Paul Tukey founder of People, Places & Plants Magazine and safelawns.org to speak in East Hampton April 11th.

An Organic lawn care forum is being held on Wednesday April 11th. at 6:30pm. at the Joseph N. Goff house in East Hampton. The public is invited to attend free of charge. Complementary food and beverages will be served for all who attend. The Guest speaker will be Paul Tukey founder of safelawns.org, People, Places & Plants magazine and the host of the HGTV show by the same name. The discussion will focus on creating a beautiful lawn that is safe for people, pets and the environment. Special attention will be given to issues associated with the harmful effects of chemical fertilizers on lake Pocotopaug, and the lake friendly organic fertilizer options that are available. Please notify Jessica Carroll if you plan to attend or have any questions at: jessica@jessicasgarden.net or 860-604-9483

Biography

America's reigning Gardening Communicator of the Year, Paul Tukey is the founder of SafeLawns.org, an international coalition of for-profit and non-profit organizations promoting environmentally friendly lawn care and resource conservation.

Paul is well known to millions of Americans through his popular gardening program People, Places & Plants on HGTV and through his magazine of the same name. He brings many years of experience in both journalism and gardening to the SafeLawns.org campaign.

He was introduced to gardening during summers spent growing vegetables at his grandparents’ dairy farm in Maine. After graduating from the University of Maine with a degree in Journalism, Paul spent nearly a decade as a reporter and editor at the Maine Sunday Telegram and Portland Press Herald. In the late 1980s Paul followed his love of the outdoors and founded his own landscaping company. Like most commercial landscapers of the era, Paul used conventional techniques and supplies.

But in the early 1990s Paul started hearing about the links between 2,4-D, a synthetic weed killer, and numerous illnesses including cancer. Then his personal physician suggested that his recurrent headaches, nosebleeds and blurred vision were attributable to exposure to those same chemical weed killers. His transformation to organic gardening and building healthy soil was underway.

In 1995 Paul founded People, Places & Plants magazine and the HGTV show followed in 2002. In March 2006, Paul won the highest honor in gardening journalism and broadcasting when the American Horticultural Society named him the winner of the annual Horticultural Communication Award. He is the author of a book on organic lawn care due out from Storey Publishing in early 2007 and has won numerous awards for his writing. He is also a frequent public speaker on organic gardening, photography and environmental awareness.

Paul resides in Maine with his expectant wife, Katie Hoffman Tukey, and is the father of two children. His own garden and landscape in Maine is spread across more than two acres of flowers, vegetables, trees and shrubs and, of course, a spectacular lawn. Still addicted to growing and mowing great grass after all these years, Paul’s emerald green carpet is achieved without a single synthetic fertilizer, herbicide or fungicide. “The kids can roll around in the grass,” says Paul, “and I don’t give it a second thought.”