The Lawn Racket

Now that May is here, perhaps you're looking out at your lawn and thinking it needs mowing. Instead, you might want to think about whether you need that lawn at all. The problem isn't grass. Humans first lived on the grasslands of Africa, and until not so long ago, grasslands covered far greater swaths of North America than they do now.

But landscapes like those bear little resemblance to the classic American lawn -- an industrial, shocking-green carpet whose very survival depends on our polluting the environment and disturbing the peace.

Other kinds of home landscapes can grow pollution-free. A natural-yard movement is showing that combinations of rugged plants, including grasses, can be far more interesting than a standard lawn while requiring little mowing, no spraying or fertilizing, and even no irrigation.

By contrast, the “perfect” lawn is a monotony of color and texture, yields no useful harvest, and may rarely even be trod upon. But for growing the lawn-care industry a crop of hard cash, the synthetic grasslands of suburbia are fertile ground indeed. To replace all of that high-maintenance turf with something more resilient -- to stow all that equipment and dispose of all those chemicals -- would cause a http://www.organicconsumers.org/ofgu/lawn060418.cfm">$35 billion industry to wither.

More on this increadibly wasteful and counterproductive social practice, along with a suggestion or two re: MUCH better and more rewarding things to do instead:

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0522-30.htm

St. Augustine sod so the kids can play without dealing with snakes, but we use Asian jasmine ground cover almost everywhere else. We have to have something in the soil because of our torrential rain.

I agree that lawn care is a racket. When ours dies it stays brown. We don't do the fertilizer shtick.

the back yard has a small patch of lawn that I spray with weed and feed once in spring, water it twice and then just mow it the rest of the year. it's great burmuda that chokes out weeds all by itself and was worth every penny I paid for that sod.

but at the new house, it's gonna be edible/low maintence all the way

If weeds grow, they are pulled. Country folk here.

I live in a wooded area, it would be sad that I had a "manicured" lawn where I live, because nothing lives here.

I will admit, though, that if I had a nickle for every dollar weed leaf in my yard, I could probably go dollar for dollar against Bill Gates or Warren Buffett...
:D


on edit: typed again for against

and replacing it with california native plants

and of course 30 zinfandel vines for my home-brew....

That's what we've got all right. "natural-yard movement" is a nice way to put it.

I've been more inclined to refer to it as "Day of the Triffids".

I live in the foothills of the Rockies. This is short-grass prairie area. So we have a native blend of gramma, buffalo, sweet, and a few others. If I had a little cow or a nanny goat, she'd be pretty happy. We mow only when necessary, and that's not much. If I had a little cow, the grass would grow more (grazing stimulates grass growth - I love evolution!) but I live in town and can't have one. We have mostly native species on our property, except for my fruit and vegetable garden, some lilac hedges (low water use) and an 80 year old Gallica rosebush that came with the house. I live in grasslands. I'm allowed to have grass.

No chemicals, and we only water enough to keep things alive (since I don't have a little grazer to do the job properly). It's pretty, healthy and pulls more carbon out of the air than my car emits in a year. (Low emissions car.)

I am still trying to sort out the whole deforestation and CO2 issue. Are grasses as effective as trees or as old forests?

prairie grasses gobble carbon. A ton of prairie grass uses more carbon than a ton of wood, because the cellulose structure of grasses versus trees is such that the softer grass molecules are more carbon dense. Apparently, wood uses a lot more water in the mix, and so has a higher proportion of hydroxy-methyl cellulose than does grass. (I am not a chemist, and only remember my college organic chem with the greatest of difficulty.) From what I read, hydroxy-methyl cellulose has fewer carbon atoms than non-methyl celluloses.

BUT I would say it depends on what should be growing in a region. Trees in high plains Colorado grow slowly and die easily, while grasses thrive. It's possible to grow a few tons of grasses on the same acreage and water that a couple of trees would need. However, in the temperate rain forests of the Pacific Northwest, grasslands are impractical and trees are a far better carbon sink. Since trees are not good uses of the water and soil resources that my climate provides, grass is the better option for me.

Short and bunch grasses are very good carbon sinks FOR THIS REGION because they grow vast, deep root systems to find enough water and to spread. They're also great for stopping erosion. Further east, on the lower plains, tall grasses use even more carbon, because well, they're tall. Even after a fire, there's still a net carbon sink in a grassland because the root systems store at least half of the carbon a plant uses.

But I'm just a reader who really gets off on agricultural and environmental sciences. The UNC study was in Nature within the last couple of years. (Sorry I can't be more specific, but my copies go to the library and the last four years have been kind of a blur...)

It's all flowers, herbs, and ground covers and muched wood chips. Looks great, no maintenance, save the odd broom to get the chips off the walk if the dogs get rambunctious. Next stop, the front lawn!

Screw that mowing! Life is too short!

I never did the pesticide thing. Always had a ratass lawn, but turns out I was doing the right thing for the environment. Cheap and lazy can sometimes benefit Mother Earth....

Hey, the way I look at it is to set permaculture to work- plant cool things that support each other as much as possible and let the systems do the work! Nothing like cool fruit trees, reseeding and/or perennial flowers and herbs!

(The actual garden of course is another matter- but that's a labor of love... which I've never heard anyone say about mowing the freakin' lawn!).

:)

First fo all what you call "yard" we <UK> refer to as garden. Broadly speaking our gardens are smaller than your yards. We are not obsessed with weedkillers and fertilizers for the grass. The grass gets mown mainly to keep it looking fairly ok, easy to walk on and keep the daisys and dandelions at bay. My own one is frequently littered with food for the sparrows and blue tits.

In terms of scale - a friend visits me occasionally from NC. When he does so we have breakfast in my small back garden - weather permitting . One time I asked how big his garden was. He smiled and said if you mean back yard - 45 acres !

The lawn is a relatively recent invention. The national "lawn" consumes millions (billions?) of gallons of water, and tons of chemicals. It always strikes me as bizarre how people out in the desert want lawns.

Lawns are legislated in many towns. You can't let your front yard go wild as that is considered an "eyesore".

Aside from having a place for the kids to play, lawns are a waste.

lakes and rivers. not good for the surface water (and groundwater) either!

it's nice to see other plants in your front yard, or even rocks or a pond and other stuff