The New Yorker on Americans' love for lawns
Elizabeth Kolbert's article in The New Yorker called "Turf War" is about the history of lawns, and the price people pay (in dollars and costs to the envirnoment) for the chemically-fortified, water-ravenous living carpets adored, but rarely used, by suburbanites.
I've been slowly replacing my lawn with a vegetable garden and am getting ready to take the plunge and get rid of my entire lawn. Later this month I'll be attending an instructional seminal called "Kill Your Lawn" at the Theodore Payne Foundation in Sun Valley, CA.
The greener, purer lawns that the chemical treatments made possible were, as monocultures, more vulnerable to pests, and when grubs attacked the resulting brown spot showed up like lipstick on a collar. The answer to this chemically induced problem was to apply more chemicals. As Paul Robbins reports in “Lawn People” (2007), the first pesticide popularly spread on lawns was lead arsenate, which tended to leave behind both lead and arsenic contamination. Next in line were DDT and chlordane. Once they were shown to be toxic, pesticides like diazinon and chlorpyrifos—both of which affect the nervous system—took their place. Diazinon and chlorpyrifos, too, were eventually revealed to be hazardous. (Diazinon came under scrutiny after birds started dropping dead around a recently sprayed golf course.) The insecticide carbaryl, which is marketed under the trade name Sevin, is still broadly applied to lawns. A likely human carcinogen, it has been shown to cause developmental damage in lab animals, and is toxic to—among many other organisms—tadpoles, salamanders, and honeybees. In “American Green” (2006), Ted Steinberg, a professor of history at Case Western Reserve University, compares the lawn to “a nationwide chemical experiment with homeowners as the guinea pigs.”Turf War (The New Yorker)
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Do you have pictures of your garden/lawn?
I am curious to see if you did this to your front yard or just your back.
My brother, who owns a place in the West LA suburbs, redid the lawns with low-upkeep desert plants. It was well-planned and well-done, and the place looks gorgeous. What makes it even nicer is that it damned near takes care of itself.
MY lawncare motto has always been "Brown grass don't NEED mowin'." Fortunately I don't have a HOA. But then I live back East, where we don't try to turn a desert into grassland.
I live up in Seattle, and despite what you may think, lawns are still a big pain to care for here. Even though we get plenty of rain, the lawns dry out in the summer and turn brown. Good luck killing that grass. Grass is the hardest weed to get rid of. It is tedious and back-breaking work pulling up turf. But my yard is slowing going native. And I love it.
Yaaay! I've been waging verbal war for years with that suburban dystology group called Lawns First!
Death to lawns!
Can't get rid of our lawn, our three offspring like having the small amount of open space they have to run and play.
One interesting thing I've noted since we completely stopped using chemicals outside a couple years ago though. We have so much more life in our yard! We have some ground critters, the birds seem to like our yard more, and lots of bugs (very few of them detrimental to our small garden). The fireflies in particular have been spectacular. My two older kids can run around the yard and catch dozens while even one yard over they only have one or two flying around. Tell me those chemicals are harmless.
Chicago's Notebaert Nature Museum is running a special exhibit called "Lawn Nation: Art and Science of the American Lawn" now through September. It sounds like a lot of topics touched on by this article are also found in the museum exhibit, so it might be worth checking out for those interested. http://www.naturemuseum.org/
ed. note: My girlfriend happens to be the manager of visitor services at the Chicago Nature Museum. :)
Wouldn't it be cool if suburbanites started to compete to see whose "lawn" has the highest yield of vegetables?
"Can't get rid of our lawn, our three offspring like having the small amount of open space they have to run and play."
I think the argument usually made against that is...if you are using that lawn for one hour a day maybe a few days a month, that only works out to 1/100 or so of the month. If you have 100 families in your neighborhood...why do you all individually pour chemical all over your own individual lawns that most of the time you never use? When, in contract, you could collectively have a much larger area, centrally located, easier to maintain/preserve, and STILL have more ground dedicated to growing fruits/and vegetables that are useful?
My lawn currently looks awful. The weather has been in the 90s and 100s all summer here in Tarzana. I'm going to plant a lot of drought-tolerant native grass in the yard, along with raised bed planters.
I would love to have something other than a green grass lawn..... however, deed restrictions enforced by the home owners association (backed by lawyers) prohibit viritually anything other than a standard grass lawn.
Two words: Prairie Restoration.
Here in IA, we can get free prairie grass and wildflower seeds from the Dept. of Natural Resources.
I suggested this to my wife many years ago and got the Glare of Death. Even when I suggested we keep about 10 ft. of lawn and separate it from the 'restored' back yard with a white picket fence, the Glare did not subside.
Dderidex: Yeah, that's called the local park, school, or otherwise play area. Surprising that folks seem to be reluctant to let their kids go a block down the street to play there.
We ripped our our lawn and replaced it with an "herbal lawn". Alas, we don't use it much for herbs, but the low-growing thyme, mint, and sage are beautiful. We decided to install them as a patchwork and "let the best herb win", but one of the non-herbs is winning by a large margin--sweet woodruff. Amazingly hearty stuff, grows tall enough to keep weeds away, and can be mowed (as our gardeners [no gas-powered devices, yah!] did this spring.) Lackluster flowers, tho'.
But then we don't have spawn wanting to play with pig skins in the yard...
"Suburban man is the only member of his species who will plant a crop, water it, weed it, lavish it with tender loving care and never harvest it."
Can't remember where I heard that or who said it...
The whole lawn paradox is weird because grasses are really tough due to their high silicate content. The problem isn't the grass; it's the lawnmower. A meadow is much more interesting and is a haven for bees and beetles.
It's also quite possible to have a lush tropical garden without huge water usage. If you dig in lots of compost, lay down inline drip and top with bark, you can have guilt-free tropical, even in Southern California. You just have to choose the right plants.
Lawn is just dull.
I don't think a "lush tropical garden" would take around the old igloo.
Lawns are stupid, but take zero brain power, and not much work compared to the rest. Yes, a meadow would be nice for nature, but people don't like nature that close to their homes (OMG! a BEETLE! Soak it all with bug killer!).
I'd like to be optimistic about hordes of people switching to something else, but it's already pretty much the lowest common denominator isn't it?
I'll be very happy if I'm proven wrong in the future and our lawns are all mini-Edens.
("It's also quite possible to have a lush tropical garden without huge water usage. If you dig in lots of compost, lay down inline drip and top with bark, you can have guilt-free tropical, even in Southern California. You just have to choose the right plants.")
I would like to try this. Have you done it?
We used to weed our lawn regularly. Some environmentalists came to our door to preach about herbicides once and we told them off. Heheh.
Most of our neighbourhood has stopped using herbicides and pesticides and the yards are getting weedier and weedier. No one misses the chemicals. Everyone had front lawns 10 years ago... now about half are flower and rock gardens. A lot of people are growing periwinkle. One house is growing a whole yard full of basil and thyme. Another house has a different micro-crop every year.
I'd love to dig up my back yard and plant clover and violets instead. For now I'm overseeding it with Eco-Lawn and refusing to water it. The lawn must adapt... or perish! Bwahaha! Although the crabgrass is doing even better...
Yup. You do have to water up a bit for the first year or two to get things established, but then you can wean them off. Plus, we're at least twenty degrees hotter here, with much lower humidity. I'll send you some info.
I've never seen the point of a totally green lawn. What's the obssession? I LIKE lawns with dandelions, and all sorts of "weeds". They look prettier. I don't mind looking at the grass if it's not just grass but a mix of different plants.
I live in Seattle and ripped out my law five years ago. I have never regretted it. Despite the reputation for rain, Seattle has very dry summers. I replaced my lawn with a mix of trees, native shrubs and drought-tolerant perennials. Many creatures absent from lawns are now abundant in my yard: bugs, butterflies, bees, hummingbirds, and many songbirds. For open space, I keep a part of my backyard covered in play chips (large wood chips that don't leave splinters) and another area sports a water-permeable paver patio. My water bill is tiny, I never have to mow and I seldom have to weed. Best of all, my yard is 100% chemical free. I encourage everyone with a law to try something similar.
once upon a time, a lush green lawn meant "responsible", middle class conformity - or wealth if you had acres of it. I look forward to the day that a green lawn gets a brick through your window. Soon I hope.
I whole-heartedly agree Perla @ #21! I love dandelions and other wildflowers (weeds;])... too bad my city regulates an aggressive 6 inch rule.
Mark, you know about path to freedom? The family produced 3 tons of produce on 1/10th of an acre in Pasadena. In Altadena, the same neck of the woods and a milder climate than Tarzana, Tim Dunden made an enormous pile of compost which the city or county made him remove. I mentioned this a few months back after seeing a picture of your soil which looked to be lacking organic matter. Seriously the best place to get garden mulch. I don't recommend using the city's mulch made from the contents of the green bins. It contains eucalyptus which contain an oil which can kill some plants and it's that's full of miscellaneous things that careless people throw in the green bins. Maybe ok for some flowers, but not for vegetables.
Finally, the Los Angeles permaculture guild's newsletter is good resource:
http://taylorist.googlepages.com/lapgnl
Sheet mulching (cut the weeds/grass low, cover in an inch or two of compost, then a layer of cardboard then mulch on top) killed my grass. After about 8 months we planted the good stuff, grass shows no signs of returning.
One more thing -- the microbes in soil are finicky and don't like to be disturbed. That's one reason it's recommended to sheet mulch rather than rip out or rototill your soil to deal with grass/weeds. Sheet mulching maintains the layered structure which microbes need to fortify your soil.
Plant kudzu.
next,we burn the golf courses!
plant kudzu? and ivy? and blackberry? and gorse? and broom? and comfrey? .... yeahhhhhhhh
Michael Pollan wrote a great chapter in his book "Second Nature" about America's fixation with lawns. The whole book is worth checking out!
Takuan @23:
Yup, I think it's the morality of the lawn that's really at the "root" of the persistence of conventional lawn culture. I almost wrote my Master's thesis on that subject. But yeah, I don't see the morality aspect changing, but I think what we might see is a change in the aesthetic we associate with the values of responsibility, morality, success, and civic-mindedness.
so long as the poor git who religiously mows his postage stamp with a loud gas mower every weekend morning finally gets the message that NOBODY CARES!
For years now, the University of Texas at Austin's Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center has been espousing "native lawns." I've wanted one for years, but when I lived in Austin, I didn't have a yard and now–like others here–I'm maintaining a lawn under the onus of a HOA. Here's their introduction article with some good suggestions, especially for climates like central Texas (hot and somewhat dry).
As far as the kid play space, I've been pretty impressed with the feel and texture of the new artificial turf.
No mowing, no chemicals, water permeable -- but I don't really know the total carbon footprint.
I'd be quite happy to live the rest of my life without hearing another lawnmower (especially when i'm trying to work). it's one of the reasons i live on the 12th floor.
We bought a house in upstate New York last fall that came with two failing retaining walls. We recently replaced these with six dry-laid stone walls made out of gorgeous granite boulders (the stone around here just happens to be studded with garnet). So we have been planting a yard mostly from scratch.
Our house overlooks Lake Champlain and, as I said to my husband when discussing what to do about planting the yard, if we have to use much in the way of yard chemicals we might as well go dump them in the lake directly, since that's where they are going -- we are maybe 600 ft. from the lake.
I've been trying a variety of approaches. I decided to work, as it were, from the ground up, dealing with issues of soil structure and drainage. I mail-ordered about 8 lbs of mycorrhizal fungi to sprinkle on the areas where we wanted grass, plus tablets of different kinds of mycorrhizal fungi to insert in he roots of plants. I've been packing the cracks of the shadier walls with moss (mostly mail-ordered) and lichens and planting them with ferns. The general concept was to put in all the types of life forms that would be there if this had been there for 50 years. (My dad said, "Oh, you're terraforming.")
In some areas I did plant vegetable beds and in others "steppable" perennials like creeping thyme. But in a steep yard there are some places one does want a lawn. I planted two different types of alternative lawn seeds: one a "fragrant herbal" mix; the other is a "dwarf grass" mixed with "microclover". The idea of the later is that it has less need to be mowed & fertilized because it is naturally short and self-fertilizing. While the stuff did come up, it's too early to pass judgement on whether this lawn working yet.
On steep slopes I've used wildflower seed from the wildflower farm across the lake in Vermont. It has come up and is just starting to bloom.
It's been a fascinating experience working a tabla rasa yard in an ecologically sensitive spot.
Hoe-ray! @#8: My sentiments exactly.
Hooray! @#23: Imagine if regular folks didn't waste mental/emotional energy on their lawns.
#25: I'm not familiar with Path To Freedom, but small yard organic gardening can produce unreal amounts of food. I do it with next to nothing for space. My fam of four eats organic veggies of all types year round from our back yard. Blackberries too! There's no reason to pay $1.00 plus for a tomato in the off season. I manage to do without Monsanto too. How?
Phalaris arundinacea is a highly invasive grass that spreads through runners on the surface. The seeds work best if grown in a sterilized potting soild mixture, and sown in a large flat vat, or pan. Of course you can grow it in pots, but there is not as much surface area. The seeds are sown approx. 1/8" under the soil and around 1/2" away from each other. Give them plenty of light, and water them daily. You will see them sprout in less then 4-5 days. They will be tall enough to pick in about 2-3 weeks.
I recall reading in the book Food Not Lawns that a French nobleman (hah) decided that he could turn much of his estate into pure green grass to illustrate that he did not need to use the land to raise food crops. Today we are illustrating that in Wisconsin and Minnesota by turning many of our farms into residential subdivisions featuring the finest in roads and petro-chemical lawn care chemicals. Don't need no stinkin' food here! Not when the nearest McDonalds is only a good 10 or 20 miles away....
Interesting article. Should touch on the absolute insanity of keeping a lawn somewhere like Arizona.
Has anyone ever been to a suburban housing estate in AZ (or any of the other southwestern states)? Seems totally crazy to try and grow grass in the middle of the desert, in the middle of a drought and water-crisis brought on by over-population of an area with little water resources.
It's one thing to insist on growing your lawn in New England, where it could be argued that grass is somewhat part of nature (this is if you don't dump a billion pesticides and fertilizer on it... which everyone does). It's completely mad to be growing grass in Arizona and southern California.
OK, someone has to say it: I like lawns.
Until recently we lived in a neighborhood where no one cared what you did in your lawn. We had mint, wildflowers, honeysuckle, and all sorts of interesting unknown growths.
And I hated it. It was ugly, and random, and more than one of the volunteer plants smelled bad.
Plus the neighbors didn't mind because they had junk cars up on blocks and dog runs.
Every few years I'd decide to try and cultivate something more pleasing. I'd rip out and plant bushes, reseed with low-maintenance plants, plant veggies and make compost, and it was just more work than I was interested in.
We recently moved to a neighborhood with an active HOA (didn't know it before we moved in, but didn't mind once we found out). We have a half-acre of green monoculture. I fertilize in the spring with non-insecticidal lawn fertilizer and do little else beside mow.
We have no kids, no pets, and I rarely walk around the yard, unless I'm pushing the mower. But it gives me hours of pleasure every day, just looking at it from the patio or through the picture window.
I feed the birds, and we have hundreds. Just this evening we sat and watched the fireflys. I have only a decade or two left on this earth, and this is the first lawn I've ever had that I could be happy owning for whatever time I have remaining.
The following link is for an old SF book titled "Captain Jack Zodiac." Lots of crazy
stuff in the novel, and I think the author attempts to put in every SF cliche imaginable into one book.
Anyways, there's a good bit about a neighbor's love of his lawn, and all the chemicals he uses to treat the lawn eventually make the lawn sentient. This new LAWN scares the crap out of its creator, and much like Frankenstein, there's a subplot about the LAWN chasing it's creator around the continent trying to figure out why it
was created (I read this 15 years ago, and I think the LAWN ends up eating its creator?).
http://www.iblist.com/book18640.htm
a lawn grown where it flourishes by natural rain and is hand weeded and push-mower cut is morally defensible. The problem is the abominations greatly outnumber such.
#23 - "I look forward to the day that a green lawn gets a brick through your window. Soon I hope."
What a very sad state of mind to live in. I look forward to the day when people stop thinking someone deserves a brick thru their window 'cause they don't conform to someone else's idea of right thinking.
Myself, I love a grassy knoll.
We have been slowly eradicating our lawn in the four years since we moved in to our house. (And our lawn does grow naturally from rain, though it looks crappy in August and in drought.) We have never watered it.
The first thing we did was overseed with clover, which is a nitrogen fixer; it makes the grass quite a bit greener (even in drought), appeals to bees, and helps defeat the monoculture. Then we switched to a reel mower (a Brill Luxus) and we have always hand-weeded. No chemicals since we moved in and there are SO many more bugs and things now.
We then began replacing sections of the yard -- 300 square feet of vegetable gardening in raised beds; near the patio, combinations of decorative plants that appeal to birds and butterflies but look pretty (a mix of natives and non-invasive, low-care-requiring non-natives). Now we're slowly turning the far back into a native prairie. Everything we've done takes less time to care for than the lawn once it's established (except the veggie garden).
We're still discussing what to do about the (very small) front lawn that will fit in with the neighborhood. But the clover and the reel mower has drawn interest from a lot of our neighbors who are now overseeding with clover, have quit watering, and have gone organic in their yards. (And I don't live in a hippie part of the world -- I live in a mixed blue collar/white collar neighborhood in Peoria, Illinois, and my neighbors were very interested in going green to protect their kids and pets.) A little education goes a long way!
As for kids, I haven't got any, but -- we have a neighborhood park with grassy areas within walking distance, and I remember being a kid and the best part of the yard was crawling through the bushes. I sort-of suspect the tall prairie grasses will be the big winner.
I also recommend, for Americans, that you contact your county cooperative extension office for help in de-lawning and planting and caring for natives!
Personally, I think that anyone who really wants to own a green lawn ought to be required to mow it the old-fashioned way--with sheep! That's what made the English country house lawns so neat. I confidently expect that, after some time pursing this most ancient tradition, many homeowners would suddenly fall in love with alternative designs.
a short story about a little town of neat lawns that is ever so normal - unless you visit alone on the Solstice.
I have a poly-culture lawn, and it includes clover. I use no chemicals other than organic fertilizer. And it looks very nice, aside from the fungus problems, which is almost inevitable with warm wet weather. Or cool wet weather. I love turf, especially golf courses.
@Kendra:
I live in Arizona and you're absolutely right, keeping a green lawn looking decent around here is backbreaking - to say the least.
I remember hearing about Edible Estates and thinking it was an excellent idea. Unfortunately, a garden is just as hard to keep up as grass. A successful garden in AZ requires extensive daily care, and even then, it's usually so hot for most of the year that most gardens end up looking something like this.
And that, if you ask me, is why most homes in AZ have lawns full of rocks instead of grass.
(Although, I will admit that I do keep a patch of grass in my backyard in the middle of the rock. I have dogs and walking only on rocks is too much for their paws. I also try to avoid walking them to parks because the streets and sidewalks are just too hot for them to walk on..)