Posted on 09/30/2015 8:49:25 AM PDT by Arec Barrwin
THE AMERICAN LAWN NEEDS TO DIE
BY ERIC NICHOLSONWEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2015
My first inkling that America's lawn obsession might not be terribly healthy came around 1995. We'd just moved into a new house in Far North Dallas, and 10- or 11-year-old me decided that the next-door neighbor's lawn — green and smooth as flawless as a golf-course fairway with manicured grass to cushion falls — was the perfect spot for football. The neighbor, a hard-nosed high school track coach, promptly ran us off and upbraided my father for letting me trespass. This struck me as backward. What good was such cushiony grass if not for play?
At the time, I chalked this up to my neighbor being an uptight jerk, an assessment I stand by. But that explanation is incomplete in that it overlooks the bigger picture: Lawns are awful.
This conclusion is admittedly self-serving. Two years ago, in one of those compromises a married person with two small children and two large dogs sometimes has to make, I agreed to swap our cramped apartment just south of White Rock Lake for a three-bedroom house in Richardson, but I was decidedly unenthusiastic about once again having a yard. Since then, I've waged a half-intentional campaign of aggressive neglect. We haven't watered since we've been there. I own a lawnmower, but it's one of those human-powered reel contraptions and it's no match for the shin-high bluestem that seems to spring up overnight. Sometimes I borrow a gas mower from my fall-prone, 70-something-year-old neighbor, but between work and kids, this can be infrequent. The other day, I peeked outside the window and found that 70-something neighbor had taken it upon himself to mow our front yard. It's not something I'm proud of, but my wife and I figured it'd be best to retreat quietly from the windows. We wouldn't want to startle him and make him fall.
But the awfulness of lawns is something close to an objective fact. Maintaining them is time-consuming and expensive. They suck up ungodly amounts of water. When it rains, their fertilizer-heavy runoff pollutes waterways. They pit neighbor against neighbor's kids. They are decadent and unsustainable totems of middle-class prosperity.
RELATED STORIES Long Live Expensive Water In Far North Dallas, Big Fences Make Mad Neighbors and a 9-year Court Battle Think Your Water Bill Is Too High? Blame the Rain. For several centuries, lawns were the exclusive purview of very rich Europeans, people who were wealthy enough to keep large swaths of land out of productive cultivation and afford the labor required to keep the grass neatly scythed. European-style lawns began to take root in America in the mid-1800s after Andrew Jackson Downing recommended expanses of "grass mown into a softness like velvet" as part of a popular gardening treatise he published in 1841. His ideas were later incorporated into the broad lawns of New York's Central Park and lush, pre-automobile suburbs like Riverside, Illinois, which were aped in subsequent decades by the developers of less exclusive suburbs. “No single feature of a suburban residential community contributes as much to the charm and beauty of the individual home and the locality as well-kept lawns,” declared Abraham Levitt, whose name would become synonymous with the post-war explosion of inexpensive, mass-produced suburbs. In post-war America, lawns became a standard feature of the single-family home.
The cumulative size of lawns is vast. By acreage, tur grass is the largest irrigated crop in America, according to a decade-old NASA estimate, covering three times the area devoted to corn. Clumped together, it would more than cover the state of Mississippi.
Lawns are clustered in cities and suburbs. Lawns are clustered in cities and suburbs. NASA Since the non-native grasses that compose most lawns can't be kept green with rainfall alone, and because water and sunlight make the plant grow, lawns require intensive intervention, sucking up a total of about 9 billion gallons of water per day in aggregate and costing the average homeowners about 70 hours of labor per year. Lawns tend to be punishing for the environment as well. In addition to the ecological effects of runoff, which can overwhelm water bodies with excess levels of nitrogen and phosphorous, there's the act of lawn-mowing itself. According to National Geographic, one hour running a gas mower can pollute as much as driving a car for four hours.
Lawns are particularly troublesome in arid cities such as Phoenix and Las Vegas, where it's a challenge to find enough water for people to drink, much less keep a bunch of ornamental grass verdant. The water crunch in a place like Dallas is less acute, but the principles at play are the same. There isn't nearly enough available water to sustain the population long-term without intensive conservation efforts or massive infrastructure investment. North Texans remain attached to their lawns, though recent price hikes for water may spur many to reassess the value of a green yard.
There really aren't that many good reasons for lawns. Responding to a Wonkblog piece describing lawns (accurately) as a "soul-crushing time suck," Turf magazine editor Ron Hall critiques the author for failing to mention "the economic value that nicely maintained lawns add to properties. It doesn’t hint at the good will and sense of civility lawns engender in our neighborhoods. But, the biggest omission in the piece is piece is its failure to mention the well-documented environmental pluses lawns contribute to our communities — capturing dust, their cooling effect, reducing runoff, etc."
But nicely maintained lawns only boost property values and engender civility because that's what decades of increasing suburbanization has led people to expect, not because of some virtue inherent to a well-tended piece of grass. On the latter point, whatever environmental pluses are associated with the typical American lawn would be matched by yards of native plants and grasses without most of the damaging effects.
Lawns aren't going to disappear anytime soon. They are effectively part of North Texas' infrastructure, there for however long the house it surrounds stands. But at the very least people can water a little less, rely on native plants a little bit more. If one simply must have the perfect golf-course lawn, at least let some kids play on it. Finally, if you see a lawn that's a bit overgrown or rough around the edges, don't call code enforcement; congratulate the neighbor on taking a principled stand with their forward-thinking mowing and irrigation policies.
Agree. I never understood the obsession. I have a 2 plus acre property with probably 3/4 of an acre of grass. The house came with an irrigation sprinkler system installed by the prior owner. It’s been almost 3 years and I’ve yet to turn it on. We live in Massachusetts and usually get enough rain to keep the grass mostly green. But I couldn’t care less when the lawn turns brown in high summer.
I mow it enough for it to look neat, but that’s about it. I fertilize the front grass once a year. With a wife and 3 kids under 10, I have better things to do with my time.
With that being said...the Freeper in me realizes that some people love their lawn, love to fuss over it, and love to have it look like a perfect lush green carpet. That’s ok with me. It’s their water bill.
But it’s the friggin’ busy body Democrats that f it up for everyone by telling you how awful you are, and how much resources you’re “wasting” etc. screw em’
[ Liberal utopian apartments. This is what they think people should live in. It is what all communists force people to live in. ]
This calls for MUZAK!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l46t_nrySg4
The lawn has died where I grew up—in Arizona!
Except on golf courses, of course!!!!
Move to the Northeast, we have plenty of water and hardly ever have draught condidtions and almost never have dozens of forest fires throughout the state. Besides, we have a net loss of population due to high taxes as the governments are almost all left wing dems with their only focus on welfare programs. We need more people to afford to stay here or we will move South and West and futher strain the water shortages.
We never water in Wisconsin. The rain from the sky takes cre of it. Only the flower beds get water, and only those close to the house. The mowing never stops, however, until the first freeze. Then we get a break until spring.
For some reason, liberals are never satisfied until everybody is as slovenly and degraded as they are. And then they moan and complain with contempt and envy that the only reason all those hard-working people got to where they are is because of "white privilege". You know, the "rich" stole it off the backs of others so we must tear them down.
Yeah, he's just talking about lawns, but it is a unique metaphorical example of the liberal mindset.
I agree with you and would add this additional viewpoint. Libtards want to get rid of green grass for whatever twisted agenda(s) exist in their vacuous warped minds, but they ignore the amount of carbon dioxide grass takes out of the atmosphere replacing it with oxygen. If carbon dioxide is a global heater then grass is a global cooler.
No, he doesn't have a point. He's just ‘in fashion’...
“and 10- or 11-year-old me decided that the next-door neighbor’s lawn “
If you were 10 in 1995, shut up and don’t work about me and my lawn. And stay off it Ahole. In fact, wont even think about it, its none of your business unless you pay my water bill.
Maybe the Brady’s were onto something.
Once Hubs and I settle down, this is what we plan to do. A large patio with a space of artificial turf surrounded by trees. A section for a proper garden (irrigated with rain water) and another section for herbs.
The front yard will be gravel and boxes with native plants. More native trees. Almost no maintenance.
When I was growing up in Queens, NY, the Italian-Americans always had white rocks and gravel in their yards instead of grass.
No one from the leftist rag Dallas Observer has much of a point.
But I do think that the solution isn’t “no lawn,” but the RIGHT lawn. In Texas, that’s one that’s drought tolerant, like buffalo grass. And don’t demand that it be so pristine.
I visited the GW Bush Library in Dallas last weekend, and the buffalo grass planted there was a soft wheat color, but charmingly wavy and unkempt. That’s how I want my lawn in summer.
If you think lawn care takes work try maintaining a Zen garden like the one pictured. There’s a reason the obsessively focused and patient Japanese invented them.
So, right there is a pretty darned good argument for having a lawn if you have kids, or have friends with kids. But there have also been some pretty interesting studies that suggest that major elements of human landscape aesthetics are pretty universal, and are there for a good reason. Take a look at how royalty keep their grounds. It's the same the world over—why? Whatever it is, if kings have always done it that way, you have a pretty good idea of what everyone would do if he had his druthers.
Kings have things neat. They have forests and and gardens. But they also have lawns and nice places to sit down. And their houses are on a high point, overlooking water and distant hills. If someone's going to invade, the king's men have a shot at seeing them coming.
Ordinary people like a view. Notice they pay extra for a house on a rise, rather than in a hollow. Like the king, it makes them feel good to be able to see what's coming—friend or foe. Lawns work great for this consideration—not much to hide behind. As someone pointed out, snakes, snappers, coyotes, bears, as well as human predators, are way easier to spot. So are deer and other valuable prey animals. And so are cute children rolling on the carpet-like grass.
I grew up in a bohemian enclave, in a hilly, rocky area. There was precious little grass. If you rolled, you tended to get poked. When one of our rich bohemian friends had an outdoor party, the families with kids—but poor lawn habits—would eagerly show up so their kids could play on something nice.
Maybe grass is hard to grow in Dallas. But I think there's a reason we have the expression "lawn party."
A patch of green lawn is a nice thing to sink your toes in on a hot summer day. And it doesn’t take much to give the illusion of coolness. That said, green lawns are a dead space. Lawn as we know it, doesn’t support fauna, and absorbs copious amounts of water. Better to have your yard support native flora, so as to support native fauna. Food growing is not included in my comments. Fruit trees and veggie-herb gardens are a good thing.
Perhaps all of the lawn haters would prefer that to roses, flowers, manicured grass and sources of God’s Creation (what’s left of it)?
Yes I spend thousands on my yard every year, you commies want to take that from me too?
I’ve lived at my home in Missouri for 10 years now and have never once watered or fertilized the lawn. The grass just grows around here whether you want it or not.
I’m on a well out here.
A well can give you problems at times but a good well is a real blessing.
I spend less time and money mowing by very large lawn each week than most liberals spend in line at Starbuck’s each week.
Maintaining them is time-consuming and expensive. They suck up ungodly amounts of water. When it rains, their fertilizer-heavy runoff pollutes waterways. They pit neighbor against neighbor’s kids. They are decadent and unsustainable totems of middle-class prosperity.”
This is an especially tight and compact example of Marxist screed. In a sick way, I really admire the author of this prose....
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