Is it time to re-think having a lawn?

[Diamond_Dog]

It's easy to see why manicured lawns, as alluring as they can be, arouse such strong feelings. Depending on the local climate, they can require abundant chemical fertilisers and pesticides, as well as considerable watering – to the tune of 1.5 billion cubic metres (329 billion gallons) of municipal water each summer day – in order to maintain that verdant shade and weed-free surface. Then there's the pollution caused by mowing. None of this has been mitigated by environmental legislation to date, which has largely tended to concern itself with the management of agricultural land.

(snip)

We are, it might appear, addicted to lawns – which perhaps explains why 70-75% of urban green areas globally are now lawns, or why an estimated 23% of the entire urban land area on the planet is covered by them. In the US, that's six times the amount covered by corn, the country's largest irrigated crop.

Interesting article

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220426-should-people-get-rid-of-their-garden-lawns

[Irish_Dem]

1. Global warming and water shortages means good bye to unnecessary water hogs.

[jimfields33]

4. Avocados are big water drinkers

Maybe get rid of at least some of those on farms and replace with a less water needed fruit or vegetable. That would save huge on water conservation.

[Irish_Dem]

5. Works for me.

Never liked avocados. Too green and too mushy.

But yes we may have to rethink the crops we grow. And go to those needing less water.

The world is going to need to make some big changes.

[jimfields33]

6. Agree wholeheartedly

We have to get away from what is wanted to what is needed.

[patricia92243]

7. Yes! n/t

[Irish_Dem]

8. I think the world is going to change dramatically in the next 50 years.

Global warming may change things a great deal.

[Demovictory9]

79. love avocados. had one today

[Irish_Dem]

84. Yes people love avocados.

It is one of those foods I really tried to like. But couldn't do it.

[maxsolomon]

30. the scale of avocado tree irrigation versus private lawn irrigation?

i doubt they're comparable.

[underpants]

2. Selling point for buying our house

It takes me maybe 15 minutes to cut our little front yard. Sun Joe battery powered mower. 👍

[patricia92243]

3. He does not give any realistic answers. "The let your lawn grow tall" is just plain

silly. I don't want snakes, etc right in my door.

Ground covers sounds like a good idea but it needs to be made easy to buy and to plant them. In this blazing hot Florida sun, I would have to see them grow to believe it.

[Diamond_Dog]

11. I'm with you on that one.

Snakes, rodents, ticks. We have a dog so we have to worry about ticks.

[dameatball]

17. I have been looking into Sunshine Mimosa for a while. Can't make up my mind on it, but I would also

like to do away with grass in the front yard. I am slowly expanding veggie selection in the back. This is North central FL.

[genxlib]

19. I had that stuff in my yard and I think it is evil.

It spreads with runners that have the consistency of wire. I couldn't cut it with a string trimmer and the edger would sometimes just twist it up rather than cut it.

I finally decided to get rid of it and I couldn't. It has tap roots the size of carrots and they hold on for dear life. No matter what I did, I could not get them all out and it just grew back. I finally just covered it all with a plastic tarp for months to starve it of sunshine and water. Months later, the stuff was still growing under the tarp. I finally just had to dig out the whole are below grade to make it go away.

Maybe my experience was unique to my soil, geography etc. but I didn't like it.

[dameatball]

31. Yikes. Thanks for that info. One other thing that has kept me from going with mimosa is what if

I eventually decide to sell the place and potential buyers want a more traditional lawn. It sounds like mimosa would be harder to change out of than to change into, so to speak. I will consider your experience.

[genxlib]

36. It's a shame because it is a fascinating plant

It actually reacts when you touch it. They also call it the Sensitive Plant.

It is also attractive with lavender starbursts.

I liked it right up until I had owned it for a time.

Sorry to rain on your parade but I hope I have done a service.

[dameatball]

41. I agree. It is a cool plant. A nusery not too far from me has a decent size patch of it as a sample.

[Mossfern]

40. I'm curious

What stuff are you talking about?

We bought a Victorian era house more than 30 years ago. The previous owner had planted zoysia on a good portion of the one acre lot. After all this time I've conceded loss in the "zoysia wars". I've ripped it up, reseeded, covered it - even planted a veggie garden over a 30' X 30' portion of it .... and then the deer and groundhogs came ...and the zoysia returned. I would return from the yard, hands bloodied trying to eradicate this stuff. I think nothing short of Agent Orange will get rid of it - but not so sure.

[genxlib]

68. I was responding to the person considering Mimosa

This is the plant I had trouble with in my yard

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimosa_pudica

[JCMach1]

24. North Florida, just drop in St. Augustine and forget about it

Just doesn't require a lot of care there

[csziggy]

56. Or centipede grass - it loves my red clay soil, hates fertilizer, and doesn't need much water

I have it around the house mostly for erosion control and because it tolerates traffic where we walk a lot. Places too shady for it have Florida natives - ragwort and partridge berry, which should both spread under my big oak tree.

[Hotler]

25. We have code enforcement, no grasses or weeds above 6".

[Emile]

9. I have around 4 to 5 acre lawn. I don't water

anything but my vegetable garden and I get that water from my farm pond and creek. The cost for diesel for my tractor to mow is getting ridiculous and that has me wondering if I should stop mowing so much. Not only with the yard, I also mow walking trails in my woods. I do enjoy my peaceful time sitting on a park bench, hitting my one hitter, and watching the wildlife in my woods. Soon as electric tractors with front bucket loaders and a 60 inch or more mower deck come out, I'll get rid of the diesel.

[dwayneb]

28. Similar here

Around an acre of lawn in a semi-rural setting. Never water the lawn, but like you, water a small garden.

In this area of Ohio, it's mostly suburban lawns that get watered a lot. It's entirely for vanity, because lawns once established don't really need to be watered. Sure they go brown and dormant in hot weather but they recover naturally.

[Emile]

42. I love that golden brown grass of August and that

crunchy noise it makes when you walk on it.

[dsp3000]

10. I have drought resistant fescue in my lawn. Doesn't need to be watered as much

There are new strains of Grass seed out there now that require alot less watering. Definitely helps in alleviating the need to water all the time. It's a very good option for those who are unable or unwilling to forgo their manicured lawns like myself. I live in a hoa and I don't intend to find out what they would do if I stop cut my grass

[Buckeyeblue]

12. My approach is to mow the grass when it needs mowed

We don't water. We don't fertilize.

[Freddie]

13. Mine too

If it grows and it’s green, it’s a lawn. No HOA here.

[Diamond_Dog]

16. Same here Freddie. No watering or fertilizer or pesticides. Just mow it.

[House of Roberts]

15. I don't water or fertilize either.

I just this year got a gift from my stepson, a Kobalt 80v electric pushmower, so now I will only use the gas mower for leaf removal as it has a bag attachment. I mow his mom's yard as well as mine because she can no longer afford the $100 a month to have it mowed, and I'm sorta retired and have the time.

[Midnight Writer]

37. Me, too. I don't like chemicals in my yard. I do throw some grass seed around on thin patches.

[Renew Deal]

14. The author must be a big fan of Coruscant

Or LA in Blade Runner 2049

[NickB79]

64. If you read the article, you'd know that's not true

Can you really not imagine any alternatives between acres of chemical-soaked lawn, and an entire city or planet covered entirely by metal and concrete? Just that hard dictotomy?

[RobinA]

18. The Picture

of a suburban housing development with freely growing, uh...vegetation in every yard is a hard one to imagine many people getting behind any time soon. That's a BIG change in many parts of the country. It certainly would be to the Philadelphia 'burbs where I live. People have gotten far away from accepting plants growing freely and critters within a block of their houses. Hell, I know people who will happily empty a can of Raid in their kitchen rather than see an ant on a counter. I've always wondered what places really looked like back in the day before grass and mowers. Certainly not what we see today.

[JCMach1]

22. Lots of sand/dirt/,mud and sweeping

Lots and lots of sweeping 🧹

[MissMillie]

20. I'd be okay not having a lawn

Well, maybe not getting rid of the entire lawn...


Maybe keep just a little grass around the front walk-way.

We have a big yard on the side of the house. It'd be super cool to put in a huge vegetable garden. Time it so that during the summer/autumn, veggies come continuously instead of all at once (I wouldn't want 20 bushels of tomatoes all at the same time). Having a garden like that might make me learn how to do some canning.

We have water issues though. I'd hate to put in a ton of effort only to have all the plants drown.

[JCMach1]

23. I would much rather xeriscape with native perrenials and wildflowers

Alas I live in an HOA.

At least, I put in a composite lawn which cuts back on chemical and fertilizer usage

[ChazII]

34. Desert landscape is what many of

my neighbors have been converting to for the last two decades. One even covered part of what was their front yard with a thin layer of cement. No weed and no rotting of the tarp that is sometimes used when changing from grass to gravel.

[CrackityJones75]

50. cement....

good grief

[Chakaconcarne]

21. We're thinking about replacing our lawn with Turf...

[CrackityJones75]

49. What do you mean by turf?

If you mean fake grass….. Why?

[ChazII]

52. Four homes in my neighborhood

have place artificial turf in place of real grass. They want the green I guess. These are homes that have been sold to folks flipping houses I think. The house get gutted inside, repainted and in a few months later the entire outside is different, too.

[CrackityJones75]

53. Artificial turf instead of grass

sounds ludicrously stupid to me. Eventually it will go to a landfill, it doesn’t supprt needed insects and other organisms .

[ChazII]

57. Bizarre is that one of the houses

had solar panels installed in January and they have an electric car which is plugged in each and every night. The house has a carport instead of a garage and was built in the 1950's. So what is with the fake grass instead of desert landscape? I don't have an answer for you.

[CrackityJones75]

60. Weird.

[niyad]

26. Xeriscaping. Herbal ground cover. planting edibles.

Figuring out why certain weeds (plants) grow when everything else is dying.

[Hotler]

27. I was at the fram/ranch supply the other day and pick up

Last edited Sun May 1, 2022, 11:46 AM - Edit history (1)

Farm/Ranch news. There were ads in it for seed banks for prairie grasses, turf mixes, wild flowers, cover crops. I'm going to check it out. Denver is in a drought again. I need something for the backyard

[Hortensis]

29. Way past time. That said, in GA and northcentral FL's temperate climates

we mow what nature grows, don't water, and call it a lawn. Looks nice enough for us, very nice from a distance, holds the soil, helps rainfall soak in, and is comfortable underfoot. When drought hits, it self regenerates in no time.

Power mowing's a problem too of course, but we learned in GA that that mowed weeds can't support the abundant insect, and other, life unmowed pasture does can be a very good thing the first and last summer we let our pretty pasture grow close to the house. So that's why people don't do it. City folk, what did we know?

[MagickMuffin]

32. Golf Courses need to be played on dying grass or astroturf, talk about water waste

We have been working on eliminating our burmuda grass, it was under control but it's trying to make a comeback.

We let Mother Nature have control. She has given us an abundance of herbs which most people would call weeds. We have Horseherb a beautiful herb that has pretty yellow flowers and heart shaped leaves. Then there is clovers, purple flowers and some with white flowers. Will be planting various mints, purslane (which is extremely high in antioxidants.)

We're also experimenting with sedums.


There are a lot of heat tolerant plants. Do your research, and find other ways to manage your yard without a grassy lawn. No need to mow (another wasted resource)
just learn what grows in your area. You'll be glad you did.

[CrackityJones75]

48. Aside from the fertilizer use

Many golf courses use a lot of reclaimed water.

Of course not all but that should be the mandatory practice. I have no problem with golf courses that are maintained environmentally. Not too many if those. I would rather see a golf course that is maintained properly than asphalt.

[Polybius]

33. What purpose does a lawn even have anyway?

Why not just get bricks/tiles/pavement instead?

[genxlib]

39. Stormwater runoff for one thing

What you describe generates a lot of extra water running off instead of infiltrating back into the aquifer. Of course that comes with less watering so I am not sure how it effects the net toll on the groundwater. More than anything, it causes a great deal of trouble with the drainage infrastructure to manage that excess stormwater until it is back into the ground/river/canal etc.

There is also a pretty big cost difference

It is also not very friendly to pets and children

I am no friend of grass but it does have some benefits over what you describe.

Sorry if I went overboard but I do drainage professionally so the idea of paving every lawn sent up red flags for me.

[Polybius]

61. Excellent points!

While they are way too much work for me, you have explained everything well!

[Kaleva]

43. And who invented the lawn?

[CrackityJones75]

47. Seriously?

Pavement?


Wow.

[Polybius]

62. Yes I was serious

Why the wow?

[CrackityJones75]

65. Pavement over grass or even just let it be natural.

I mean I've never stopped an thought... The world could really do with some more pavement.

[Polybius]

72. I'm just thinking of my own troubles

My lawn is a weed magnet that grows too fast for me to mow, and I hate mowing.

[CrackityJones75]

76. Maybe you should rent.

Seems like a better option than paving your yard.

[Polybius]

78. The only downside for me is price

Something like this is nice, since my lawn is in the front.

[Demovictory9]

80. green space looks good. People can lie down and on a lawn. nice for dogs to run and play

[JI7]

81. The article goes into history a bit . It's similar to Diamonds in that it became a status symbol

type of thing . And how it became part of the American culture .

[MissB]

35. We are redoing our backyard

Our property is a half acre. We keep over half of that in wild forest/understory. The edges of the entire property are all wild forest and nearly half of the property is a "driveway" circle through a tall stand of firs. We don't do anything to that area other than keep the arborist busy every other year, making sure none of the big firs will drop huge limbs. The driveway isn't paved, and we let the fir cones fall where they may. We do have a large bird population in the yard.

The backyard area has a fenced veggie garden that's probably about 35' by 15' and is at the back edge. The rest of the backyard is split between a perennial bed that hugs the foot print of the house and a bit of "grass" which is more weeds than actual grass. From a distance, it looks just fine when mowed. Up close, eh, not so much.

The entire backyard slopes towards the house. We'll be regrading the area between the fenced veggie garden at the very back edge and the retaining wall that provides a walkway around the house, creating a series of terraces. The grass area won't grow in size particularly, but it does get all squared off and neat. The pathways get straightened out. There will still be plenty of organic shape in the design, but it'll come via hardscape mostly. We'll have a large seating area that is next to a greenhouse where the doors to the greenhouse are on the side, making an indoor/outdoor space. Our property came with a firepit - it's an old cast iron smelter bucket that's about 3' in diameter. We found it tucked under a deck when we moved in.

My neighbors have a piece of property nearly twice the size of mine and most of their yard is lawn. If I want to look at a nice lawn, I'll look over there.

None of us actually water our lawn in the summer. It tends to turn yellow, then pops back green after the first fall rain. No fertilizing necessary.

I've toyed with the idea of putting in turf, but I still like the idea of a small level area of grass. Our battery powered lawn mower would take care of it in less than 5 minutes. Much of the rest of the kept portion of the yard is planted with perennials that are heavily mulched. I do water the front shade garden in the heat of the summer about twice a week.

I abhor the mow-and-blow yard services here.

[Kaleva]

44. I'm converting about half the property into a vegetable garden & orchard

The back yard was big but it served no purpose other then giving me much more yard to mow.

[Initech]

38. I'm allergic to grass, so for me having to do as little yard work as possible is ideal.

[DenaliDemocrat]

45. My "lawn"'is a meadow

Damn I love country living

[CrackityJones75]

46. a good start would be

a good start would be for people to stop livi g places they shouldn’t be living. Living in the desert is a terrible idea. If people lived where water is that would help a ton. Then we don’t have to expend the energy needed to put it where it isn’t to provide water to the things that also shouldn’t be there.

[hunter]

51. It matters a lot where you live.

In places where it rains all year you can just mow what grows. That's how I treated our "lawn" when we lived in the Midwest.

When my wife and I moved back to California and bought a house one of the first things we did was rip out the lawn and replace it with plants that did not need regular watering. There's no HOA and the city only cares about trash or dead cars. Everything else can be neatened up with a string trimmer.

We we ahead of the trend. In the years that followed many of our neighbors have done the same.

A few neighbors have installed synthetic turf. Some of it looks fairly natural, you notice it because it's too perfect. I don't know how long that stuff will last. When it starts to look shabby it probably won't be recycled even though that's one of the advertised features, rather it will end up in the landfill.

The U.S. Southwest is in bad shape. Ultimately Arizona will be forced to build desalinization plants in California and Mexico in exchange for California and Mexico's share of Colorado River water. Preliminary plans are already being made to do this.

Desalinated water is expensive, probably too expensive to waste on lawns.

[Hekate]

54. Native plants, guys. They've already adapted. Get one of those big garden books with zones...

…and see what it says about your area. I have the Sunset Western Garden Book, which is a great resource.

[Mosby]

55. No.

It's time to rethink why we are growing lettuce, broccoli etc in the desert.

[hunter]

66. It's done so people can eat lettuce and fresh broccoli all year around.

The lettuce crop alternates between the California-Arizona desert in the winter and cooler coastal California in the summer.

In the eastern U.S.A. where water is more plentiful these crops freeze in the winter and bolt directly to seed in the summer, so they cant be grown all year around.

[shanti]

58. Would recommend

And living in parched NorCal, I made the decision to do this to my lawn 5 years ago. Drip watering for several waterwise plants, boulders, river rocks, mulch, and a lemon tree now take the place of a lawn. I love it. I hand pull occasional weeds and have my gardener come by for a seasonal cleanup/trim. That's it.

[Hekate]

59. Since returning to California I've had 2 houses.The first one, all the grass died & I covered it...

… with wood chips, which look nice and organic. You can get them for free if you see a tree removal service with woodchipper down the block — I walked up and asked, and basically saved them the cost of the tipping fee at the landfill by pointing to my place and saying I’d love it if they dumped it in my front yard.

All I really had to do was lay down many layers of newspaper as a weed-retardant and then rake the chips over all. One of the advantages of this method is that should there be any rain, it will flow through to the soil beneath. Some years later when I had cause to do some digging, I found a surprising amount of life underneath where it was slightly cooler than anything on the surface — earthworms were over a foot down, but St Augustine runners were still there close to the surface, white and waiting for the sun. Amazing.

We were in that house 30+ years, and moved 4+ years ago. There was evidence of 3 iterations of watering systems in our new home. Sprinkler heads show through the strips of decorative rock around 3 sides of the house, where grass flourished when the house was first built. Currently we have a combination of drip and spray irrigation, much of which was replaced after the Thomas Fire melted it. It all gets checked weekly, as wild critters are thirsty and end up chewing on the lines.

It’s a bigger piece of land than the old place (almost half an acre) and a dryer microclimate, but half that space is a slope out back with a 200 y.o. oak. There is no lawn. We’re adjusting some of the plantings and adjusting the automatic system… and hoping for the best.

[Emile]

63. Location, location, location!

Here in the Midwest there is no water shortage.

[LeftInTX]

67. I don't have a lawn, but use plenty of water!

I wish I had never ripped it out!

It's alot of work keeping everything pruned and it uses almost as much water as turf.

[ismnotwasm]

69. I hate lawns. I would grow straight moss if I could

I dug part of my yard and put in a rockery, and graveled a large part of my backyard (my husband has multiple sclerosis and walks easier on gravel) I’ll have raspberries, oregano, mints, thyme—anything that will grow wild. I have a huge rhubarb that come back bigger every year. Love low maintenance plants.

I just mow the grass I have and plot against it

[canetoad]

70. I have an area of grass

It doesn't rise to the distinction of being called lawn. I prefer to call the dandelions and daisies, 'indicators'.

I just keep it short and look forward to mid-summer when it stops growing, and I defy it to turn brown and crispy, because then I don't have to cut it.

Several years ago I stopped using the catcher on the lawnmower. Two main benefits: Mower not so heavy, so quicker; self-mulching the grass seemed to keep it alive well into summer. Not that I give a flying fuck if it lives or dies.

[Skittles]

71. YESSSSSSSSSSSSS!

would be great to NEVER be awakened by lawn mowers and weed eaters!!!!!

[RaDaR63]

73. Much of the country has plenty of water

except in drought years. Runoff is calculated into our sewer bill, which is pretty high for an average city home. I'd love to have less lawn to cut though. The dogs would prefer more. I use battery powered lawn equipment. so noise and air pollution is less.

[Model35mech]

77. We have lawn but never water it, we also never apply herbicide

In southern WI we have 35-40 inches of precip per year. Generally water isn't a problem for lawns here unless you want it perfect all growing season.

I now am out of the city, and have a well. The biggest threat to my water is ag chemicals and an enormous mountain of garbage 8 miles north of my property (garbage that largely comes from Milwaukee County). Periodically we have to fend off suburbab Milwaukee attempts to buy property and pump water out from under the country-side

In town our water service was tied to sewage treatment and a county-wide fee for storage or rain-sewage (even though our house separated sewage and storm water) in an enormous underground tunnel reservoir because Milwaukee never separated storm water from sewage, so t keep The Lake clean, all the water is stored during rain-events and then treated and the storm water volume makes that very expensive. Every potable water use, is tied to treatment fees by volume, and the salary of our police, and the fire department, and ambulance and EMT services. All of which makes water quite expensive, and so we never watered the lawn and we still don't... Our water bill in town was regularly over $120 dollars for 2 people but the fraction of that which was for water was around 15 bucks. I much prefer being free from a crumby expensive city water/sewage and all the extras bill.

Up here it's a cool-season grass culture and without water in mid-summer heat the grass goes mostly dormant, so during July after the 4th there isn't really any mowing until it fully greens back in mid-to late August.

[marie999]

74. We have an acre of grass, clover and weeds.

We never fertilize it or water it. Our chickens, turkeys, rabbits, and ducks rip it up pretty good. We only mow it when it gets high enough to hide snakes.

[leftyladyfrommo]

75. I don't have grass. I just have ground cover.

Doesn't need water. I just have a guy cut it so it all looks even.

[electric_blue68]

82. I think you could have say a 10x10, or 12x12 ft lawn for lying down in picnicking, etc.

(I love lawns)

Then rest is various types of ground cover, or garden related. Plantings also for bees, and humners.

[Novara]

83. It completely depends on where you live

Here in the midwest we have enough rain so people don't need to water their lawns.

If you live in a drought-prone area, then you should re-think your landscaping.

All my equipment is either electric or battery-powered. I am not handling cans of gasoline in order to mow my lawn. I am not spewing clouds of pollution into the air. Another benefit to a battery-powered mower is that it is quieter as well.

[tavernier]

85. Pea rock here in Key Largo.

It just requires a leaf blow job every few months.

[bif]

86. If it wasn't for crabgrass, I wouldn't have a front lawn!