Lawns are fine. Having lawns and nothing else is a problem. Filling your lawn with chemicals is a problem. Most people I know who have lawns don’t do that. They also have rich borders and beds and planters and wild areas. I post a different pic everyday here of bugs I find in my garden; the grass and clover and soil itself is full of life. Most people need an open space to play or entertain or whatever, and a lawn - though not a wildflower meadow - beats decking or concrete.
Yeah, I was prepared to completely agree with everything, but “lawns”? I have ~100m² of grass where my child and dog are free to play within the boundaries. Is this capitalistic of me?
I don’t think your first statement is true. Most people I know or places I’ve lived in or been have a mixed, lived‑in garden where the lawn is one component of a wider ecosystem. Most don’t look like the green on a golf course.
A lawn with clover, moss, daisies, micro‑wild patches, little plants I can’t even name that drift in on the wind, and healthy soil full of ants and worms and beetles and spiders and things I need to photograph and identify is not a monoculture. It’s a low meadow kept short that hosts plenty of life.
Go take a look in any real garden or lawn for 10 minutes. You’ll find life.
this is just based off of info i’ve read on the internet so i can’t say i’ve tested it myself but most ‘nice’ lawns i’ve seen with people i’ve actually talked with do at least weekly watering outside of normal rainfall
i know for a fact none of the lawns here are native because this area used to be a swamp
as to the mono culture all the lawns here are even, maybe two types of grass sometimes
I water my lawn once or twice a week when it’s dry. Nothing crazy, just a misting for 10-15 mins. I don’t think it’s wasting water to help an ecosystem blossom. The vast majority of grass seed we see in the UK would be native grasses. Mine is mixed hardy horse paddock grass. Grows like wildfire, and the bugs love it.
I still think even monoculture grass lawn is a good middle ground between nothing living at all and a wildflower meadow or the like. Not everyone cares about the plants around them, but grass and soil beats concrete or bare earth.
Monoculture lawns create massive gaps for various bugs that can’t transverse those gaps to eat, hide, breed, lay eggs/reproduce, hibernate for winter - and that impacts all the other species up and down the chain, from birds to microbial life. Mono culture lawns also limit the fungal life, which limits microbial life. Both those being limited along with introducing gaps where there once were highways for life means species dwindle, and that causes other species of plants and animals to dwindle. It’s a fucking massacre of life just to be “fine”. That hardly seems reasonable and fine to me.
As I said, a monoculture lawn is better than concrete or bare earth. I’m by no means a fan. I agree with you that they’re shit, but most I know simply aren’t that at all. They’re healthy and host a variety of life.
They really aren’t. Even without the chemicals, they’re still incredibly water-hungry and require intensive irrigation in most climates. And even if you have some garden beds around the edges, the lawn itself is still mostly an ecological dead zone when it comes to biodiversity and habitat. Not to mention that it also requires a lot of work (often assisted by fossil-fuel-powered machinery) to maintain.
And all just for aesthetics? Or – at most – used as a dog bathroom? Lawns are still incredibly wasteful, even in the most ideal circumstances.
Do people… water lawns? Well obviously don’t grow them there then. You leave a patch of ground completely alone around here and much of what ends up growing there is still various types of grass, some of which we also use in our lawn seed mixes.
And what’s a natural alternative that’s nice to walk on barefoot in the summer?
Do people… water lawns? Well obviously don’t grow them there then. You leave a patch of ground completely alone around here and much of what ends up growing there is still various types of grass, some of which we also use in our lawn seed mixes.
For the 10% of places where something lawn-like just grows naturally, without extra watering and extra work, sure. But for the other 90% of lawns…
And what’s a natural alternative that’s nice to walk on barefoot in the summer?
I dunno. Maybe walking barefoot in the summer isn’t that important?
For the 10% of places where something lawn-like just grows naturally, without extra watering and extra work, sure. But for the other 90% of lawns…
It’s much more than 10% of the places where lawn is grown. Much of mainland Europe has native grasses used for lawns everywhere.
I dunno. Maybe walking barefoot in the summer isn’t that important?
Neither are most things, but life is about enjoying the little things, and that’s a very enjoyable one for some people. And it’s free (well at least if you’re privileged or cursed enough to have a detached home with a garden, I grew up in such a house and hey, a few decades later the same lawn is still going strong unlike the rest of the house, it’s been watered on average maybe 5 times a decade if not less).
This hatred of lawns seems like yet another super America-specific thing, as North America has a lot of dry areas I guess. You know that super controversial Kentucky bluegrass that’s not native and all the anti-lawn folk hate? It’s native to basically all of Europe, parts of Africa and parts of Asia. Most meadows here have tons of that, along with clover which is also in some lawn mixes (and great for the bees, who are also not invasive here), dandelions which nobody plants on their lawns, but are unavoidable anyway, etc. Your average lawn is basically a mix of many of the same plants that would naturally occur in a meadow, but trimmed short.
A patch left alone will become grasses again because biodiversity in the area has been eliminated and the non native grasses will out-compete native plants.
To return an area to nature requires considerable effort to ensure natives can reestablish in an area and keep invasives out.
As for walking barefoot, use paths or don’t go barefoot. Your desire to walk barefoot does not trump the need for a healthy ecosystem.
Strong disagree for all aforesaid reasons. I’d say we’re likely talking about different types of lawns when it comes down to it. Most lawns I know are a damp green rectangle that grows whether you want it to or not. It’s not an ecological villain. It’s just grass and ‘weeds’.And culturally, British gardens have always mixed lawns with borders, hedges, trees, and beds. I’ve no doubt perfect lawns are sterile and water hungry but that’s the extreme, and most aren’t that. It’s not aesthetics or a dog toilet. They’re a space that people use. An outside room.
Lawns are fine. Having lawns and nothing else is a problem. Filling your lawn with chemicals is a problem. Most people I know who have lawns don’t do that. They also have rich borders and beds and planters and wild areas. I post a different pic everyday here of bugs I find in my garden; the grass and clover and soil itself is full of life. Most people need an open space to play or entertain or whatever, and a lawn - though not a wildflower meadow - beats decking or concrete.
Yeah, I was prepared to completely agree with everything, but “lawns”? I have ~100m² of grass where my child and dog are free to play within the boundaries. Is this capitalistic of me?
most lawns are monoculture, water hungry and non native
the native focused setups being the few alternatives but those are not really lawns
I don’t think your first statement is true. Most people I know or places I’ve lived in or been have a mixed, lived‑in garden where the lawn is one component of a wider ecosystem. Most don’t look like the green on a golf course.
A lawn with clover, moss, daisies, micro‑wild patches, little plants I can’t even name that drift in on the wind, and healthy soil full of ants and worms and beetles and spiders and things I need to photograph and identify is not a monoculture. It’s a low meadow kept short that hosts plenty of life.
Go take a look in any real garden or lawn for 10 minutes. You’ll find life.
this is just based off of info i’ve read on the internet so i can’t say i’ve tested it myself but most ‘nice’ lawns i’ve seen with people i’ve actually talked with do at least weekly watering outside of normal rainfall
i know for a fact none of the lawns here are native because this area used to be a swamp
as to the mono culture all the lawns here are even, maybe two types of grass sometimes
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1618866724002589
I water my lawn once or twice a week when it’s dry. Nothing crazy, just a misting for 10-15 mins. I don’t think it’s wasting water to help an ecosystem blossom. The vast majority of grass seed we see in the UK would be native grasses. Mine is mixed hardy horse paddock grass. Grows like wildfire, and the bugs love it.
I still think even monoculture grass lawn is a good middle ground between nothing living at all and a wildflower meadow or the like. Not everyone cares about the plants around them, but grass and soil beats concrete or bare earth.
Monoculture lawns create massive gaps for various bugs that can’t transverse those gaps to eat, hide, breed, lay eggs/reproduce, hibernate for winter - and that impacts all the other species up and down the chain, from birds to microbial life. Mono culture lawns also limit the fungal life, which limits microbial life. Both those being limited along with introducing gaps where there once were highways for life means species dwindle, and that causes other species of plants and animals to dwindle. It’s a fucking massacre of life just to be “fine”. That hardly seems reasonable and fine to me.
As I said, a monoculture lawn is better than concrete or bare earth. I’m by no means a fan. I agree with you that they’re shit, but most I know simply aren’t that at all. They’re healthy and host a variety of life.
Obligatory !nolawns@slrpnk.net call out
They really aren’t. Even without the chemicals, they’re still incredibly water-hungry and require intensive irrigation in most climates. And even if you have some garden beds around the edges, the lawn itself is still mostly an ecological dead zone when it comes to biodiversity and habitat. Not to mention that it also requires a lot of work (often assisted by fossil-fuel-powered machinery) to maintain.
And all just for aesthetics? Or – at most – used as a dog bathroom? Lawns are still incredibly wasteful, even in the most ideal circumstances.
Do people… water lawns? Well obviously don’t grow them there then. You leave a patch of ground completely alone around here and much of what ends up growing there is still various types of grass, some of which we also use in our lawn seed mixes.
And what’s a natural alternative that’s nice to walk on barefoot in the summer?
For the 10% of places where something lawn-like just grows naturally, without extra watering and extra work, sure. But for the other 90% of lawns…
I dunno. Maybe walking barefoot in the summer isn’t that important?
It’s much more than 10% of the places where lawn is grown. Much of mainland Europe has native grasses used for lawns everywhere.
Neither are most things, but life is about enjoying the little things, and that’s a very enjoyable one for some people. And it’s free (well at least if you’re privileged or cursed enough to have a detached home with a garden, I grew up in such a house and hey, a few decades later the same lawn is still going strong unlike the rest of the house, it’s been watered on average maybe 5 times a decade if not less).
This hatred of lawns seems like yet another super America-specific thing, as North America has a lot of dry areas I guess. You know that super controversial Kentucky bluegrass that’s not native and all the anti-lawn folk hate? It’s native to basically all of Europe, parts of Africa and parts of Asia. Most meadows here have tons of that, along with clover which is also in some lawn mixes (and great for the bees, who are also not invasive here), dandelions which nobody plants on their lawns, but are unavoidable anyway, etc. Your average lawn is basically a mix of many of the same plants that would naturally occur in a meadow, but trimmed short.
A patch left alone will become grasses again because biodiversity in the area has been eliminated and the non native grasses will out-compete native plants.
To return an area to nature requires considerable effort to ensure natives can reestablish in an area and keep invasives out.
As for walking barefoot, use paths or don’t go barefoot. Your desire to walk barefoot does not trump the need for a healthy ecosystem.
Strong disagree for all aforesaid reasons. I’d say we’re likely talking about different types of lawns when it comes down to it. Most lawns I know are a damp green rectangle that grows whether you want it to or not. It’s not an ecological villain. It’s just grass and ‘weeds’.And culturally, British gardens have always mixed lawns with borders, hedges, trees, and beds. I’ve no doubt perfect lawns are sterile and water hungry but that’s the extreme, and most aren’t that. It’s not aesthetics or a dog toilet. They’re a space that people use. An outside room.
Edit: disregard this comment, I mistranslated lawn in to garden/backyard, i am not native english
NileMr. Green sweating in the corner