Name: joanie

Message: I'm looking for a water based dye GREEN that I can spray on my lawn --- that will last and not kill my grass-- ever been asked this one????---any help will be appreciated

This is an interesting question, and no, I've never been asked it before. You must live in a very dry place, if water-soluble dye will meet your needs. If I applied a water-based dye to my own lawn, it would soon be washed away by dew or rain!

The answer you're looking for is a product called Turf Colorant. It is claimed to be completely safe for turf. It is not a true dye, but instead a pigment, which is suspended in water rather than dissolved in water; this makes it a paint, not a dye, but because the paint is transparent, it is often called a dye. Brands include Earth's Balance Dogonit Green Turf Colorant, Grass Greenzit, Regreen Turfgrass Colorant (this one's based on a phthalocyanine pigment), GrassBGreen, and Green Lawnger. None of these products are available at the big-box hardware stores I've checked, but they can be purchased online.

I've seen some mention of the phrase "vegetable dyes" for this usage, obviously intended to reassure people that they are made from plants, but in fact it must only be dye intended to apply TO plants. Vegetable-derived green dye, which contains chlorophyll, turns brown very quickly, within hours or days. That's not something I can recommend. A good green vegetable dye would have to be made from a blue dye (indigo is the only plant-based choice) plus a yellow dye, but plant-based yellow dyes have a marked tendency to fade away in ultraviolet light, so they are unsuited for outdoor use. Any acceptable dye or pigment will have to be chemically synthesized. As you recognize, you want something that is not toxic, but that does not mean that it must be plant-based.

I have not tested any of these products, so I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know later on how the product you choose works for you.

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