Editorial Standards

Our Editorial Mission

LawnByCounty is a data-journalism site. Our job is to take the climate, soil, and drought data that federal agencies already publish — USDA hardiness zones, NOAA climate normals, US Drought Monitor — and present it in a form that someone planning a lawn, comparing grass options, or researching local growing conditions can actually use. We are not a landscaping service or agronomy consultancy. We do not diagnose lawn diseases, prescribe treatments, or guarantee results, and we do not publish professional lawn-care advice.

Every page on this site is grounded in a primary-source dataset from a U.S. government agency. Where we compute composite scores or rank counties, we publish the underlying formula on our methodology page. Where we draw on AI assistance for prose, we say so on this page and on the page itself.

Who Writes and Edits This Site

LawnByCounty is published and edited by Evan Brooks, Data Editor. The data editor documents the data pipeline, sets the methodology, reviews published prose for accuracy against the underlying data, and signs off on every methodology change. The data editor is not a licensed agronomist, turfgrass scientist, or landscape contractor, and LawnByCounty does not present itself as professional advice. The data editor's role is the data-editor role: ensure statistics on this site match the source datasets, ensure prose stays inside what the data supports, and decline to publish anything that strays into professional recommendation territory.

Long-form features and reported pieces carry an explicit byline at the top of the article. The data editor reviews and signs off on every long-form piece. When a feature genuinely benefits from a domain co-reviewer — a master gardener for lawn-care guidance, for instance — we name that contributor only when they are actually involved. We do not list speculative reviewer credentials.

Where Our Data Comes From

All county-level statistics on this site come from primary government sources. We do not republish data from third-party aggregators. Our active sources are:

• USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map (2023) — published by the USDA Agricultural Research Service. Determines minimum winter temperatures and which plant species can thrive in each county.
• NOAA Climate Normals (1991-2020) — published by the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. Provides 30-year averages for precipitation, temperature, growing degree days, and frost dates.
• USDA SSURGO (Soil Survey Geographic Database) — published by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service. Provides soil texture, pH, drainage class, and organic matter at the county level.
• US Drought Monitor — published by the National Drought Mitigation Center, USDA, and NOAA. Provides weekly drought condition assessments.

Each source's URL, release date, and pull date are documented on the methodology page. Source datasets are in the public domain (federal works) or published under licenses permitting commercial redistribution with attribution.

How We Use AI

Per-county pages on this site include a short, AI-generated narrative summary that contextualizes the statistics for that county. The narrative is produced by Claude (Anthropic) from the same source data shown in the statistics tables on the page. The data editor reviews the underlying prompt and spot-checks output before publication; the prompt is constrained to forbid causation claims, treatment recommendations, and any prose that goes beyond what the source statistics support.

We do not use AI to:

• Generate professional lawn-care advice, treatment recommendations, or diagnostic information.
• Invent statistics, sources, or quotes.
• Write methodology, editorial standards, or correction notices.
• Generate cause-and-effect claims about growing conditions that aren't grounded in the source data.

When the underlying data is updated, narratives are regenerated to stay consistent. AI-generated prose is always paired with the source statistics so readers can verify the numbers themselves.

Corrections Policy

If you spot a factual error — a wrong statistic, a misattributed source, a broken citation, an outdated zone assignment — email editorial@lawnbycounty.com with the page URL and the specific issue. We aim to acknowledge every report within five business days and to publish a correction or update the page within ten business days for substantive issues.

Substantive corrections (changes to a statistic, methodology, or claim) are noted in a "Corrections" entry on the page itself with the date of the correction and a short description of what changed. Typographical and formatting fixes are made silently.

How LawnByCounty Is Funded

LawnByCounty is independently owned and operated. It is part of the ByCounty Network of data sites. Funding comes from two transparent sources:

• Display advertising served by Google AdSense and similar networks. Ad placements are clearly labeled and do not influence editorial decisions or which counties we rank where.
• Affiliate links, currently limited to grass seed and lawn-care product referrals. Affiliate links are labeled "Sponsored" and never determine which counties or grass types we feature on data pages.

We do not accept paid content, sponsored statistics, or advertorials. No data source, advertiser, or affiliate has any influence over the methodology, rankings, or editorial choices on this site.

Update Cadence

Underlying data is refreshed annually, on the release schedule of each source (USDA PHZM releases on a multi-year cycle; NOAA Climate Normals update every 10 years; US Drought Monitor is weekly; SSURGO is continuously updated). Narratives are regenerated when the underlying data for a county changes. The methodology page displays its own "Last reviewed" date and changelog. This editorial-standards page was last reviewed on May 17, 2026.