Curious what the community thinks of this article about the "typical American lawn" and how many are transitioning away from your traditional lawn and the labor, chemicals and time it takes to upkeep.
Posted Mar 27, 2020, 1:36 PM UTC
1435
Meh Here in New England we get plenty of rain, we all have wells, and if we didn’t maintain a lawn, you’d have a pile of dead leaves sitting on top of mud, feeding earthworms. And the other 98% of our world that isn’t lawn is just that - leaves and mud.
Now to be fair, I did live in so cal for a while, and a lawn doesn’t make as much sense there. Namely water isn’t as available, and your lots are so small - you’re better served by a nice patio with some furniture and a grill. Or hardscaped with some relaxing type seating.
I think these articles are trash personally and they pop up now and again. We’ve got bigger problems in the world to solve other than “should we have a lawn or not.”
16
I think the real suggestion behind these articles is often so poorly disguised it isnt even there. The idea should be to make sure your lawn is made with plants that are best for your environment. While a rock lawn makes sense in Arizona, here in Raleigh NC, a rock lawn would quicly become a lawn of weeds covered in rocks. However planting drought resistant grass or watering to keep your grass alive, not green, could be a more sensible option.
6
They also miss some of the benefits of having a grass yard.
I live in SoCal and this is my first spring with the new grass that I planted last fall (Tall Fescue because it gets cold where I am). The amount of dust in my house has dropped considerably. Not to mention my dogs don’t get scrapped up running around on dirt/rocks. I’m also anticipating that my backyard won’t get as hot this summer as it has in the past, which is safer for my dogs.
2
Living in PA...Looks like a great place for snakes and ticks...
14
I'm in michigan. Ticks and spiders would be all over that so fast.
I dont use unnecessary chems and try not to water unless absolutely necessary so I dont think we're the demographic this article is after
6
I lived in Michigan... I don't think it would have to be as bad as you make it sound It depends on what you plant..
2
Jokes on them. I love gardening too. I'm down for it. But, in a place like Georgia where nothing grows that well except bermuda, I'll keep on doing what I'm doing lol
13
It's a bullshit article from CNN.
6
This, but it could be from any source. My issue is claims sans source/citation. If Johnny Homeowner spends $500 on chemicals for a lawn, will that suddenly stop when he plants bushes and flowers and ornamental mulch?
2
I have a half acre mid century lot in the Midwest with lots of grass; lots of leaves and weeds; lots of work. I am trying to reduce the amount of grass I have by enlarging my garden beds, planting more shrubs, flowers, and trees, and laying mulch or rock. I would like for this large lot to have a more equal distribution of grass, woods, landscaping, concrete, and house. Not just tons of grass and house.
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Look into micro clover. I seeded some in the fall and I really like it. It grows low and dense. It fertilizes itself and doesn’t need much water. It has some flowers right now but not many and they are easy to mow if you cut short. I know some people worry about stepping on bees but it hasn’t been a problem for me.
1
I’m in Arizona and “playing” with my lawn to have something more bio-diverse and natural looking that’s also more water efficient and easier to maintain. Personally, I prefer something closer to what you’d find in nature...perfectly manicured lawns of one grass type with zero weeds and perfect edges is unnatural. I don’t like the look as much and I definitely don’t like all the work, chemicals and water perfect lawns require.
My lawn consists of common Bermuda (which grows fast with little effort) and clover. I’m going for a blended lawn and will be adding dichondra. I haven’t watered anything since November and it’s doing well and stays nicely green. I hand pull weeds and use organic fertilizer a couple times a year. My goal this summer is to greatly reduce watering and mowing. I want my small slice of nature in the city.
3
I’ve been working towards a no-mow yard. I have planted native ground cover, shrubs and wild grass. It’s a small strip between my driveway and walkway and the only new critters I have seen are butterflies, hummingbirds and bees. I have not had a snake in my yard since doing this and prior to it my corgi stepped on a black racer and coral snake in our grass. I also do not have the armadillos tearing up my grass like they do all my surrounding neighbors. There is still necessary maintenance to keep things down like once in the winter it all gets cut down to the ground and comes back better each time. I should also admit that we have a really bad feral cat problem in our area and I think they survive on hunting everything that moves in the night.
3
It's my labor, so it's really a personal opinion as to whether you are interested in investing the time. If I want to invest 10+ hours per week to lawn care, that really isn't anyone else's business. Sort of like it isn't their business if I choose to watch TV, read a book, cook a fancy meal. By the way, these bushes/shrubs in the picture would take just as much maintenance as a lawn in my area. Due to the vast range in temperature, the grassy bushes will likely need to be trimmed off completely to the ground stalk in the late fall or you'll need to pick up a lot of dead brown decaying vegetation in the spring.
As far as the chemicals go, I think it really depends on what you are doing to your lawn. I spray the majority of my products that aren't organic (nitrogen, iron, etc). There is little to no runoff into either a water stream or a city storm water, as it is fully dissolved. A lot of the fertilizer a use is bio. The options are to pile up literal shit or reuse it in an agricultural setting. Seems pretty environmentally reasonable to me. Cars (even electric) are likely worse for the environment then my yard (due to manufacturing, gasoline, a lot of electric isn't even renewable energy, oils, disposal of old vehicles, etc.).
2
Most i feel are lazy now and will pay for that service. That being said i think planting more native plants in your area is a definite plus and good for the local animals and for the less demand of water/ resources.
2
I have .15 of an acre lot, minus house and driveway. I don't think it's that much upkeep. Maybe for larger spaces, or more arid climates.
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It's only people who can't control their crabgrass that give up on life and write such nonsense.
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I really don't understand lawn hate or the "labor and chemicals". I mow it and water it once a week during growing season. Use organic fertilizer twice a year. Overseed once a year after aerating in the fall. And hand pull weeds for a couple minutes before each mow. Really our lawn looks so good and it didn't take that much work. And I don't use chemicals or a preemergent. I just think most people are lazy. Which I don't care if they are but it is like at most 10 hours extra a year (max) that I do (besides the normal mow which even weed lawns have to do).
0
You use chemicals and saying you don't is a lie. EVERY item you put in your yard is a chemical. We need to stop the word chemical as a pejorative as its so hip to use it in that way when it comes to lawn products, but suddenly chemicals aren't an issue when they hook that IV up to Aunt Sally who has pancreatic cancer.
As long as you use the proper chemicals in the proper dose at the proper time in the yard, there are no drawbacks.
2
Can I ask which organic fertilizer you use, and what you use to aerate?
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Where are you even getting these numbers from?
I have a tiny lawn, and just on mowing alone its way more than 20 hours a year. Like way more. Unless you are in Canada where your summers are a few days long. And I am not even coming close to counting the hours I've spent weeding and trimming the edges and dealing with various other lawn issues. Then of course leaves add tons and tons more hours.
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I said not including mowing. Neighborhood has a standard weed or grass height. So even if you just went weeds, you still have to mow the same amount to not have a jungle in front. If you went garden, vegetables, etc, it would be more time intensive than a once a week mow. I also have a vegetable and flower garden in the back. If you went rock/dirt only, when there used to be vegetation, you are looking at drainage iand runoff issues if that is what most people turn to.
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After 100 years of lawns people forgot why we keep short grass around our houses.
You don't want your yard to be a friendly ecosystem for wild animals.
City governments don't mandate lawncare because of some vanity project. Wild areas are harborage for pests.
They spread infectious diseases, they destroy property. The current epidemic was caused by human proximity to wild animals. They all are. Notice that plagues don't originate in the suburbs of Minneapolis?
Who in their right mind looks around the world today and say "You know, we don't have enough contact with bats and tapirs. We should encourage more human contact with them"
These laws were passed by people whose dogs had rabies, whose kids had rat bite fever, and had a kid sister died of hantavirus.
That shit doesn't happen anymore, thanks to hatborage laws, so city-dwelling granola munchers are free to ignorantly romanticize living conditions that our ancestors found to be so intolerable that they passed laws to fix them.
I love plants and animals so much that I went to school for biology. I'm a card-carrying member of the Sierra Club. I'm a bonafide environmentalist.
This push against lawns is misguided.
Don't tear down a fence until you know why it was put up.
Slow clap
I got a half chub just reading that. Can’t wait to mow my yard this weekend!
That’s a lot of big words but you got me hyped
Can't say it better.
You present an argument, but I've read equally compelling, more heavily-referenced arguments that grass lawns, aside from their necessity when playing croquet, were nothing but a status symbol. Status symbols have a way of spreading, regardless of whether they are actually good or not.
You might not have had a chance to read the article... the USA is collectively watering a lawn the size of Greece. Grass gets more water poured on it in the US than does any crop. Lawn watering consumes half the domestically used water in California. They didn't bring it up, but it would be a shame if you'd missed the articles about law fertilizers and pesticides (yes, products for farm use are equally contaminating... but that's another sub) turning up in freshwater, groundwater, and other places where they shouldn't be, resulting in widespread ecosystem damage.
Furthermore, there are other solutions to the problems you raise than covering the lawn with sunflowers and hippies. For instance, one could replace grass with natural stones, or with a a hearty, drought-resistent non-flowering groundcover (here in Florida a many of us use jasmine).
So yea, no slow clap from me.
Yea, his post sounded impressive but completely ignored the fact that everything he mentions can be solved with xeriscaping and other non-lawn approaches.
Maybe step off the soapbox and actually look at what you yourself wrote. You free admit that the problems of having wild animals is a thing of the past, but you choose to make fun of the people who have realized that and think the ridiculous grooming that suburbanites go through is an utter waste of resources.
Should we still build castles with moats because some barbarians might come out of nowhere to attack us? That's kind of how absurd your reaction is to this.
It's a thing of the past because we have rediculous grooming standards.
The elk aren't coming back to Long Island. Massive bears aren't going to start roaming around Boston. Giant stegosauri aren't going to start crawling around Philidelphia suburbs. Saber tooth tigers aren't going to take over Main street Houston TX. Unicorns aren't going to be taking up residence in Wichita KS.
All these laws - and let's be clear, they are not universal - are because of vanity these days. Its because busy-body suburbanites want both a pastime and want to keep their precious property values up by having one monotonous lawn aesthetic.
The FDA doesn't prohibit tall grass near food processing facilities because they care about property values.
They do it because if the wrong field mouse rolls around in a bag of flour, you'll kick off the next plague.
It's surreal to have to defend the value segregation from wildlife while everyone is on lockdown because of a failure to segregate from wildlife.
I live in Pennsylvania. Like another poster said, I would have ticks, spiders, snakes, rats, and who knows what else coming up to my house. Hard scraping would just add to runoff issues during rains. Also bears, deer, etc are not uncommon in the suburbs around here.