Another great video from Climate Town consolidating a whole ton of info about just how bad America's lawns are for the planet. It dives into the history, the laws, the consequences, and what to do...
Another great video from Climate Town consolidating a whole ton of info about just how bad America's lawns are for the planet.
It dives into the history, the laws, the consequences, and what to do to fix it.
Some important highlights:
More than 30% of residential water usage goes to lawns. More water than any other crop
Virtually no lawn grass is native to North America or Europe
Unsurprisingly, the lawncare industry lobbies against repealing weed laws.
Turns out putting poison on everything is bad.
I killed my lawn. It's now a yearlong fireworks display of native flowers, with more than 6 species of bees, 7 species of moths and butterflies, thousands of crickets, a family of bunnies that has babies every spring, dozens of birds that live all the time and thousands of migrants.
It's a beautiful thing, and I'm sure all my neighbors hate it.
There are different kinds of lawns. Some are only minimally maintained. In the SF bay area, you don’t have to do anything in particular to get a (sometimes rather weedy) lawn in the spring time. A...
There are different kinds of lawns. Some are only minimally maintained.
In the SF bay area, you don’t have to do anything in particular to get a (sometimes rather weedy) lawn in the spring time. A vacant lot will become overgrown unless you mow it. After that it stops raining and the grass dies.
In rural upstate New York, you have to mow spring, summer, and fall, or you will have a hayfield. There’s lots of mowing, but no weeding needed if you don’t mind the dandelions. Abandoned fields become overgrown with bushes and start turning into forest.
I live in a semi-desert section of Texas and this year I replaced my front lawn with a desert landscape... crushed red granite for the most part. Don't know what I'll do with the back yard. I...
I live in a semi-desert section of Texas and this year I replaced my front lawn with a desert landscape... crushed red granite for the most part. Don't know what I'll do with the back yard. I don't water it, and yet I have lots of weeds every year. In the spring, I plan on planting a lot of palo verde trees in the front and back, but the back yard itself is still a problem. Right now I'm looking into some of the native grasses found in my area, and desert wildflowers might be part of the solution as well.
In any case, I'm not part of the lawn watering crowd and never intend to start.
This is always such a one-sided discussion. And it's biased from the start. Just because lawn grass is grown, doesn't make it a crop. Intentional use of wrong words already hints at the...
This is always such a one-sided discussion. And it's biased from the start. Just because lawn grass is grown, doesn't make it a crop. Intentional use of wrong words already hints at the bias/animosity.
I have lawns, and they're not perfect. But I like them. And I will keep them. Now, the strips between the sidewalk and street? I am trying to figure out what to do with those, because grass makes no sense there. My city has a rebate program for xeriscaping (and a website and guides), so the cost will be offset somewhat, and my water bill will go down a bit during the spring and summer. Seems like a win-win.
But xeriscaping is a word that I have rarely seen in no-lawn discussions. People are super proud of killing their grass and just letting nature takeover. That's fine, I guess. As long as you don't care about your property value or insurance or the general appeal of your neighborhood (we skipped more than one decent house because of trashy neighbors), you can do literally anything you want. But why are the discussions always just about how evil grass is, ignoring the natural gardens and bees that many people with lawns have. Or why don't people bring up xeriscaping more often for people that are curious about the no-lawn life but still want something with a manicured look?
You can have your bees and other nature and still look like you care. Hopefully you're all vegans too, because that's another lopsided discussion that spews just as much vitriol without actually trying to convert people to your way of thinking.
A tomato is a fruit, but if you put it in a fruit salad most people won't eat it. The square footage of grass lawns exceeds all other crops. Uses more water, artificial fertilizer, and pesticide...
Just because lawn grass is grown, doesn't make it a crop
A tomato is a fruit, but if you put it in a fruit salad most people won't eat it. The square footage of grass lawns exceeds all other crops. Uses more water, artificial fertilizer, and pesticide than any other crop. That, in my (and many others) book, makes it count....it is a distinction without a difference.
As long as you don't care about your property value or insurance or the general appeal of your neighborhood
That's.....kind of the point of the video. The value of those things has been tied to having a perfectly manicured lawn, for no reason other than 'they did it back in the 50's when they were plopping down suburbia as fast as they could.' You know, when DDT was just a thing you would spray wherever cause it was perfectly safe.
But why are the discussions always just about how evil grass is, ignoring the natural gardens and bees that many people with lawns have
You can have your bees and other nature and still look like you care.
Sure. As long as you're not using artificial fertilizer, pesticides, or mowers. Because not much nature can live in a 3in high grass field that gets mowed once a week. The bees (and other creatures) that visit those lawns get poisoned and then come drop dead at mine, where they build their nests, hives, and dens. Nothing sadder than cleaning out a nest of dead birds that you saw scavanging in the neigbors yard the day after he sprayed with pesticides.
You're basically arguing 'why is all the discussion about health harms of cigarettes so one sided.' And at the end of the day, lawns are OK, provided you avoid the fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. But you don't get to force everyone else to have one.
There's a in-between "never ever use anything artificial" and "i poured a pools worth of pesticide on everything". Pesticide is a very large problem, artificial fertilizer less so, and not really...
There's a in-between "never ever use anything artificial" and "i poured a pools worth of pesticide on everything".
Pesticide is a very large problem, artificial fertilizer less so, and not really sure what the issue with mowing is other than "yes it's not something the bee's care about and thus lowers the potential sqft of things they do care about".
There are people out there with grass lawns that are probably a net gain for the ecology outside of the water use, often because they accent them with things that help support nearby wildlife vs the "crushed gravel and nothing else" that some of these things are being replaced with.
Turf for example is objectively better from a water use standpoint, and likely worse from an ecology standpoint (I'd say objectively but not sure if a lawn + heavy pesticide use is actively worse than no soil + turf).
I think OP is coming out swinging more than they need to by far, but I also don't think this is a very high quality video designed to seriously discuss the issue more than the average youtube click/ragebait (the title is intentionally hostile, lots of cherrypicking of the worst of the worst situations with news clips, "gotchas" like kentucky bluegrass, etc).
There is a mix of problems with human desires and perceptions (grass is valued because its probably the easiest thing for kids to play in) leading to economic incentives and that does need to be fixed, but I don't see videos like this helping that cause.
More often than not, yeah, they exist for "DAE think lawn is dumb!" conversations. It's an interesting discussion to be had but HAHAHA you're dumb and it's just the 50s and everyone is horrible is such a lame way to discuss this and reminds me of things like "adam ruins everything" where it's just going to focus the most outrageous parts but ignore a lot of the details.
The runoff from artificial fertilizers poisons water sources. Creatures like squirrels, birds, rabbits, snakes, toads can't really live in short grass lawns. Too easy catching for predators. It's...
The runoff from artificial fertilizers poisons water sources.
Creatures like squirrels, birds, rabbits, snakes, toads can't really live in short grass lawns. Too easy catching for predators. It's not just about bees and butterflys. These other creatures are an important part of the ecosystem too, and their habitats are being destroyed just as much as the bees by all this.
Also, they didn't go too much into detail, but did touch on: Mowers, leafblowers, and weedwackers are basically unregulated compared to cars. Most use 2-stoke engines that'll just spit raw gas into the air along with tons of soot and CO2. Using one for 20 minutes is about equal emissions to 300 miles in a 2016 camery.
Clickbait title and intro is sadly name of the game in youtube. They do in fact go into many of these nuances as things go on.
Your tone feels unnecessarily hostile to me, especially the last line about "hope you're all vegan too" which just sounds callous and dismissive (note: I am not vegan and totally agree some are...
Your tone feels unnecessarily hostile to me, especially the last line about "hope you're all vegan too" which just sounds callous and dismissive (note: I am not vegan and totally agree some are way too "holier than thou" about it). That sort of tone tends to cut off avenues for discussion because it can put people purely on the defensive. I've seen this happen even when both parties have the same stance, one person is just so hostile and aggressive it triggers something defensive from the other(s).
It's a shame, because I think you raise some interesting and worthwhile discussion points!
The general argument I hear in favor of natural landscaping over lawn grass is the amount of water it consumes, especially in areas that don't naturally have lawn grass and dryer or arid climates. The fact is, while lawns look nice, the grass is not native to most places. So they require much more direct intervention and maintenance from humans that isn't as needed for native plants, in ways that can be bad for the overall environment. Emissions from gas powered lawn mowers is a big one, so is pollution from all the artificial pesticides.
Now, I think a lot of people do go for "natural landscaping" (note the air quotes) purely out of laziness and not wanting to maintain grass lawns. However, I've also seen many people make points about how it should still involve some maintenance. There should be some initial planning involved rather than just letting whatever blows in on the wind take root while the grass dies. Pruning, weeding, mulching, etc. should also still be on the table, because ultimately, most people want to avoid looking like an eyesore. In that regard it may take more effort to make it look good than just sowing grass seed (at least in the planning stages).
That said, with how widespread grass lawns are, that makes natural landscaping stand out, and often in a bad way. I live in a subdivision and our front and back yards are directly connected to our neighbors'. Ditching grass for natural landscaping, even carefully planned natural landscaping meant to look as appealing as possible... Yeah, our house would stand out like a sore thumb. We might have been able to pull it off at our old house (at least with the backyard, fenced in and backed into a wooded area), but it wouldn't really work here.
Xeriscaping, however, is a new word to me, and is a point I think is really worth discussing. For those also unfamiliar, it focuses on plants and landscaping that don't require much watering/irrigation. Not necessarily native plants, but there are still plenty of those since guides seem to suggest looking at native plants first when planning. It can also be incorporated into existing grass lawns.
It seems like a decent middle ground for people who can't or won't ditch grass entirely for whatever reason. Reducing lawnspace by adding new features is better than nothing, since that's less area to water and mow. Even if you don't radically redesign your yard, most yards will have landscaping areas with non-grass plants, so looking into plants used for xeriscaping can also help save water on those.
Also, as a final note:
Now, the strips between the sidewalk and street? I am trying to figure out what to do with those, because grass makes no sense there.
Pretty sure the whole point of those is to clearly mark a gap between the sidewalk and road for drivers. Depending on the plants I think xeriscaping might be better than grass in those, because little shrubs or decorative rocks stand out more than just flat ground. Just be sure to avoid plants that are too tall if you live on a corner. I remember someone talking about swapping grass for other plants on one, and they had some trouble since the tall plants they initially used hindered visibility for drivers.
I will say, this has largely been my strategy, paired with a few choice perennial plantings. As a result, I have 3 threes growing. The primary maintainence has been to root out invasive species,...
just letting whatever blows in on the wind take root while the grass dies. Pruning, weeding, mulching, etc. should also still be on the table
I will say, this has largely been my strategy, paired with a few choice perennial plantings. As a result, I have 3 threes growing.
The primary maintainence has been to root out invasive species, and anything particularily thorny.
And after a substantial bit of flowering is dead, I'll cull it with an electric weedwacker to avoid too many complaints.
I’ve just moved into a house with a backyard that has no grass and is completely overrun by vines and weeds. I say “weeds” in the sense that I’m pretty sure they aren’t native species and are...
I’ve just moved into a house with a backyard that has no grass and is completely overrun by vines and weeds. I say “weeds” in the sense that I’m pretty sure they aren’t native species and are proving to be demanding to get rid of.
It’s the first time I’ve ever had to think about what I wanted a yard to look like. I’ve been working to plant ornamental native grasses that will bloom intermittently and grow tall enough to block the drab fence we have. My wife selected some flowering plants that will attract hummingbirds and butterflies (a mix of native and non-native). We’ve also put down a pair of raised beds, and I’m going to plant a short flowering native grass in front of those to grow up and obscure the wood. A major rub is a tree stump that hasn’t been removed, so we picked a flowering ground cover that will hopefully run low on the ground and cover the stump. The goal is that we will have a lush, biodiverse lawn that requires minimal maintenance and care while attracting pollinators and birds to the yard by picking plants that belong here and just want to grow.
I actually like grass, but faced with the opportunity to landscape a backyard, big grass square wasn’t what I envisioned.
I don't water my lawn, or spray it with weed killer. I hit the periphery of the house with pesticides, and I'm going to hit the driveway with weed killer to stop the rampant grass growth there. I...
I don't water my lawn, or spray it with weed killer. I hit the periphery of the house with pesticides, and I'm going to hit the driveway with weed killer to stop the rampant grass growth there. I cut down the "weed that's a bush that now has like a trunk how did this happen" plants every now and then.
But my goal long term is clover or something comparable but more local - I just don't have time, money, or energy (and get zero emotional or meditative benefit from gardening or yard work) so I pay someone to mow every other week and leave it alone. If there's some sort of middle ground to the waste of grass or redoing the whole thing I think I'm there. (I don't have the grass that goes brown in the summer and I don't care if it did, but even when we're in minor drought conditions the grass survives without watering. )
Another great video from Climate Town consolidating a whole ton of info about just how bad America's lawns are for the planet.
It dives into the history, the laws, the consequences, and what to do to fix it.
Some important highlights:
I killed my lawn. It's now a yearlong fireworks display of native flowers, with more than 6 species of bees, 7 species of moths and butterflies, thousands of crickets, a family of bunnies that has babies every spring, dozens of birds that live all the time and thousands of migrants.
It's a beautiful thing, and I'm sure all my neighbors hate it.
There are different kinds of lawns. Some are only minimally maintained.
In the SF bay area, you don’t have to do anything in particular to get a (sometimes rather weedy) lawn in the spring time. A vacant lot will become overgrown unless you mow it. After that it stops raining and the grass dies.
In rural upstate New York, you have to mow spring, summer, and fall, or you will have a hayfield. There’s lots of mowing, but no weeding needed if you don’t mind the dandelions. Abandoned fields become overgrown with bushes and start turning into forest.
I live in a semi-desert section of Texas and this year I replaced my front lawn with a desert landscape... crushed red granite for the most part. Don't know what I'll do with the back yard. I don't water it, and yet I have lots of weeds every year. In the spring, I plan on planting a lot of palo verde trees in the front and back, but the back yard itself is still a problem. Right now I'm looking into some of the native grasses found in my area, and desert wildflowers might be part of the solution as well.
In any case, I'm not part of the lawn watering crowd and never intend to start.
This is always such a one-sided discussion. And it's biased from the start. Just because lawn grass is grown, doesn't make it a crop. Intentional use of wrong words already hints at the bias/animosity.
I have lawns, and they're not perfect. But I like them. And I will keep them. Now, the strips between the sidewalk and street? I am trying to figure out what to do with those, because grass makes no sense there. My city has a rebate program for xeriscaping (and a website and guides), so the cost will be offset somewhat, and my water bill will go down a bit during the spring and summer. Seems like a win-win.
But xeriscaping is a word that I have rarely seen in no-lawn discussions. People are super proud of killing their grass and just letting nature takeover. That's fine, I guess. As long as you don't care about your property value or insurance or the general appeal of your neighborhood (we skipped more than one decent house because of trashy neighbors), you can do literally anything you want. But why are the discussions always just about how evil grass is, ignoring the natural gardens and bees that many people with lawns have. Or why don't people bring up xeriscaping more often for people that are curious about the no-lawn life but still want something with a manicured look?
You can have your bees and other nature and still look like you care. Hopefully you're all vegans too, because that's another lopsided discussion that spews just as much vitriol without actually trying to convert people to your way of thinking.
A tomato is a fruit, but if you put it in a fruit salad most people won't eat it. The square footage of grass lawns exceeds all other crops. Uses more water, artificial fertilizer, and pesticide than any other crop. That, in my (and many others) book, makes it count....it is a distinction without a difference.
That's.....kind of the point of the video. The value of those things has been tied to having a perfectly manicured lawn, for no reason other than 'they did it back in the 50's when they were plopping down suburbia as fast as they could.' You know, when DDT was just a thing you would spray wherever cause it was perfectly safe.
Sure. As long as you're not using artificial fertilizer, pesticides, or mowers. Because not much nature can live in a 3in high grass field that gets mowed once a week. The bees (and other creatures) that visit those lawns get poisoned and then come drop dead at mine, where they build their nests, hives, and dens. Nothing sadder than cleaning out a nest of dead birds that you saw scavanging in the neigbors yard the day after he sprayed with pesticides.
You're basically arguing 'why is all the discussion about health harms of cigarettes so one sided.' And at the end of the day, lawns are OK, provided you avoid the fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. But you don't get to force everyone else to have one.
There's a in-between "never ever use anything artificial" and "i poured a pools worth of pesticide on everything".
Pesticide is a very large problem, artificial fertilizer less so, and not really sure what the issue with mowing is other than "yes it's not something the bee's care about and thus lowers the potential sqft of things they do care about".
There are people out there with grass lawns that are probably a net gain for the ecology outside of the water use, often because they accent them with things that help support nearby wildlife vs the "crushed gravel and nothing else" that some of these things are being replaced with.
Turf for example is objectively better from a water use standpoint, and likely worse from an ecology standpoint (I'd say objectively but not sure if a lawn + heavy pesticide use is actively worse than no soil + turf).
I think OP is coming out swinging more than they need to by far, but I also don't think this is a very high quality video designed to seriously discuss the issue more than the average youtube click/ragebait (the title is intentionally hostile, lots of cherrypicking of the worst of the worst situations with news clips, "gotchas" like kentucky bluegrass, etc).
There is a mix of problems with human desires and perceptions (grass is valued because its probably the easiest thing for kids to play in) leading to economic incentives and that does need to be fixed, but I don't see videos like this helping that cause.
More often than not, yeah, they exist for "DAE think lawn is dumb!" conversations. It's an interesting discussion to be had but HAHAHA you're dumb and it's just the 50s and everyone is horrible is such a lame way to discuss this and reminds me of things like "adam ruins everything" where it's just going to focus the most outrageous parts but ignore a lot of the details.
The runoff from artificial fertilizers poisons water sources.
Creatures like squirrels, birds, rabbits, snakes, toads can't really live in short grass lawns. Too easy catching for predators. It's not just about bees and butterflys. These other creatures are an important part of the ecosystem too, and their habitats are being destroyed just as much as the bees by all this.
Also, they didn't go too much into detail, but did touch on: Mowers, leafblowers, and weedwackers are basically unregulated compared to cars. Most use 2-stoke engines that'll just spit raw gas into the air along with tons of soot and CO2. Using one for 20 minutes is about equal emissions to 300 miles in a 2016 camery.
Clickbait title and intro is sadly name of the game in youtube. They do in fact go into many of these nuances as things go on.
Your tone feels unnecessarily hostile to me, especially the last line about "hope you're all vegan too" which just sounds callous and dismissive (note: I am not vegan and totally agree some are way too "holier than thou" about it). That sort of tone tends to cut off avenues for discussion because it can put people purely on the defensive. I've seen this happen even when both parties have the same stance, one person is just so hostile and aggressive it triggers something defensive from the other(s).
It's a shame, because I think you raise some interesting and worthwhile discussion points!
The general argument I hear in favor of natural landscaping over lawn grass is the amount of water it consumes, especially in areas that don't naturally have lawn grass and dryer or arid climates. The fact is, while lawns look nice, the grass is not native to most places. So they require much more direct intervention and maintenance from humans that isn't as needed for native plants, in ways that can be bad for the overall environment. Emissions from gas powered lawn mowers is a big one, so is pollution from all the artificial pesticides.
Now, I think a lot of people do go for "natural landscaping" (note the air quotes) purely out of laziness and not wanting to maintain grass lawns. However, I've also seen many people make points about how it should still involve some maintenance. There should be some initial planning involved rather than just letting whatever blows in on the wind take root while the grass dies. Pruning, weeding, mulching, etc. should also still be on the table, because ultimately, most people want to avoid looking like an eyesore. In that regard it may take more effort to make it look good than just sowing grass seed (at least in the planning stages).
That said, with how widespread grass lawns are, that makes natural landscaping stand out, and often in a bad way. I live in a subdivision and our front and back yards are directly connected to our neighbors'. Ditching grass for natural landscaping, even carefully planned natural landscaping meant to look as appealing as possible... Yeah, our house would stand out like a sore thumb. We might have been able to pull it off at our old house (at least with the backyard, fenced in and backed into a wooded area), but it wouldn't really work here.
Xeriscaping, however, is a new word to me, and is a point I think is really worth discussing. For those also unfamiliar, it focuses on plants and landscaping that don't require much watering/irrigation. Not necessarily native plants, but there are still plenty of those since guides seem to suggest looking at native plants first when planning. It can also be incorporated into existing grass lawns.
My searching brought up this article with examples of xeriscaping, and seems like a good introduction.. Of note, xeriscaping includes not only plants but also adding things like water features, mulch, planting trees—areas that don't have grass, but still look good.
It seems like a decent middle ground for people who can't or won't ditch grass entirely for whatever reason. Reducing lawnspace by adding new features is better than nothing, since that's less area to water and mow. Even if you don't radically redesign your yard, most yards will have landscaping areas with non-grass plants, so looking into plants used for xeriscaping can also help save water on those.
Also, as a final note:
Pretty sure the whole point of those is to clearly mark a gap between the sidewalk and road for drivers. Depending on the plants I think xeriscaping might be better than grass in those, because little shrubs or decorative rocks stand out more than just flat ground. Just be sure to avoid plants that are too tall if you live on a corner. I remember someone talking about swapping grass for other plants on one, and they had some trouble since the tall plants they initially used hindered visibility for drivers.
I will say, this has largely been my strategy, paired with a few choice perennial plantings. As a result, I have 3 threes growing.
The primary maintainence has been to root out invasive species, and anything particularily thorny.
And after a substantial bit of flowering is dead, I'll cull it with an electric weedwacker to avoid too many complaints.
I’ve just moved into a house with a backyard that has no grass and is completely overrun by vines and weeds. I say “weeds” in the sense that I’m pretty sure they aren’t native species and are proving to be demanding to get rid of.
It’s the first time I’ve ever had to think about what I wanted a yard to look like. I’ve been working to plant ornamental native grasses that will bloom intermittently and grow tall enough to block the drab fence we have. My wife selected some flowering plants that will attract hummingbirds and butterflies (a mix of native and non-native). We’ve also put down a pair of raised beds, and I’m going to plant a short flowering native grass in front of those to grow up and obscure the wood. A major rub is a tree stump that hasn’t been removed, so we picked a flowering ground cover that will hopefully run low on the ground and cover the stump. The goal is that we will have a lush, biodiverse lawn that requires minimal maintenance and care while attracting pollinators and birds to the yard by picking plants that belong here and just want to grow.
I actually like grass, but faced with the opportunity to landscape a backyard, big grass square wasn’t what I envisioned.
I don't water my lawn, or spray it with weed killer. I hit the periphery of the house with pesticides, and I'm going to hit the driveway with weed killer to stop the rampant grass growth there. I cut down the "weed that's a bush that now has like a trunk how did this happen" plants every now and then.
But my goal long term is clover or something comparable but more local - I just don't have time, money, or energy (and get zero emotional or meditative benefit from gardening or yard work) so I pay someone to mow every other week and leave it alone. If there's some sort of middle ground to the waste of grass or redoing the whole thing I think I'm there. (I don't have the grass that goes brown in the summer and I don't care if it did, but even when we're in minor drought conditions the grass survives without watering. )