are superior to the cheaper, residential-grade models found at most hardware stores because they are more powerful, ergonomically designed for all-day use and provide a two-plus spare battery solution to last a full day.

Initially, our campaign met with community groups, homeowners, gardeners and HOAs to help educate and empower our community on the issues and how to shift away from gas equipment. This produced little results.

A few months ago, we piloted the New Leaf Blower Program with gardener Jesus Estrada. Estrada has 38 Palisades clients and, due to accumulating health issues, has tried updating his equipment to gas-free commercial alternatives. But the upfront cost was always too high.

So we met with Estrada and brought in our zero-emissions landscaping expert, AGZA’s Dan Mabe. Mabe loaned Estrada a Husqvarna battery-powered blower, and Estrada was immediately eager to move forward. He and Mabe discussed a typical work day and determined how many spare batteries Estrada would need, and Resilient Palisades stepped in with its checkbook.

We bought the state-of-the-art equipment Estrada needed and created an info packet for his clients to ask for a small donation (based on the breakdown of cost, including seed money from Resilient Palisades, angel donors and the number of clients).

The pilot worked. Thanks to most of his clients, the cost of his gas-free blower was fully covered. Clients were so generous that our initial seed money and the generous donation from a couple of angel donors were also recouped so that we can now repeat the program with other gardeners.

Estrada said he not only feels physically better but he’s also amazed at how much money he is saving every day since gas-free equipment costs less to operate than gas equipment (visit resilientpalisades.org/greengardens to learn more).

If you’re not prepared to step up by and subsidize your gardener’s new gas-free blower, then Resilient Palisades might be able to help. If your gardener has approximately 25 clients in the Palisades, they might qualify for the New Leaf Blower Program. To nominate your gardener, contact us with their info at connect@resilientpalisades.org.