Experts reveal why the anti-lawn movement is taking off in the US

[NJCher]

snip

The lawn has always been the center of every American yard. But a surge of gardeners, landscapers and homeowners have had enough. They’re getting rid of their immaculate lawn ideas and joining the growing US anti-lawn movement, encouraging wilderness and wildlife instead.

America is unique in its fixation on the monoculture lawn,' says Dennis Liu, vice president of education at the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation in Durham, North Carolina. 'Our English inheritance is our own little tidy green space.'

But drought conditions and declining insect populations are highlighting the need for bio-diversity, he adds, and traditions look set to change – for good.


Bring your yard alive

There’s lots of interest in the ‘Garden of Abundance’ trend says Katie Tamony, a trendwatcher for Monrovia, a major plant-grower with nurseries in Georgia, California, Connecticut and Oregon.

People are wanting a more 'alive-looking' yard with a variety of plants, she believes, because it’s a way of thinking about your yard 'as not just being yours, but part of a more beautiful, larger world that we’re trying to create'.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/home-and-garden/experts-reveal-why-the-anti-lawn-movement-is-taking-off-in-the-us/ar-AAYaKs9?cvid=f2005f70f2fe4303be99f416a7ad8324&ocid=winp2sv1plustaskbarhover

[Skittles]

1. BRING IT ON

as a night worker long-tormented by fucking lawn mowers and leaf blowers and weed eaters, BRING IT ON

[thucythucy]

12. I SO hear you on that!

It amazes me how mechanized "lawn maintenance" has become.

And now there's a new trend--at least in my neighborhood: power washing.

I have a neighbor who power washes his motorcycle at least once a week. Gas guzzling terrifically loud machine and--IMHO--absurd overkill. Like using a garden hose just doesn't cut it anymore.

A hundred years from now people will be astonished on how we burned through our petroleum reserves--and trashed the climate--all so we could play with our toys and pretend to dominate the natural world.

[Skittles]

13. YOU GOT THAT RIGHT

people can be so fucking ASININE

[Ocelot II]

2. I got rid of my lawn about 7 years ago, put in shrubs and mostly native plants,

and a couple of fruit trees. I get lots of pollinators, which was one of the main reasons I did it, and I also don't have to mow any more. My next-door neighbor, who fortunately moved away last summer, hated it because he thought it looked messy and un-golf-course-like, and even went so far as to spray Round-Up along the property line. Asshole. But they're gone now and I still have my monarda and black-eyed susans and coneflowers and fleabane and coralberry bushes and all the other things that benefit the environment instead of taking from it. More and more of my neighbors are doing the same.

[rubbersole]

3. Saving water...

...will be a major motivator for this trend. Native plants instead of high maintenance grass. Wonderful.

[halfulglas]

4. I was amazed visiting Germany in the 80s how lovely small front gardens looked.

They are used to small flower gardens in front and some grass in back yards for bocce or just sitting or maybe vegetables or small fruit trees. Almost no one seemed to desire a lot of property. Public buildings had lawns and the employees to care for them. There is no need for vast lawns with set back minimansions.

[niyad]

5. In the midst of our megadrought here in the West, lawns are wasteful and

obscene. Even before this terrible new cycle, lawns were nuts. We live in desert climates in many areas, so what in the F'n hell were people doing planting kentucky blue??

A friend and I were discussing this very topic earlier today. Her yard is native, or adaptable, succulents, etc. We discussed the idiots running our Parks dept., who think xeriscaping means using sprinkler systems. grrrrrrrr.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

6. American spite toward clover in their lawns speaks volumes.

A nitrogen fixer and food for bees, clover suffers from the weed killers many spray on yards multiple times a year. Loss of soil microbes and runoff from weed killers and fertilizers are a detriment to our environment.

Chemical companies don't give a shit and the more we neuter our soils, the more they sell.

I love the look of clover and I'm currently studying how I can use it as a full-time cover in my little flower & shrub garden in place of bark mulch.





Thanks for the post, NJCher!

KY........

[rsdsharp]

7. When I was a kid in the 60s, out riding my bike,

I could tell who had just mowed by the smell of clover. You almost never smell it now.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

9. Yes, and that wonderful smell of fresh mowed alfalfa hay....

out in the country. I think the clover in it gave it a sweeter smell.


KY

[Abolishinist]

8. I still remember being a 'kid' of lawn-mowing age in the

1960's. A good summer job that paid up to $2.00 for mowing. Lawns and their upkeep were important, a status symbol of sorts. Now, the small amount of grass we once had was replaced by the artificial a number of years ago. I DON'T miss the weekly mowing, and of course it's the right thing to do for conservation.

[alfredo]

10. When I was a mail carrier I walked over thousands of lawns.

One thing I noted was the monoculture lawns had dry hard ground. You can tell he was collecting the lawn cuttings, robbing nutrients and moisture collecting mulch from the lawn.

[Siwsan]

11. I never water my lawn

If it goes brown, it goes brown. And I have a well but still think it's a waste of water to set sprinklers. Unless kids are running through them, of course. I'd rather save to water for my gardens. I do water those. Sometimes I just use a hose, sometimes I set a sprinkler in the veg garden.

And I'd LOVE to get rid of my lawn but I'm on a corner lot with a second back lot so it is a wide expanse of grass. Maybe I could bring in a landscaper for some ideas.

[Chainfire]

14. Where I am, we don't have a water crisis (yet)

So, a green, manicured lawn is not a watering issue. The problems come from the pesticides and fertilizer that goes into keeping a nice lawn. I live on acreage that is all natural growth except for right around the house. (so I can see the snakes before I step on them). I love my little patch of woods and so does the wildlife.

[peacebuzzard]

15. My neighbors need to be born again.

these people are guilty of cutting grass below the soil level; then spraying cancerous liquid weed be gone on anything pushing up through their cemented driveway. they remove greenery and replace it with boulders, flower pots, and rollout grass turf.
Meanwhile, there is a washout of the soil surface so that the hills are flattening out over the years. Years ago, I could only see my neighbor's roof from my kitchen window, now I see the whole house. Her lawn person comes at least twice a month to make sure the grass is only millimeters tall.
The story is really worse than this for the rest of the McMansion neighborhood.

I have been anti-lawn for a long time. I have been scorned for too long for my tall grass, wildflowers, and obvious disdain for chemical-induced vegetation. I did not know I have been part of a growing movement!

[NutmegYankee]

16. I seeded much of my lawn with Dutch white clover.

The grass where there is clover is far more robust and it doesn't need to be watered.