Catching Up With Sunday, The ‘Green’ Lawn

It's easier to spray Sunday with a hose these days, as the company has expanded to brick-and-mortar ... [+] stores.

Back in 2019, a Colorado startup called Sunday was all DTC, or direct-to-consumer. You ordered online and a meal kit for your yard showed up at the door. The pitch was about growing truly green lawns without pesticides.

Four years later, Sunday has expanded into brick-and-mortar retailers like Lowe's, Target and Walmart, selling its original lawn fertilizer product along with weed control, pest control, seeds and even live plants.

Sunday just released a 2022 impact report detailing the "environmental good" of keeping lawns green without the use of harmful chemicals, says cofounder Coulter Lewis.

Highlights include more than 79,000 pounds of pesticide reduction, more than 2 million pounds of fertilizer reduction and almost 141,000 pounds of plastic reduction in its packaging. "In 2023, we’ll have a larger set of numbers," the cofounder says.

Coulter Lewis cofounded Sunday with brother Trent Lewis.

Sunday has grown from six employees in 2019 to about 100 today. It shipped its first boxes during Earth Month in April 2019, when Earth Day is celebrated.

"The initial approach was recognizing that our yards make up enough to be the third largest crop in the U.S.," Lewis recalls. "To see how we care for them: It's madness."

He points to statistics that managed lawns in the United States use more pesticides per acre than farms and studies on the negative effects of pesticides, including cancer in people and runoff to waterways.

Ingredients in Sunday's fertilizer include soy protein, iron, seaweed and molasses. Glyphosate, the key ingredient in the popular and controversial Roundup herbicide, isn't one of them.

Rather than buying bags of broad-spectrum products at the home improvement store and hoping it doesn't kill your lawn, Sunday allows people to develop a custom plan based on their location, soil type and more, Lewis explains.

He says the company has developed the largest soil database in the nation, with more than 150,000 soil samples.

You can type in your home address at the company website to begin creating a lawn plan that includes a soil test.

You also can search by ZIP code to find people in your neighborhood that use Sunday. (This author found 21 yards in a smaller Michigan city).

Other lawn care companies also offer organic or natural plans these days for people who want to stay away from chemicals, including Lawn Doctor and Green Lawn Fertilizing. According to Next Move Strategy Consulting, demand for organic and natural lawn care products is increasing.

Sunday's cofounder says customer reviews and word of mouth are a key part of its success. Reviews on the Sunday website include thousands of photos.

Annual lawn plans start at $109 and depend on the size of needs of a property.

Does a non-toxic lawn cost more to maintain?

"It really doesn't. That's the amazing part," Lewis says. "We sell at Walmart, right next to traditional brands in the space."

A before-and-after photo from Troy, Michigan