Lawn Craze

[ysabetwordsmith]

Here's a comic about the lawn craze.  Some further thoughts ...

It goes a lot farther back than postwar suburbs.  Lawns started as a status symbol among European aristocracy.

Advice to stop watering, fertilizing, mowing, etc. or to replace lawns with something else is great -- if it's legal.  In many areas it is not, and people are fined or even evicted for being unwilling or unable to keep their lawn in a manner pleasing to others. Such laws are bad for disability and bad for the environment, but those are things fewer people care about than power. Check the local level of tyranny before trying to solve lawn-related problems.

Comments

Re: Ideas for lawns:

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>> White/Dutch clover
wild violets (certain species of butterflies use these as a host plant) <<

As far as I'm concerned, anything that survives walking and mowing constitutes "lawn." We have a lot of the above two. When I sow grass seed, I like to add clover to it, so it doesn't need fertilizer. Used to be, grass seed came with clover for that exact reason, but then people started putting herbicide on everything, which kills the clover. >_<

>>Blue-eyed grass (kin to iris, they have blue blooms) <<

I bought a couple of these this spring. We'll see if they bloom.

>> moss (for use in wet, rainy climates or in deep shade in moist areas) <<

We have that in some shady areas.

>>Also, those people who insist on growing a GRASS lawn should put some time and effort into finding a grass variety that is adapted to their area.<<

Yeah, we want to try some of those, but this spring required patching LARGE areas of lawn so we had to go with cheap stuff. Also I'd like to put in actual prairie grass eventually. So far I've planted pots, but want to try seed.

Re: Ideas for lawns:

[rhodielady-47.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you'd be interested in something called Buffalo grass.
I'm told it makes a good lawn grass but doesn't need to be mowed that often.
:^)

Re: Ideas for lawns:

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I believe that's one of the low-water, low-mow, native grasses that we have considered. It's expensive. But I really want to buy a bag and try it on bare patches to see how it does here.