The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Welcome and General Discussion => Topic started by: FireLane on August 14, 2023, 11:04:40 AM
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This is a good video from Mexie, a Canadian YouTuber, making the case for getting rid of lawns:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1iFQX1_Xso
Millions of suburban dwellers think a uniform expanse of manicured grass is normal and aesthetically pleasing. In fact, lawns are ecologically barren and a giant waste of resources. Maintaining them takes gas-guzzling mowers, toxic pesticides, regular application of fertilizer that contaminates rivers and streams, and huge amounts of water - often more than natural rainfall can replenish. That's not even to mention all the time devoted to lawn care.
She talks about how lawns were originally a status symbol of European nobility. They were a way to show off how wealthy you were, that you could afford to devote all that space to useless turf rather than crops.
The middle class adopted lawns for the same reason, but they've come to be seen as an expectation. Some towns and HOAs have ordinances which mandate lawn maintenance, so that people who want to replace grass with native gardens or trees aren't allowed to. In one story from Ohio, a woman's neighbors trespassed on her property to mow her lawn when she tried to let it go wild!
There are huge benefits to replacing lawns with native plants. They attract pollinators like bees and butterflies. Caterpillars that feed on the plants are vital food for birds. The berries and seeds feed voles and mice, which in turn feed hawks, owls and foxes. If enough people did this, we could restore vanished habitat, rebuild ecosystems, and give a helping hand to species that are being squeezed by climate change.
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This is a good video from Mexie, a Canadian YouTuber, making the case for getting rid of lawns:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1iFQX1_Xso
Millions of suburban dwellers think a uniform expanse of manicured grass is normal and aesthetically pleasing. In fact, lawns are ecologically barren and a giant waste of resources. Maintaining them takes gas-guzzling mowers, toxic pesticides, regular application of fertilizer that contaminates rivers and streams, and huge amounts of water - often more than natural rainfall can replenish. That's not even to mention all the time devoted to lawn care.
She talks about how lawns were originally a status symbol of European nobility. They were a way to show off how wealthy you were, that you could afford to devote all that space to useless turf rather than crops.
The middle class adopted lawns for the same reason, but they've come to be seen as an expectation. Some towns and HOAs have ordinances which mandate lawn maintenance, so that people who want to replace grass with native gardens or trees aren't allowed to. In one story from Ohio, a woman's neighbors trespassed on her property to mow her lawn when she tried to let it go wild!
There are huge benefits to replacing lawns with native plants. They attract pollinators like bees and butterflies. Caterpillars that feed on the plants are vital food for birds. The berries and seeds feed voles and mice, which in turn feed hawks, owls and foxes. If enough people did this, we could restore vanished habitat, rebuild ecosystems, and give a helping hand to species that are being squeezed by climate change.
I don't know, I think this is mostly a matter of personal taste, or philosophy.
Just because some youtube rando says it, doesn't make it true, even if she's quoting studies. It's just personal preference.
I happen to think "a uniform expanse of manicured grass" is VERY aesthetically pleasing. I spend a lot of time and money to make it beautiful, and I think the whole "contaminating our rivers" argument is bullshit. And letting my 500 square feet go native would do exactly squat to restore vanished habitat, etc.
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Unfortunately, most people just want what they want. (I'm not going to get into the social factors that have led them to have those preferences in the first place.) They don't want to sacrifice in their lives, especially if they perceive that not everyone else is. And as a result, many of those people will just minimize or flat-out deny any info that contradicts the rectitude of their preferences.
Which is partly how we are so fucked with regard to climate change.
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And moving past suburban to rural, those nice lawns are really leach fields.
Plus lawns don't have to be sterile wastelands. I always had species diversity in my lawns, usually 15-20 different species, and not all grasses. Dandelions were early spring nectar/pollen sources, and then clovers and birds-foot trefoil allowed to bloom before mowing kept lots of honeybees and bumblebees happy. I used to have more bees on my lawn than in my flower and vegetable gardens.
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I certainly don't water or fertilize my lawn (always seemed like a crazy waste of time and money). While green, our lawn is a pretty diverse mix of various non-grass plants - everything from clover to green onions to crab grass to dandelions and wildflowers. I am sympathetic to the plight of native plants. But mowing the lawn is a health thing - we regularly cut our lawn (with an electric lawn mower) because it greatly reduces the number of ticks that my son and dog pick up.
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I mow my lawn when it reaches the legally maximum height for my city. Whatever grows there grows there. No water, no pesticides, no aeration, nothing.
It's not about having a nice lawn, or health, or anything. It's about saving money. If there were no laws I would be living in the woods in about 20-30 years.
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I'm fine with banning certain pesticides and herbicides *if* they are proven to have a meaningful damaging effect with home use. But otherwise, where are kids who are all becoming obese couch potatoes supposed to runaround and play? It's hard to play in a thicket of 6 ft tall grass, weeds, and bushes. My daughter plays in our yard almost everyday. And we have no issues with clean water or food shortages where we live. If some areas have issues with these things then by all means ban what you need to. But I highly doubt me cutting my lawn in Illinois is going to have any effect on the droughts in California.
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There is a great thread on this: https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/gardening-diy/plant-your-hellstrip-(aka-get-rid-of-grass)/
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Get the fuck off my lawn.
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Full disclosure - I align with the OP's personal take on grass lawns. For me it's the pesticide subscription service managed lawns I dislike the most. But I get that people like the look of different landscaping types and that what makes sense to maintain will vary by your location. To respond to some of the comments so far, some general thoughts:
1. A lawn (in the sense of a vegetated level surface you can play/walk/sit on) does not have to consist of traditional Kentucky bluegrass. Fescue is a generally hardier alternative as far as grasses are concerned, and mowed clover is a popular alternative to a grass-based lawn.
2. If you want to keep a grass lawn, it's possible without pesticides. Organic Lawn Care by Paul Tukey is the best book I'm aware of on this subject. https://www.amazon.com/Organic-Lawn-Care-Manual-Low-Maintenance/dp/1580176496 (https://www.amazon.com/Organic-Lawn-Care-Manual-Low-Maintenance/dp/1580176496)
3. For US-based folks open to using a non-turfgrass ground cover, I suggest checking your state's University Extension Service for local suggestions for plant species that will do well in your area with little fuss (watering/fertilizer/pesticides). Here's a quick sampling for easy reference:
Illinois: https://extension.illinois.edu/blogs/ilriverhort/2015-04-10-lawn-alternatives
Maryland: https://extension.umd.edu/resource/lawn-alternatives
Florida: https://blogs.ifas.ufl.edu/orangeco/2021/06/11/low-maintenance-florida-friendly-alternatives-to-turfgrass-lawns/
4. Be extra careful about using fertilizer and pesticides on your lawn if you or your neighbors use well water. https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells
5. Realize that if your municipality's water system has a combined sewer system, runoff from your lawn (when it rains or from over-watering) can reach water bodies even if your individual property isn't next to a stream or lake.
6. If you feel you must fertilize your lawn and want to buy a commercial fertilizer product, look for one that is phosphorus-free unless you are establishing a new lawn, or you've done a soil test proving that your lawn does not have enough phosphorus. Phosphorus can be an especially problematic element of fertilizer runoff and was the basis of a Nutrient Runoff Law in New York State (https://www.dec.ny.gov/chemical/67239.html). You can tell if a fertilizer product is phosphorus-free because the product bag will display a string of three numbers showing the percentage of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. So look for a product with zero as the middle number.
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The grubs killed my lawn last year, lol.
Having no lawn is easy if you have decent sunlight. I removed the grass in a big chunk of my sunny backyard and put in a pollinator garden. I get a ton of bees and butterflies and the other part of the yard has a lot of clover. It looks great and is pretty low maintenance.
However, the front yard is full shade and I have some hostas and other shade plants planted there. I'm not sure I like it. I don't get pollinators in that part of the yard. I also don't like the look of weeds in a garden and the shady areas seems to attract a lot of invasive plants and tree saplings that I have to pull out often. I put mulch down, but the weeds grow through it. I really hate spending a lot of time pulling weeds! I may go back to grass next year. I haven't decided. We usually get enough water where watering isn't a necessity.
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I'm fine with banning certain pesticides and herbicides *if* they are proven to have a meaningful damaging effect with home use. But otherwise, where are kids who are all becoming obese couch potatoes supposed to runaround and play?
At your local park! There's no reason everyone has to have their own private green space for their exclusive use. We can have well-maintained communal spaces that everyone can use.
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I'm fine with banning certain pesticides and herbicides *if* they are proven to have a meaningful damaging effect with home use. But otherwise, where are kids who are all becoming obese couch potatoes supposed to runaround and play?
At your local park! There's no reason everyone has to have their own private green space for their exclusive use. We can have well-maintained communal spaces that everyone can use.
Yep. This all links back to SFH zoning.
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Yep, we're in the process of killing our lawn now. (I mean, technically we're replacing it with perennials and things that are lowish maintenence and still quite nice to look at.)
I'd say our backyard is maybe 35% lawn and our front yard is maybe 55-60% lawn at this point?
Given how the bird and insect populations are plummeting, it's a pleasure to walk up to our house and hear a louder insect chorus than any of our immediate neighbors. It's super nice to know that our yard is a great home to lightning bugs (fireflies), since the pristine lawns of our neighbors don't offer them any habitat.
We're going to keep a small portion of front and back yards as grass, but not a ton... Species diversity is where it's at.
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I'm fine with banning certain pesticides and herbicides *if* they are proven to have a meaningful damaging effect with home use. But otherwise, where are kids who are all becoming obese couch potatoes supposed to runaround and play?
At your local park! There's no reason everyone has to have their own private green space for their exclusive use. We can have well-maintained communal spaces that everyone can use.
Yep. This all links back to SFH zoning.
Try letting a 9 year old kid walk to and play alone in a park and you'll probably end up with the police at your door (https://reason.com/2014/07/29/no-child-left-outside-another-mom-arrest/ (https://reason.com/2014/07/29/no-child-left-outside-another-mom-arrest/), https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/arrested-for-letting-a-9-year-old-play-at-the-park-alone/374436/ (https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/arrested-for-letting-a-9-year-old-play-at-the-park-alone/374436/)). So for a lot of kids going to the park requires one of the parents be free to take them and supervise the entire trip . . . which is often not going to be possible.
I've got to think that this push for public space only would therefore result in at least some limiting of the amount of exercise they get.
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We maintain a small lawn. With our distinct four seasons we typically water 2-3 months of the year. Our irrigation controller is internet connected and automatically adjusts the watering scheduled based on local conditions. During cool and/or rainy periods there's almost no irrigation compared to hot dry periods. Our lawn is a mix of different plants, and I sow white clover yearly as it naturally fixes nitrogen and complements the root system. I also apply compost to the lawn at the end of every winter. We don't use herbicides.
Our area has an abundance of water so I'm not worried about that. That's one advantage of living in a state that's mostly mountainous... lots of snow and rivers and the massive Snake River Plain Aquifer. Agriculture and commercial uses way way more water than residential, so as land is converted to housing overall water usage has decreased. This has resulted in some rather ironic outcomes, such as some shallow private wells running dry -- turns out some shallow aquifers only ever existed because farmers were flood irrigating large fields.
I worry that Xeriscaping is an example of local optimization that's not good at large scale. The canopy in Boise (aka The City of Trees) largely depends on irrigation beyond immediate river habitat. Yards that have been Xeriscaped need to take care to provide water to trees, so the water savings isn't as much as one might assume. It's also not purely aesthetic, since landscaping (including lawn) also reduces the heat island effect in urban areas. From a big picture perspective, I'd much rather have green irrigated cities with trees and shade and lawn that are pleasant to live in. Attracting people to dense walkable cities is our best hope of mitigating climate change. If cities become hot with sparse/dry vegetation, folks are going to gravitate towards living in low density housing in forests that require a lot of driving.
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We don't do anything to our big grassy patch. Acres left over from a 100 year old dairy operation long gone. It just grows. Like GuitarStv and others, there is a ton of diverse green things growing there. I mow my yard with an electric lawn tractor that is ~52 years old. We also have acres of trees that I don't do anything about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5kP4g57Ycw
Next spring we plan to use the tiller attachment to plant rows of flowers to increase the diversity and make it more interesting. The funny thing is I expect to spend money on all sorts of specialty gardener supplies that my grass doesn't require such as fertilizer, perhaps some herbicide, or pesticides, etc.
Or we can just leave it alone and keep mowing it for less than a dollar in electricity.
I expect the right answers depends on what part of the world you live in. Using thousands of gallons of water to make grass grow in the southwest might be counter-productive. Here we just leave it alone and it grows.
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I mow my lawn when it reaches the legally maximum height for my city. Whatever grows there grows there. No water, no pesticides, no aeration, nothing.
It's not about having a nice lawn, or health, or anything. It's about saving money. If there were no laws I would be living in the woods in about 20-30 years.
Same. My area gets enough rain that I've never needed to water to keep the grass growing.
Longer grass also keeps the soil temperature cooler by providing additional insulation and blocking some of the sunlight.
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I'm fine with banning certain pesticides and herbicides *if* they are proven to have a meaningful damaging effect with home use. But otherwise, where are kids who are all becoming obese couch potatoes supposed to runaround and play?
At your local park! There's no reason everyone has to have their own private green space for their exclusive use. We can have well-maintained communal spaces that everyone can use.
Yep. This all links back to SFH zoning.
Try letting a 9 year old kid walk to and play alone in a park and you'll probably end up with the police at your door (https://reason.com/2014/07/29/no-child-left-outside-another-mom-arrest/ (https://reason.com/2014/07/29/no-child-left-outside-another-mom-arrest/), https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/arrested-for-letting-a-9-year-old-play-at-the-park-alone/374436/ (https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/arrested-for-letting-a-9-year-old-play-at-the-park-alone/374436/)). So for a lot of kids going to the park requires one of the parents be free to take them and supervise the entire trip . . . which is often not going to be possible.
When crime was higher in the 70s and 80s, kids roamed "wild." Now, parents put up front yard fences to stop kidnappings and insta-report suspicious cars/people to nextdoor. "This car is driving slowly down my street. Watch out for it!"
As long as we're discussing societal level changes, such as reducing our dependence on cars and getting rid of SFH with 1/6 acre lots, we can also include curing our stranger FUD.
I've got to think that this push for public space only would therefore result in at least some limiting of the amount of exercise they get.
That train has left the station with the use of tablets as pacification devices.
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I'm fine with banning certain pesticides and herbicides *if* they are proven to have a meaningful damaging effect with home use. But otherwise, where are kids who are all becoming obese couch potatoes supposed to runaround and play?
At your local park! There's no reason everyone has to have their own private green space for their exclusive use. We can have well-maintained communal spaces that everyone can use.
You must not have kids. We go to the park almost everyday. But we aren't going to take her to the park 4 times a day just so there can be a few extra flowers in the yard for bees.
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I'm fine with banning certain pesticides and herbicides *if* they are proven to have a meaningful damaging effect with home use. But otherwise, where are kids who are all becoming obese couch potatoes supposed to runaround and play?
At your local park! There's no reason everyone has to have their own private green space for their exclusive use. We can have well-maintained communal spaces that everyone can use.
You must not have kids. We go to the park almost everyday. But we aren't going to take her to the park 4 times a day just so there can be a few extra flowers in the yard for bees.
I do have a son, thank you very much. My neighborhood has several playgrounds, lots of public green space and some big parks nearby, all of which we take advantage of frequently.
I also take him with me on nearby errands, which I always walk to - the bank, the pharmacy, the post office. There are plenty of creative solutions for getting kids enough physical activity that don't require them to play by themselves in fenced-off private lots.
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Also what are we talking about here - maybe 1 or 2% of the total US land space?
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Also what are we talking about here - maybe 1 or 2% of the total US land space?
As with most of ecology, the scale is important. Total US land space isn’t relevant when you are talking about pollinators who have a foraging range of a few hundred meters. What’s done in the Midwest won’t have an impact on California, or vice versa. It won’t even have a big impact on the next town over. Impacts are hyper local, and depend on what’s immediately around you.
In a many urban and suburban communities the native biodiversity has gone off a cliff because nearly every parcel of land is a developed lot. In those spots even a few hundred square feet of native flowing plants can boost pollinators 10 fold for a couple block radius. Same can be true for farmland that extends hundreds of acres.
If that doesn’t describe where you live, and you have patches of meadow or even small undevelop3d lots nearby then yeah it’s not going to make a noticeable difference.
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What Nereo said.
What do you think when you see this picture? I think introduced pollinator on introduced flower. At least it has pollen and nectar, a full double would not.
My last house was on an acre in farm country. Farm field (corn/soy) behind me, hay field across the street. Most wildlife habitat was in hedgerows and along the sides of the roads. When I moved in the soil was poor, there were very few birds and fewer insects. There was a big almost empty bag of lawn weed and feed in the garage. I mowed and left the clippings, I cut the grass at the highest setting on my mower to encourage deeper roots. I didn't use fertilizer or herbicides or insecticides. I let the bottom of the ditch by the road grow goldenrod and cat tails and Joe Pye weed and milkweed. I was on a well, so the lawn got watered when it rained. When we had a dry spell the grass went dormant and the broad-leaf plants stayed green.
Within a few years I had barn swallows nesting on the garage, phoebes, robins, killdeer, and others. Honeybees and bumble bees came to all the flowers in the lawn and gardens (flowers and vegetables and fruits). I didn't have to worry about the dog licking paws contaminated with pesticides when she ran around on the lawn.
The thing is that to encourage wildlife (and I definitely include insects and other invertebrates here) you need to meet all their needs. Wild bees need more than just nectar and pollen, they need places to lay their eggs and raise brood. Solitary bees are still our most important pollinators but because they are solitary we don't really notice them. There insects also need the proper plants to lay their eggs on. If you see insect damage you either have an introduced plant that has an introduced plant pest, or you have a native species that is providing species for the young of native insets. Plus all those gorgeous flowers with masses of petals are pretty but don't have nectar or pollen. I saw mostly honeybees on Birds-foot trefoil, which is a naturalized introduced legume. Our native bumblebees didn't like it as much.
I also added a lot of flowers. I had a flowering allium that attracted a huge blue-black wasp (or bee, I never got close enough to tell which it was, they were intimidating). They were obviously around, I had just never planted anything attractive to them before. I left the plant remains on the garden until spring to provide winter habitat for overwintering insects.
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Also what are we talking about here - maybe 1 or 2% of the total US land space?
As with most of ecology, the scale is important. Total US land space isn’t relevant when you are talking about pollinators who have a foraging range of a few hundred meters. What’s done in the Midwest won’t have an impact on California, or vice versa. It won’t even have a big impact on the next town over. Impacts are hyper local, and depend on what’s immediately around you.
In a many urban and suburban communities the native biodiversity has gone off a cliff because nearly every parcel of land is a developed lot. In those spots even a few hundred square feet of native flowing plants can boost pollinators 10 fold for a couple block radius. Same can be true for farmland that extends hundreds of acres.
If that doesn’t describe where you live, and you have patches of meadow or even small undevelop3d lots nearby then yeah it’s not going to make a noticeable difference.
I included that in my previous post. We don't have any of these issues in my local area. Plenty of fresh water, most don't ever water their lawns, plenty of bees and woodlands and prairies. So I have a very hard time believing my 5,000 sq ft of grass, trees, bushes, and flowers for a household of 3 is really detrimental in any meaningful way.
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This gets added to the list, right after ripping out my gas cooktop.
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I've personally never lived anywhere where perfectly manicured/chemically controlled lawns are the norm, so I'm kind of fascinated by how that culturally even becomes a thing.
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Also what are we talking about here - maybe 1 or 2% of the total US land space?
As with most of ecology, the scale is important. Total US land space isn’t relevant when you are talking about pollinators who have a foraging range of a few hundred meters. What’s done in the Midwest won’t have an impact on California, or vice versa. It won’t even have a big impact on the next town over. Impacts are hyper local, and depend on what’s immediately around you.
In a many urban and suburban communities the native biodiversity has gone off a cliff because nearly every parcel of land is a developed lot. In those spots even a few hundred square feet of native flowing plants can boost pollinators 10 fold for a couple block radius. Same can be true for farmland that extends hundreds of acres.
If that doesn’t describe where you live, and you have patches of meadow or even small undevelop3d lots nearby then yeah it’s not going to make a noticeable difference.
I included that in my previous post. We don't have any of these issues in my local area. Plenty of fresh water, most don't ever water their lawns, plenty of bees and woodlands and prairies. So I have a very hard time believing my 5,000 sq ft of grass, trees, bushes, and flowers for a household of 3 is really detrimental in any meaningful way.
Right, and as I said if that’s the case you won’t see an observable difference. But saying “ [residential yards are] maybe 1 or 2% of the total US land space“ shows a misunderstanding of the scales involved. It’s not about total area across the US, it’s about diversity at the hectare by hectare scale.
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Mexie's video says that lawns take up an area that's more than the total area of state and national parks, state forests and wildlife management areas in the United States. I can't find another source for that, but I did find this:
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Lawn/lawn2.php
This NASA study estimates that lawns take up 128,000 square kilometers in the U.S., which would make them the single largest irrigated "crop" in the country. There's another study which says that three-quarters of residential water use is people watering their lawns:
https://www.businessinsider.com/americas-biggest-crop-is-grass-2016-2?op=1
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My last house was on an acre in farm country. Farm field (corn/soy) behind me, hay field across the street. Most wildlife habitat was in hedgerows and along the sides of the roads. When I moved in the soil was poor, there were very few birds and fewer insects. There was a big almost empty bag of lawn weed and feed in the garage. I mowed and left the clippings, I cut the grass at the highest setting on my mower to encourage deeper roots. I didn't use fertilizer or herbicides or insecticides. I let the bottom of the ditch by the road grow goldenrod and cat tails and Joe Pye weed and milkweed. I was on a well, so the lawn got watered when it rained. When we had a dry spell the grass went dormant and the broad-leaf plants stayed green.
Exactly describes our situation. Our house came with several gallons of Roundup, bags of this and that and cans of pesticides in the barn. That's how the previous owner managed the place - mow the grass and poison anything else that was unwanted. I disposed of those things. PO also liked to kill all the things that grew in the ditch along the road which worsened the erosion there.
I mow the grass on the highest setting, don't mow the ditch and let anything and everything grow down there, etc. This is our 4th season in this house and this year we've noticed more diversity in the yard plants, more insects such as bees, etc. I think it took that long for the poisons to wear out/wash out/whatever. I look forward to next year's yard too.
At my house weeds that encroach on the house and barn or what few shrubs we have are managed with our string trimmer. I have a propane torch I've tried once but that is not an exact tool. The string trimmer takes 20 minutes to circle the house, barn and shed.
We love owning acres of green. That's trees and weeds and grass and whatever wants to grow - as long as it isn't kudzu or poison ivy/oak/etc (which we do have). If the five acres next door ever comes available I'll buy it too and let it stay wild. If I was a multi-millionaire I'd buy all the fields around us too. They host small herds of cattle and hay. They also are self-sustaining.
People talk about buying carbon offsets. We own our carbon offsets. As we wind down our careers we want to garden more. Flowers and food.
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This NASA study estimates that lawns take up 128,000 square kilometers in the U.S., which would make them the single largest irrigated "crop" in the country. There's another study which says that three-quarters of residential water use is people watering their lawns:
https://www.businessinsider.com/americas-biggest-crop-is-grass-2016-2?op=1
I certainly have never watered my lawn - and that seems to be true for the overwhelming majority of people who have a lawn:
(https://www.groundworks.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2021/11/how-often-do-you-water-your-lawn-groundworks.jpg)
If you want to ban watering lawns (probably a sensible thing to do), seems like the majority of people with lawns would not be impacted. There are a few psychopaths (twice a day????) who are ruining things for everyone else.
Of course, if we really gave a shit about water conservation we would simply charge more for it. People waste it because it's cheap enough that they don't think twice about wasting it.
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Just Joe, from a distance our lawns look fine. And close up we are the ones who walk on them. I could never see the point of a pristine lawn, that is for golf courses. And even a lot of golf courses don't use a lot of pesticides.
If I hadn't sold the house, my side yard would have become an orchard by now. I already had 2 sour cherries, a self-pollinating cold-hardy pear tree and 3 European/American hazelnut crosses.
Roundup - oh my. Farmers in my area would use it to kill off a pasture so it could be plowed as part of the rotation. I only used it for poison ivy, and then I painted it on, instead of spraying. Nothing else would work, 20% acetic acid was useless. I was too far north to worry about kudzu. North of the 45th parallel, actually.
GuitarStv, a lot of places ban lawn watering except for new seeding or sod. Makes sense. Grass goes dormant when it is dry, and comes back when the water comes back. Plus overwatering means super shallow roots, which then means it dies unless it gets watered constantly. It's poor management.
Generally, what people don't think about is the details of those beautiful English lawns. Sure, lovely lawns close to the house - but the large expanses were grazed by sheep or cows, and they were kept away from the house area. So it was more like a closely grazed pasture than a lawn.
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Generally, what people don't think about is the details of those beautiful English lawns. Sure, lovely lawns close to the house - but the large expanses were grazed by sheep or cows, and they were kept away from the house area. So it was more like a closely grazed pasture than a lawn.
Well . . . that and they were in England. All natural daily watering schedule! An English drought is like what, two days without drizzle? :P
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I would love to see examples of lawns that were converted from grass to something else (besides xeriscape rocks) which don't look wild and messy.
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4. Be extra careful about using fertilizer and pesticides on your lawn if you or your neighbors use well water. https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells (https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells)
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If your lawn fertilizer is contaminating a water well, the well has a casing integrity problem which should be addressed as all sorts of bacteria will be entering the well.
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Just Joe, from a distance our lawns look fine. And close up we are the ones who walk on them. I could never see the point of a pristine lawn, that is for golf courses. And even a lot of golf courses don't use a lot of pesticides.
If I hadn't sold the house, my side yard would have become an orchard by now. I already had 2 sour cherries, a self-pollinating cold-hardy pear tree and 3 European/American hazelnut crosses.
Roundup - oh my. Farmers in my area would use it to kill off a pasture so it could be plowed as part of the rotation. I only used it for poison ivy, and then I painted it on, instead of spraying. Nothing else would work, 20% acetic acid was useless. I was too far north to worry about kudzu. North of the 45th parallel, actually.
GuitarStv, a lot of places ban lawn watering except for new seeding or sod. Makes sense. Grass goes dormant when it is dry, and comes back when the water comes back. Plus overwatering means super shallow roots, which then means it dies unless it gets watered constantly. It's poor management.
Generally, what people don't think about is the details of those beautiful English lawns. Sure, lovely lawns close to the house - but the large expanses were grazed by sheep or cows, and they were kept away from the house area. So it was more like a closely grazed pasture than a lawn.
Your yard sounds beautiful.
Painting Roundup onto poison ivy - now I like that idea. I saw a YT video where a fellow talked about killing climbing kudzu mechanically by cutting the vines.
Our house's PO was spraying Roundup all over. We pass a house on our commute to work where the owner sprays it on a fence row. Dead grass for 3 ft on both sides of the fence. This is only a yard boundary fence. Posts and barb wire. Would be really easy to mechanically trim (string trimmer). Minutes of work.
An English garden would be beautiful. That is what we have in mind for a portion of our front yard. It'll be a DIY version anyhow, never as manicured as the real thing. DW needs to plan the plants. I'll keep the weeds in check with an electric tiller. Sunflowers are a must though. They are a favorite of mine.
As several people have mentioned - we have the same situation - if we didn't mow we'd be living in the woods in a few years. In fact once a year I work the edges of the woods with my electric chain saw to keep the branches trimmed back. Electric tractor + inverter + 120V electric chainsaw + utility trailer = easy
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4. Be extra careful about using fertilizer and pesticides on your lawn if you or your neighbors use well water. https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells (https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells)
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If your lawn fertilizer is contaminating a water well, the well has a casing integrity problem which should be addressed as all sorts of bacteria will be entering the well.
"Before the mid-1970s, it was thought that soil acted as a protective filter that stopped pesticides from reaching groundwater. Studies have now shown that this is not the case. Pesticides can reach water-bearing aquifers below ground from applications onto crop fields, seepage of contaminated surface water, accidental spills and leaks, improper disposal, and even through injection waste material into wells." - https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/pesticides-groundwater (https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/pesticides-groundwater)
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This NASA study estimates that lawns take up 128,000 square kilometers in the U.S., which would make them the single largest irrigated "crop" in the country. There's another study which says that three-quarters of residential water use is people watering their lawns:
https://www.businessinsider.com/americas-biggest-crop-is-grass-2016-2?op=1
I certainly have never watered my lawn - and that seems to be true for the overwhelming majority of people who have a lawn:
(https://www.groundworks.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2021/11/how-often-do-you-water-your-lawn-groundworks.jpg)
If you want to ban watering lawns (probably a sensible thing to do), seems like the majority of people with lawns would not be impacted. There are a few psychopaths (twice a day????) who are ruining things for everyone else.
Of course, if we really gave a shit about water conservation we would simply charge more for it. People waste it because it's cheap enough that they don't think twice about wasting it.
We should probably ban other non-essential water uses as well, such as producing beer, wine, and recreational weed. Strictly speaking, these are not necessities yet require a lot of water.
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I'm in the midwest and never water or fertilize my lawn. It looks okay as long as we cut the grass. Plenty of clover and low creeping purple flower plants (I have no idea what they are, but they were there when we moved in) mixed in.
Our hell strips are off limits due to town ordinances, but our alley strips are ours to do as we please! A few years ago several neighbors met up at a local pollinator plant sale and now there are six of us that share an alley that all have pollinators planted.
Sometimes we go outside and count the bees! Our little strip has various blooms from May-September. Two of my neighbors even have yards designated as monarch watch stations.
Our alley is kind of magical :)
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This NASA study estimates that lawns take up 128,000 square kilometers in the U.S., which would make them the single largest irrigated "crop" in the country. There's another study which says that three-quarters of residential water use is people watering their lawns:
https://www.businessinsider.com/americas-biggest-crop-is-grass-2016-2?op=1
I certainly have never watered my lawn - and that seems to be true for the overwhelming majority of people who have a lawn:
(https://www.groundworks.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2021/11/how-often-do-you-water-your-lawn-groundworks.jpg)
If you want to ban watering lawns (probably a sensible thing to do), seems like the majority of people with lawns would not be impacted. There are a few psychopaths (twice a day????) who are ruining things for everyone else.
Of course, if we really gave a shit about water conservation we would simply charge more for it. People waste it because it's cheap enough that they don't think twice about wasting it.
We should probably ban other non-essential water uses as well, such as producing beer, wine, and recreational weed. Strictly speaking, these are not necessities yet require a lot of water.
It’s so weird how we’re living through a mass extinction event and still get defensive about not wanting to manage resources. Like, do we really need to pull stats on how much water ends up in beer vs what is used to water golf courses, obviously not a necessity?
Good lord. I remember how many bugs used to die on the car windshield during a suburban night drive when I was a kid. When’s the last time you needed to wash bug guts off your windshield (unless you live in a very rural area…)
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Yeah, I don't get the "all lawns are pesticided, herbicided, fertilized, water-wasting monocultures kept in check by gas-guzzling mowers" argument. I've never watered my lawn, don't use any chemicals, have an electric mower (and pay for the fully renewable electricity plan), and my lawn is full of clover, dandelions, violets, plantain, and other "weeds." The bees love it.
Do we plan to decrease the amount of space dedicated to lawn? Yes, absolutely - I plan to put in a lot of fruit-bearing bushes, raised gardening space, and a dedicated wildflower/pollinator garden. The decrease in mowing time alone would be worth it, but I would want the food garden either way. Even so, we'll probably always keep a portion of the back yard in lawn for kids to play - the local park is great, but children can't be unsupervised there. If we have outdoor play space at home too, then kids can play outside while I'm weeding the garden, or DH is working in the shed/workshop. And we'll most likely have to keep at least part of the front yard grass to keep the township and neighbors happy. But that doesn't mean it has to be a monoculture hellscape.
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This NASA study estimates that lawns take up 128,000 square kilometers in the U.S., which would make them the single largest irrigated "crop" in the country. There's another study which says that three-quarters of residential water use is people watering their lawns:
https://www.businessinsider.com/americas-biggest-crop-is-grass-2016-2?op=1
I certainly have never watered my lawn - and that seems to be true for the overwhelming majority of people who have a lawn:
(https://www.groundworks.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2021/11/how-often-do-you-water-your-lawn-groundworks.jpg)
If you want to ban watering lawns (probably a sensible thing to do), seems like the majority of people with lawns would not be impacted. There are a few psychopaths (twice a day????) who are ruining things for everyone else.
Of course, if we really gave a shit about water conservation we would simply charge more for it. People waste it because it's cheap enough that they don't think twice about wasting it.
We should probably ban other non-essential water uses as well, such as producing beer, wine, and recreational weed. Strictly speaking, these are not necessities yet require a lot of water.
I don't really drink any more (last time I had a beer was last year?), so this one doesn't personally impact me . . . but given that about 63% of Americans do (https://news.gallup.com/poll/467507/percentage-americans-drink-alcohol.aspx (https://news.gallup.com/poll/467507/percentage-americans-drink-alcohol.aspx)) I feel like banning booze would have a far greater impact.
This is even more true when you realize that the actual water usage appears to be an awful lot less for beer than grass. A gallon of beer takes somewhere between 2-8 gallons of water to make depending on variables (https://www.montana.edu/mmec/news/article.html?id=18735 (https://www.montana.edu/mmec/news/article.html?id=18735)). The average lawn needs 12 gallons per square foot (https://yourhub.denverpost.com/blog/2019/07/how-much-water-does-your-landscape-really-need/246452/ (https://yourhub.denverpost.com/blog/2019/07/how-much-water-does-your-landscape-really-need/246452/)) to look really lush. That's at least an order of magnitude more water for the average lawn . . .
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This NASA study estimates that lawns take up 128,000 square kilometers in the U.S., which would make them the single largest irrigated "crop" in the country. There's another study which says that three-quarters of residential water use is people watering their lawns:
https://www.businessinsider.com/americas-biggest-crop-is-grass-2016-2?op=1
I certainly have never watered my lawn - and that seems to be true for the overwhelming majority of people who have a lawn:
(https://www.groundworks.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2021/11/how-often-do-you-water-your-lawn-groundworks.jpg)
If you want to ban watering lawns (probably a sensible thing to do), seems like the majority of people with lawns would not be impacted. There are a few psychopaths (twice a day????) who are ruining things for everyone else.
Of course, if we really gave a shit about water conservation we would simply charge more for it. People waste it because it's cheap enough that they don't think twice about wasting it.
We should probably ban other non-essential water uses as well, such as producing beer, wine, and recreational weed. Strictly speaking, these are not necessities yet require a lot of water.
I don't really drink any more (last time I had a beer was last year?), so this one doesn't personally impact me . . . but given that about 63% of Americans do (https://news.gallup.com/poll/467507/percentage-americans-drink-alcohol.aspx (https://news.gallup.com/poll/467507/percentage-americans-drink-alcohol.aspx)) I feel like banning booze would have a far greater impact.
This is even more true when you realize that the actual water usage appears to be an awful lot less for beer than grass. A gallon of beer takes somewhere between 2-8 gallons of water to make depending on variables (https://www.montana.edu/mmec/news/article.html?id=18735 (https://www.montana.edu/mmec/news/article.html?id=18735)). The average lawn needs 12 gallons per square foot (https://yourhub.denverpost.com/blog/2019/07/how-much-water-does-your-landscape-really-need/246452/ (https://yourhub.denverpost.com/blog/2019/07/how-much-water-does-your-landscape-really-need/246452/)) to look really lush. That's at least an order of magnitude more water for the average lawn . . .
Sure. But if the metric is simply need vs. want (i.e. aesthetics), then alcohol and weed are examples of waste that should also be eliminated. To be clear, I don't think it should be that smiple. My point is just that this is more nuanced than virtue signaling with lawn=bad xeriscape=good. Should places like Phoenix or SoCal have lots of lawns and golf courses? Probably not given the sever water shortage and need to for year round irrigation. But places with adequate water and short irrigation season... I think it depends on how it's done. Using lots of chemicals and insisting on a pristine monoculture isn't a good idea, yet this is true of landscaping in general.
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This NASA study estimates that lawns take up 128,000 square kilometers in the U.S., which would make them the single largest irrigated "crop" in the country. There's another study which says that three-quarters of residential water use is people watering their lawns:
https://www.businessinsider.com/americas-biggest-crop-is-grass-2016-2?op=1
I certainly have never watered my lawn - and that seems to be true for the overwhelming majority of people who have a lawn:
(https://www.groundworks.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2021/11/how-often-do-you-water-your-lawn-groundworks.jpg)
If you want to ban watering lawns (probably a sensible thing to do), seems like the majority of people with lawns would not be impacted. There are a few psychopaths (twice a day????) who are ruining things for everyone else.
Of course, if we really gave a shit about water conservation we would simply charge more for it. People waste it because it's cheap enough that they don't think twice about wasting it.
We should probably ban other non-essential water uses as well, such as producing beer, wine, and recreational weed. Strictly speaking, these are not necessities yet require a lot of water.
I don't really drink any more (last time I had a beer was last year?), so this one doesn't personally impact me . . . but given that about 63% of Americans do (https://news.gallup.com/poll/467507/percentage-americans-drink-alcohol.aspx (https://news.gallup.com/poll/467507/percentage-americans-drink-alcohol.aspx)) I feel like banning booze would have a far greater impact.
This is even more true when you realize that the actual water usage appears to be an awful lot less for beer than grass. A gallon of beer takes somewhere between 2-8 gallons of water to make depending on variables (https://www.montana.edu/mmec/news/article.html?id=18735 (https://www.montana.edu/mmec/news/article.html?id=18735)). The average lawn needs 12 gallons per square foot (https://yourhub.denverpost.com/blog/2019/07/how-much-water-does-your-landscape-really-need/246452/ (https://yourhub.denverpost.com/blog/2019/07/how-much-water-does-your-landscape-really-need/246452/)) to look really lush. That's at least an order of magnitude more water for the average lawn . . .
Sure. But if the metric is simply need vs. want (i.e. aesthetics), then alcohol and weed are examples of waste that should also be eliminated. To be clear, I don't think it should be that smiple. My point is just that this is more nuanced than virtue signaling with lawn=bad xeriscape=good. Should places like Phoenix or SoCal have lots of lawns and golf courses? Probably not given the sever water shortage and need to for year round irrigation. But places with adequate water and short irrigation season... I think it depends on how it's done. Using lots of chemicals and insisting on a pristine monoculture isn't a good idea, yet this is true of landscaping in general.
In the US the government doesn’t just “ban” all this. While we may share our heads at how nutty they get at times, we still elect lawmakers and they are still beholden to the will of the electorate if they want to stay in office.
If a candidate wants to ban watering lawns, she can run on that pledge and see how she does on Election Day.
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I'm fine with banning certain pesticides and herbicides *if* they are proven to have a meaningful damaging effect with home use. But otherwise, where are kids who are all becoming obese couch potatoes supposed to runaround and play?
At your local park! There's no reason everyone has to have their own private green space for their exclusive use. We can have well-maintained communal spaces that everyone can use.
Yep. This all links back to SFH zoning.
Try letting a 9 year old kid walk to and play alone in a park and you'll probably end up with the police at your door (https://reason.com/2014/07/29/no-child-left-outside-another-mom-arrest/ (https://reason.com/2014/07/29/no-child-left-outside-another-mom-arrest/), https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/arrested-for-letting-a-9-year-old-play-at-the-park-alone/374436/ (https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/arrested-for-letting-a-9-year-old-play-at-the-park-alone/374436/)). So for a lot of kids going to the park requires one of the parents be free to take them and supervise the entire trip . . . which is often not going to be possible.
I've got to think that this push for public space only would therefore result in at least some limiting of the amount of exercise they get.
We often walk through beautiful neighborhoods with lush yards and we see a lot of lawn service tracks than we see kids outside playing. 9 year olds are more likely to get their exercise playing soccer at school/at a park than they are plying outside. Indeed, I see more kids outside shooting hoops in urban neighborhoods than I do in suburban neighborhoods.
I have no problems with keeping a grassy area for kids and dogs, but there’s no need to water, fertilize or spray it. That stuff (and road salt) absolutely does end up in the water.
Happily, there are many houses in my area with beautiful no/low grass yards.
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Of course, if we really gave a shit about water conservation we would simply charge more for it. People waste it because it's cheap enough that they don't think twice about wasting it.
Can't argue with that! Where I live you get charged a flat amount for water no matter how much or how little you use. Luckily we don't need much water, if any depending on the rain in a given season. But walking around the neighborhood(s), it definitely seems that if we were charged by the unit, the lawn usage would dramatically decrease. At times, it's impossible to stay dry from sprinklers on evening walks, they're omnipresent on every block!
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This NASA study estimates that lawns take up 128,000 square kilometers in the U.S., which would make them the single largest irrigated "crop" in the country. There's another study which says that three-quarters of residential water use is people watering their lawns:
https://www.businessinsider.com/americas-biggest-crop-is-grass-2016-2?op=1
I certainly have never watered my lawn - and that seems to be true for the overwhelming majority of people who have a lawn:
If you want to ban watering lawns (probably a sensible thing to do), seems like the majority of people with lawns would not be impacted. There are a few psychopaths (twice a day????) who are ruining things for everyone else.
Of course, if we really gave a shit about water conservation we would simply charge more for it. People waste it because it's cheap enough that they don't think twice about wasting it.
We should probably ban other non-essential water uses as well, such as producing beer, wine, and recreational weed. Strictly speaking, these are not necessities yet require a lot of water.
I don't really drink any more (last time I had a beer was last year?), so this one doesn't personally impact me . . . but given that about 63% of Americans do (https://news.gallup.com/poll/467507/percentage-americans-drink-alcohol.aspx (https://news.gallup.com/poll/467507/percentage-americans-drink-alcohol.aspx)) I feel like banning booze would have a far greater impact.
This is even more true when you realize that the actual water usage appears to be an awful lot less for beer than grass. A gallon of beer takes somewhere between 2-8 gallons of water to make depending on variables (https://www.montana.edu/mmec/news/article.html?id=18735 (https://www.montana.edu/mmec/news/article.html?id=18735)). The average lawn needs 12 gallons per square foot (https://yourhub.denverpost.com/blog/2019/07/how-much-water-does-your-landscape-really-need/246452/ (https://yourhub.denverpost.com/blog/2019/07/how-much-water-does-your-landscape-really-need/246452/)) to look really lush. That's at least an order of magnitude more water for the average lawn . . .
Sure. But if the metric is simply need vs. want (i.e. aesthetics), then alcohol and weed are examples of waste that should also be eliminated. To be clear, I don't think it should be that smiple. My point is just that this is more nuanced than virtue signaling with lawn=bad xeriscape=good. Should places like Phoenix or SoCal have lots of lawns and golf courses? Probably not given the sever water shortage and need to for year round irrigation. But places with adequate water and short irrigation season... I think it depends on how it's done. Using lots of chemicals and insisting on a pristine monoculture isn't a good idea, yet this is true of landscaping in general.
I don't think anyone said that's the metric. Costs vs benefits, how many people it effects, public opinion... there's lots of other ways to analyze a ban/restriction on resource usage and I think we should be more open minded about it. There's going to be tough decisions in our future, we can be proactive now and ease the pain or we can wait until it gets too painful to ignore but either way it's my opinion that restrictions on water usage and lots of other resources will be commonplace someday.
By the way, restrictions on lawn watering already exist, so the precedent is there. I didn't even know this until I looked it up just now but there are restrictions on when you can water a lawn where I live. You get 3 days/week and only early morning/evening water is allowed. Seems pretty reasonable to me. I'd also be in favor of limiting gallons/person but I realize that's harder to work out.
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I'm fine with banning certain pesticides and herbicides *if* they are proven to have a meaningful damaging effect with home use. But otherwise, where are kids who are all becoming obese couch potatoes supposed to runaround and play?
At your local park! There's no reason everyone has to have their own private green space for their exclusive use. We can have well-maintained communal spaces that everyone can use.
Yeah but it’s not a big deal to let my kids who are all under 8 play in the backyard by themselves. I’ve already had idiotic neighbors call CPS for letting my kids play in our front yard “unsupervised”. So sending them off to the park isn’t the solution you may think it is.
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I would love to see examples of lawns that were converted from grass to something else (besides xeriscape rocks) which don't look wild and messy.
Check out Pam Penick's blog,Cools Gardens in a Hot Climate . She is in Austin Texas. She also wrote the Book "Lawn Gone".
https://www.penick.net/digging/
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A gallon of beer takes somewhere between 2-8 gallons of water to make depending on variables (https://www.montana.edu/mmec/news/article.html?id=18735 (https://www.montana.edu/mmec/news/article.html?id=18735)).
This number is off by close to two orders of magnitude. It takes about two pounds of barley to make a gallon of beer [1 (https://byo.com/article/make-your-own-malt/)] and it takes about 200 gallons of water to make a pound of barley [2 (https://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-gallons-of-water-to-make-a-burger-20140124-story.html)].
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It's not so much the nationwide average of lawn watering that's a concern; it's the usage distribution. The southwest uses ungodly amounts of water to keep their lawns, while simultaneously having serious problems with water scarcity. Not to mention the other water hogs in the desert such as swimming pools and golf courses...
Of course, there are other problems related to the lawns - SFH zoning, car dependency, land use, lack of public transit, insufficient public space, etc. Can't really tease out the lawn part of that problem.
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I'm in the midwest and never water or fertilize my lawn. It looks okay as long as we cut the grass. Plenty of clover and low creeping purple flower plants (I have no idea what they are, but they were there when we moved in) mixed in.
Our hell strips are off limits due to town ordinances, but our alley strips are ours to do as we please! A few years ago several neighbors met up at a local pollinator plant sale and now there are six of us that share an alley that all have pollinators planted.
Sometimes we go outside and count the bees! Our little strip has various blooms from May-September. Two of my neighbors even have yards designated as monarch watch stations.
Our alley is kind of magical :)
What is a hell strip? ;)
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The strip of often municipal-owned land between the road and the sidewalk or drainage ditch…
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The strip of often municipal-owned land between the road and the sidewalk or drainage ditch…
That's the rub. It is typically owned by the landowner who is required to maintain it, but you can't plant what you want there, in most jurisdictions. In Seattle they relaxed that rule a lot, but there are still restrictions.
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A gallon of beer takes somewhere between 2-8 gallons of water to make depending on variables (https://www.montana.edu/mmec/news/article.html?id=18735 (https://www.montana.edu/mmec/news/article.html?id=18735)).
This number is off by close to two orders of magnitude. It takes about two pounds of barley to make a gallon of beer [1 (https://byo.com/article/make-your-own-malt/)] and it takes about 200 gallons of water to make a pound of barley [2 (https://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-gallons-of-water-to-make-a-burger-20140124-story.html)].
Thank you for the correction! That would at least put it in the same ballpark as watering a lawn.
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It's not so much the nationwide average of lawn watering that's a concern; it's the usage distribution. The southwest uses ungodly amounts of water to keep their lawns, while simultaneously having serious problems with water scarcity. Not to mention the other water hogs in the desert such as swimming pools and golf courses...
Of course, there are other problems related to the lawns - SFH zoning, car dependency, land use, lack of public transit, insufficient public space, etc. Can't really tease out the lawn part of that problem.
Yes, if I don't water my lawn it turns into a hellscape of spikey four-foot-tall weeds, and my kids use the lawn for playing. Instead I water infrequently but deeply and have been filling in bare patches with clover. I also have a very small yard and am experimenting to find a sprinkler solution that limits sidewalk spray (retrofitting with an irrigation system is apparently somewhere between impossible and prohibitively expensive).
In the backyard (which is even tinier) I am experimenting with turf-type buffalo grass, which supposedly takes much less water and less mowing. We are toying with the idea of a buffalo grass front yard but I dunno about killing off all the clovers, and also having the yard unusable for so long while we are killing the grass and then while the buffalo grass takes over (not to mention how much water it takes to establish the buffalo grass). My youngest is all of 12 months old so we have at least a dozen years left of having kids who play in the yard!
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I'm fine with banning certain pesticides and herbicides *if* they are proven to have a meaningful damaging effect with home use. But otherwise, where are kids who are all becoming obese couch potatoes supposed to runaround and play?
At your local park! There's no reason everyone has to have their own private green space for their exclusive use. We can have well-maintained communal spaces that everyone can use.
Yeah but it’s not a big deal to let my kids who are all under 8 play in the backyard by themselves. I’ve already had idiotic neighbors call CPS for letting my kids play in our front yard “unsupervised”. So sending them off to the park isn’t the solution you may think it is.
Okay, but that’s a chicken vs. egg thing. People freak out about unsupervised kids now when they didn’t use to, because it used to be common for kids to play in parks, neighborhoods, and other public spaces instead of inside their houses or in their fenced-in yards.
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A gallon of beer takes somewhere between 2-8 gallons of water to make depending on variables (https://www.montana.edu/mmec/news/article.html?id=18735 (https://www.montana.edu/mmec/news/article.html?id=18735)).
This number is off by close to two orders of magnitude. It takes about two pounds of barley to make a gallon of beer [1 (https://byo.com/article/make-your-own-malt/)] and it takes about 200 gallons of water to make a pound of barley [2 (https://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-gallons-of-water-to-make-a-burger-20140124-story.html)].
But if that is all natural precipitation that water consumption isn't an issue. A crop is being grown without irrigation. Low value per acre crops don't get irrigated in wet climates. The valuable vulnerable crops will when they need it. My rural house got its water from a well. My vegetable garden got watered when it needed it. My flower beds got watered when they were desperate. My lawn never got watered.
I have to say it shook me when I saw hay fields being irrigated in Alberta. Here we have enough moisture to grow forests, grasses do fine without any extra. They can put their roots deeper when the surface dries out.
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I am rather proud of my killed lawn. Kids didn't like it as the turf disappeared, but the reality was it was too small for them to do anything on originally.
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4. Be extra careful about using fertilizer and pesticides on your lawn if you or your neighbors use well water. https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells (https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells)
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If your lawn fertilizer is contaminating a water well, the well has a casing integrity problem which should be addressed as all sorts of bacteria will be entering the well.
"Before the mid-1970s, it was thought that soil acted as a protective filter that stopped pesticides from reaching groundwater. Studies have now shown that this is not the case. Pesticides can reach water-bearing aquifers below ground from applications onto crop fields, seepage of contaminated surface water, accidental spills and leaks, improper disposal, and even through injection waste material into wells." - https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/pesticides-groundwater (https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/pesticides-groundwater)
According to the NIH, there is a 98% chance your local groundwater is NOT contaminated with pesticides. So while it is possible, it's not very likely. Just the same, those on private well water (which you apparently are not) know to test their water regularly for contaminants.
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...
4. Be extra careful about using fertilizer and pesticides on your lawn if you or your neighbors use well water. https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells (https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells)
...
If your lawn fertilizer is contaminating a water well, the well has a casing integrity problem which should be addressed as all sorts of bacteria will be entering the well.
"Before the mid-1970s, it was thought that soil acted as a protective filter that stopped pesticides from reaching groundwater. Studies have now shown that this is not the case. Pesticides can reach water-bearing aquifers below ground from applications onto crop fields, seepage of contaminated surface water, accidental spills and leaks, improper disposal, and even through injection waste material into wells." - https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/pesticides-groundwater (https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/pesticides-groundwater)
According to the NIH, there is a 98% chance your local groundwater is NOT contaminated with pesticides. So while it is possible, it's not very likely. Just the same, those on private well water (which you apparently are not) know to test their water regularly for contaminants.
The point is to not be the source of groundwater contamination.
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4. Be extra careful about using fertilizer and pesticides on your lawn if you or your neighbors use well water. https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells (https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells)
...
If your lawn fertilizer is contaminating a water well, the well has a casing integrity problem which should be addressed as all sorts of bacteria will be entering the well.
"Before the mid-1970s, it was thought that soil acted as a protective filter that stopped pesticides from reaching groundwater. Studies have now shown that this is not the case. Pesticides can reach water-bearing aquifers below ground from applications onto crop fields, seepage of contaminated surface water, accidental spills and leaks, improper disposal, and even through injection waste material into wells." - https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/pesticides-groundwater (https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/pesticides-groundwater)
According to the NIH, there is a 98% chance your local groundwater is NOT contaminated with pesticides. So while it is possible, it's not very likely. Just the same, those on private well water (which you apparently are not) know to test their water regularly for contaminants.
The point is to not be the source of groundwater contamination.
I'm sure we're all for that, but pesticides are not used so much on lawns as on crops. I mean, what pests/weevils are devouring your fescue or rye grass?
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Yes, if I don't water my lawn it turns into a hellscape of spikey four-foot-tall weeds, and my kids use the lawn for playing. Instead I water infrequently but deeply and have been filling in bare patches with clover. I also have a very small yard and am experimenting to find a sprinkler solution that limits sidewalk spray (retrofitting with an irrigation system is apparently somewhere between impossible and prohibitively expensive).
https://irrigreen.com/ (https://irrigreen.com/)
Would take some effort to have it surface mounted, but no reason it wouldn’t work. Have an anchor point in the yard, done. I’ve never had the guts to price one out…no way it’s cheap.
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Just Joe, from a distance our lawns look fine. And close up we are the ones who walk on them. I could never see the point of a pristine lawn, that is for golf courses. And even a lot of golf courses don't use a lot of pesticides.
If I hadn't sold the house, my side yard would have become an orchard by now. I already had 2 sour cherries, a self-pollinating cold-hardy pear tree and 3 European/American hazelnut crosses.
Roundup - oh my. Farmers in my area would use it to kill off a pasture so it could be plowed as part of the rotation. I only used it for poison ivy, and then I painted it on, instead of spraying. Nothing else would work, 20% acetic acid was useless. I was too far north to worry about kudzu. North of the 45th parallel, actually.
GuitarStv, a lot of places ban lawn watering except for new seeding or sod. Makes sense. Grass goes dormant when it is dry, and comes back when the water comes back. Plus overwatering means super shallow roots, which then means it dies unless it gets watered constantly. It's poor management.
Generally, what people don't think about is the details of those beautiful English lawns. Sure, lovely lawns close to the house - but the large expanses were grazed by sheep or cows, and they were kept away from the house area. So it was more like a closely grazed pasture than a lawn.
Your yard sounds beautiful.
Painting Roundup onto poison ivy - now I like that idea. I saw a YT video where a fellow talked about killing climbing kudzu mechanically by cutting the vines.
Our house's PO was spraying Roundup all over. We pass a house on our commute to work where the owner sprays it on a fence row. Dead grass for 3 ft on both sides of the fence. This is only a yard boundary fence. Posts and barb wire. Would be really easy to mechanically trim (string trimmer). Minutes of work.
An English garden would be beautiful. That is what we have in mind for a portion of our front yard. It'll be a DIY version anyhow, never as manicured as the real thing. DW needs to plan the plants. I'll keep the weeds in check with an electric tiller. Sunflowers are a must though. They are a favorite of mine.
As several people have mentioned - we have the same situation - if we didn't mow we'd be living in the woods in a few years. In fact once a year I work the edges of the woods with my electric chain saw to keep the branches trimmed back. Electric tractor + inverter + 120V electric chainsaw + utility trailer = easy
I sold that house in 2019. I don't really miss the house that much, being that rural wasn't working for me any more, but I sure miss having a yard and gardens. I had a 100' perennial low maintenance border - peonies, mostly grown from seed, day-lilies, Siberian Iris, and low perennials in the front. Asparagus at the back. Basically all tough plants, almost no watering, and very little weeding. 448 sq. feet of raised beds for vegetables. A big fenced yard to play frisbee with the dog.
Gah, I'm going to talk myself into getting another house instead of my apartment with a balcony garden. No lawn here.
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4. Be extra careful about using fertilizer and pesticides on your lawn if you or your neighbors use well water. https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells (https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells)
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If your lawn fertilizer is contaminating a water well, the well has a casing integrity problem which should be addressed as all sorts of bacteria will be entering the well.
"Before the mid-1970s, it was thought that soil acted as a protective filter that stopped pesticides from reaching groundwater. Studies have now shown that this is not the case. Pesticides can reach water-bearing aquifers below ground from applications onto crop fields, seepage of contaminated surface water, accidental spills and leaks, improper disposal, and even through injection waste material into wells." - https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/pesticides-groundwater (https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/pesticides-groundwater)
According to the NIH, there is a 98% chance your local groundwater is NOT contaminated with pesticides. So while it is possible, it's not very likely. Just the same, those on private well water (which you apparently are not) know to test their water regularly for contaminants.
The point is to not be the source of groundwater contamination.
I'm sure we're all for that, but pesticides are not used so much on lawns as on crops. I mean, what pests/weevils are devouring your fescue or rye grass?
Um, what?? There’s literally a half dozen lawn pesticides for sale at the big chain home improvement store near me. Promises to kill ants, ticks, spiders, mosquitos and more. There’s foggers, sprays, granules and more. Ortho, Off! Sevin, Raid are all big brands that offer lawn pesticides….
Just take a look in your local Ace, Home Depot, Lowes, AgWay or whatever.
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4. Be extra careful about using fertilizer and pesticides on your lawn if you or your neighbors use well water. https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells (https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells)
...
If your lawn fertilizer is contaminating a water well, the well has a casing integrity problem which should be addressed as all sorts of bacteria will be entering the well.
"Before the mid-1970s, it was thought that soil acted as a protective filter that stopped pesticides from reaching groundwater. Studies have now shown that this is not the case. Pesticides can reach water-bearing aquifers below ground from applications onto crop fields, seepage of contaminated surface water, accidental spills and leaks, improper disposal, and even through injection waste material into wells." - https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/pesticides-groundwater (https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/pesticides-groundwater)
According to the NIH, there is a 98% chance your local groundwater is NOT contaminated with pesticides. So while it is possible, it's not very likely. Just the same, those on private well water (which you apparently are not) know to test their water regularly for contaminants.
The point is to not be the source of groundwater contamination.
I'm sure we're all for that, but pesticides are not used so much on lawns as on crops. I mean, what pests/weevils are devouring your fescue or rye grass?
Um, what?? There’s literally a half dozen lawn pesticides for sale at the big chain home improvement store near me. Promises to kill ants, ticks, spiders, mosquitos and more. There’s foggers, sprays, granules and more. Ortho, Off! Sevin, Raid are all big brands that offer lawn pesticides….
Just take a look in your local Ace, Home Depot, Lowes, AgWay or whatever.
And that's just some of the insecticides that people have mentioned. Remember that the umbrella term "pesticides" also includes other classes like herbicides and fungicides in addition to insecticides. And some people manage turfgrass using some of all of these. I can't speak for other countries but in the US some of the pesticide active ingredients used on grass have included (herbicides first) 2,4-D, Atrazine, Benfluralin, Bensulide, Clopyralid, Dicamba, Diquat Dibromide, Dithiopyr, Fluazipop-p-butyl, Glyphosate, Imazapyr, Isoxaben, MCPA, Mecoprop (MCPP), Oxadiazon, Oxyfluorfen, Pendimethalin, Prodiamine, Sulfentrazone, Triclopyr, and Trifluralin. Your insecticides applied to grass are probably Abamectin/ Avermectin, Acephate, Bifenthrin, Carbaryl, Cyfluthrin, Deltamethrin, Fipronil, Imidacloprid, Malathion, Permethrin, Trichlorfon. Rounding things out are the fungicides; for turf uses some active ingredients would be Azoxystrobin, Chlorothalonil, Metalaxyl, Myclobutanil, Propiconazole,Thiophanate methyl, and Ziram.
Each of these active ingredients can be sold under many different brand names. Glyphosate is the basis of the RoundUp product line, for example. I think Raid products vary a bit but I know piperonyl butoxide and D-phenothrin are the actives in at least some of their products. Sevin is a trade name for Carbaryl-based products. And Scotts' GrubEx line is based on Chlorantraniliprole. If you choose to use any of these products, please do so according to the product labels. But to Nereo's main point, yes, pesticides sold for use on lawns do very much exist.
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4. Be extra careful about using fertilizer and pesticides on your lawn if you or your neighbors use well water. https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells (https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells)
...
If your lawn fertilizer is contaminating a water well, the well has a casing integrity problem which should be addressed as all sorts of bacteria will be entering the well.
"Before the mid-1970s, it was thought that soil acted as a protective filter that stopped pesticides from reaching groundwater. Studies have now shown that this is not the case. Pesticides can reach water-bearing aquifers below ground from applications onto crop fields, seepage of contaminated surface water, accidental spills and leaks, improper disposal, and even through injection waste material into wells." - https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/pesticides-groundwater (https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/pesticides-groundwater)
According to the NIH, there is a 98% chance your local groundwater is NOT contaminated with pesticides. So while it is possible, it's not very likely. Just the same, those on private well water (which you apparently are not) know to test their water regularly for contaminants.
The point is to not be the source of groundwater contamination.
I'm sure we're all for that, but pesticides are not used so much on lawns as on crops. I mean, what pests/weevils are devouring your fescue or rye grass?
Um, what?? There’s literally a half dozen lawn pesticides for sale at the big chain home improvement store near me. Promises to kill ants, ticks, spiders, mosquitos and more. There’s foggers, sprays, granules and more. Ortho, Off! Sevin, Raid are all big brands that offer lawn pesticides….
Just take a look in your local Ace, Home Depot, Lowes, AgWay or whatever.
I think of most of those as outdoor pest killers sprayed on surfaces or in the air, both of which are more likely to affect people via inhaling or skin contact rather than than traveling hundreds of feet underground into their water source. If lots of people are spraying their lawns for bugs I'm not familiar with that; fertilizer and weed killer are more common.
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4. Be extra careful about using fertilizer and pesticides on your lawn if you or your neighbors use well water. https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells (https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells)
...
If your lawn fertilizer is contaminating a water well, the well has a casing integrity problem which should be addressed as all sorts of bacteria will be entering the well.
"Before the mid-1970s, it was thought that soil acted as a protective filter that stopped pesticides from reaching groundwater. Studies have now shown that this is not the case. Pesticides can reach water-bearing aquifers below ground from applications onto crop fields, seepage of contaminated surface water, accidental spills and leaks, improper disposal, and even through injection waste material into wells." - https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/pesticides-groundwater (https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/pesticides-groundwater)
According to the NIH, there is a 98% chance your local groundwater is NOT contaminated with pesticides. So while it is possible, it's not very likely. Just the same, those on private well water (which you apparently are not) know to test their water regularly for contaminants.
The point is to not be the source of groundwater contamination.
I'm sure we're all for that, but pesticides are not used so much on lawns as on crops. I mean, what pests/weevils are devouring your fescue or rye grass?
Um, what?? There’s literally a half dozen lawn pesticides for sale at the big chain home improvement store near me. Promises to kill ants, ticks, spiders, mosquitos and more. There’s foggers, sprays, granules and more. Ortho, Off! Sevin, Raid are all big brands that offer lawn pesticides….
Just take a look in your local Ace, Home Depot, Lowes, AgWay or whatever.
I think of most of those as outdoor pest killers sprayed on surfaces or in the air, both of which are more likely to affect people via inhaling or skin contact rather than than traveling hundreds of feet underground into their water source. If lots of people are spraying their lawns for bugs I'm not familiar with that; fertilizer and weed killer are more common.
For example
https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/search-results.html?x1=ast-id-level-1&q1=DC0001491&q=Weed%20Control&experience=category (https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/search-results.html?x1=ast-id-level-1&q1=DC0001491&q=Weed%20Control&experience=category) These are for domestic use, not agricultural use.
Weed killer may kill plants but it is also not good for animals. Since we are all descended from the first eukaryotes, our basic metabolic pathways are surprisingly similar. And every insecticide will also do damage to vertebrates, they just use chemicals that are relatively more toxic to insects than to us (and fish, and frogs, and birds, and . . . ).
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4. Be extra careful about using fertilizer and pesticides on your lawn if you or your neighbors use well water. https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells (https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells)
...
If your lawn fertilizer is contaminating a water well, the well has a casing integrity problem which should be addressed as all sorts of bacteria will be entering the well.
"Before the mid-1970s, it was thought that soil acted as a protective filter that stopped pesticides from reaching groundwater. Studies have now shown that this is not the case. Pesticides can reach water-bearing aquifers below ground from applications onto crop fields, seepage of contaminated surface water, accidental spills and leaks, improper disposal, and even through injection waste material into wells." - https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/pesticides-groundwater (https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/pesticides-groundwater)
According to the NIH, there is a 98% chance your local groundwater is NOT contaminated with pesticides. So while it is possible, it's not very likely. Just the same, those on private well water (which you apparently are not) know to test their water regularly for contaminants.
The point is to not be the source of groundwater contamination.
I'm sure we're all for that, but pesticides are not used so much on lawns as on crops. I mean, what pests/weevils are devouring your fescue or rye grass?
Um, what?? There’s literally a half dozen lawn pesticides for sale at the big chain home improvement store near me. Promises to kill ants, ticks, spiders, mosquitos and more. There’s foggers, sprays, granules and more. Ortho, Off! Sevin, Raid are all big brands that offer lawn pesticides….
Just take a look in your local Ace, Home Depot, Lowes, AgWay or whatever.
I think of most of those as outdoor pest killers sprayed on surfaces or in the air, both of which are more likely to affect people via inhaling or skin contact rather than than traveling hundreds of feet underground into their water source. If lots of people are spraying their lawns for bugs I'm not familiar with that; fertilizer and weed killer are more common.
Oh FFS - where do you think these pest killers go when you spray them on or above your lawn? Either surface runoff or into our groundwater. Excluding heavy deluges, most precipitation on lawns goes into the groundwater.
You are in a discussion about domestic use of toxic chemicals on lawns, and your position is that you are ignorant that such chemicals are widely used.
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A gallon of beer takes somewhere between 2-8 gallons of water to make depending on variables (https://www.montana.edu/mmec/news/article.html?id=18735 (https://www.montana.edu/mmec/news/article.html?id=18735)).
This number is off by close to two orders of magnitude. It takes about two pounds of barley to make a gallon of beer [1 (https://byo.com/article/make-your-own-malt/)] and it takes about 200 gallons of water to make a pound of barley [2 (https://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-gallons-of-water-to-make-a-burger-20140124-story.html)].
But if that is all natural precipitation that water consumption isn't an issue. A crop is being grown without irrigation. Low value per acre crops don't get irrigated in wet climates. The valuable vulnerable crops will when they need it. My rural house got its water from a well. My vegetable garden got watered when it needed it. My flower beds got watered when they were desperate. My lawn never got watered.
I have to say it shook me when I saw hay fields being irrigated in Alberta. Here we have enough moisture to grow forests, grasses do fine without any extra. They can put their roots deeper when the surface dries out.
Not to mention the water used to water lawns in suburban areas is often treated water whereas crops are generally irrigated direct from some kind of reservoir. The environmental impact of irrigating crops depends on location but in some cases there's essentially no cost at all other than the energy used to pump it from a pond onto the field.
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4. Be extra careful about using fertilizer and pesticides on your lawn if you or your neighbors use well water. https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells (https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells)
...
If your lawn fertilizer is contaminating a water well, the well has a casing integrity problem which should be addressed as all sorts of bacteria will be entering the well.
"Before the mid-1970s, it was thought that soil acted as a protective filter that stopped pesticides from reaching groundwater. Studies have now shown that this is not the case. Pesticides can reach water-bearing aquifers below ground from applications onto crop fields, seepage of contaminated surface water, accidental spills and leaks, improper disposal, and even through injection waste material into wells." - https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/pesticides-groundwater (https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/pesticides-groundwater)
According to the NIH, there is a 98% chance your local groundwater is NOT contaminated with pesticides. So while it is possible, it's not very likely. Just the same, those on private well water (which you apparently are not) know to test their water regularly for contaminants.
The point is to not be the source of groundwater contamination.
I'm sure we're all for that, but pesticides are not used so much on lawns as on crops. I mean, what pests/weevils are devouring your fescue or rye grass?
Um, what?? There’s literally a half dozen lawn pesticides for sale at the big chain home improvement store near me. Promises to kill ants, ticks, spiders, mosquitos and more. There’s foggers, sprays, granules and more. Ortho, Off! Sevin, Raid are all big brands that offer lawn pesticides….
Just take a look in your local Ace, Home Depot, Lowes, AgWay or whatever.
I think of most of those as outdoor pest killers sprayed on surfaces or in the air, both of which are more likely to affect people via inhaling or skin contact rather than than traveling hundreds of feet underground into their water source. If lots of people are spraying their lawns for bugs I'm not familiar with that; fertilizer and weed killer are more common.
-67,000,000 pounds of synthetic pesticides are used on U.S. lawns.
https://archive.epa.gov/greenacres/web/html/wo8.html#:~:text=67%2C000%2C000%20pounds%20of%20synthetic%20pesticides,gasoline%20are%20used%20for%20lawnmowers.
I think it's worth noting that not all pesticides are created equal. Damage to environment and human health vary greatly, but if you're asking how much is used on lawns, this is the best answer I could find.
Some other interesting figures from that link:
-30 to 60 percent of urban fresh water is used for watering lawns (depending on city).
-580,000,000 gallons of gasoline are used for lawnmowers.
-20,000,000 acres are planted in residential lawns.
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I would love to see examples of lawns that were converted from grass to something else (besides xeriscape rocks) which don't look wild and messy.
My neighbor changed his lawn out for native plants and grasses along with keeping the old bamboo pods. He added a 250 gallon cistern to water this and his fruit and pecan trees in his side yard and added a french drain system into a trough with a permeable fabric to slowly water the front.
(Let's see if I can attach a picture this time)
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We don't really "maintain a lawn", so much as "try to keep the forest from taking back what is rightfully theirs."
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To be fair . . . flies are pollinators.
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It feels sort of silly to try to make some sweeping argument that lawns are bad regardless of the location they're in. These grasses must be native somewhere, so having a lawn in a location where it's adapted to the local climate and you just need to mow it vs having one in Phoenix or LA isn't exactly the same degree of stupidity...
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This is a good video from Mexie, a Canadian YouTuber, making the case for getting rid of lawns:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1iFQX1_Xso
Millions of suburban dwellers think a uniform expanse of manicured grass is normal and aesthetically pleasing. In fact, lawns are ecologically barren and a giant waste of resources. Maintaining them takes gas-guzzling mowers, toxic pesticides, regular application of fertilizer that contaminates rivers and streams, and huge amounts of water - often more than natural rainfall can replenish. That's not even to mention all the time devoted to lawn care.
She talks about how lawns were originally a status symbol of European nobility. They were a way to show off how wealthy you were, that you could afford to devote all that space to useless turf rather than crops.
The middle class adopted lawns for the same reason, but they've come to be seen as an expectation. Some towns and HOAs have ordinances which mandate lawn maintenance, so that people who want to replace grass with native gardens or trees aren't allowed to. In one story from Ohio, a woman's neighbors trespassed on her property to mow her lawn when she tried to let it go wild!
There are huge benefits to replacing lawns with native plants. They attract pollinators like bees and butterflies. Caterpillars that feed on the plants are vital food for birds. The berries and seeds feed voles and mice, which in turn feed hawks, owls and foxes. If enough people did this, we could restore vanished habitat, rebuild ecosystems, and give a helping hand to species that are being squeezed by climate change.
I don't know, I think this is mostly a matter of personal taste, or philosophy.
Just because some youtube rando says it, doesn't make it true, even if she's quoting studies. It's just personal preference.
I happen to think "a uniform expanse of manicured grass" is VERY aesthetically pleasing. I spend a lot of time and money to make it beautiful, and I think the whole "contaminating our rivers" argument is bullshit. And letting my 500 square feet go native would do exactly squat to restore vanished habitat, etc.
Is it just a matter of personal taste or philosophy? I think the whole point of the topic, even if anyone thinks is pleasing, can its existence be appreciated when knowing it has a significant ecosystem impact? I think the point is to encourage people to reconsider their taste or philosophy when presented with this information.
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If your lawn fertilizer is contaminating a water well, the well has a casing integrity problem which should be addressed as all sorts of bacteria will be entering the well.
This is not really correct. While wells are supposed to have a top seal that prevents direct infiltration, fertilizer can and does enter the groundwater by simply infiltrating through the soil, carried by surface water. Contaminated groundwater then enters the well through the screened interval of the well casing.
Nitrate from fertilizers contaminating groundwater is a non-trivial public health problem. Once a well is contaminated with nitrate, it is a big expensive headache to fix. The biggest source of nitrate in groundwater is from agriculture. But regular lawns absolutely contribute to the problem, and nitrate is elevated in many municipal wells.
A big contributor is many people waaaaaaay over fertilize their lawn. The manufacturers recommend using much less fertilizer than most people realize.
My take is lawn is great if you use it. If you want a place to toss the ball around, knock yourself out. Just don't over fertilize. If you don't need a lawn, then lawns suck. There are much better options for yards.
Source: I was an environmental consultant before I retired.
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Back onto the original topic, we've replaced our front lawn with half native flowering things and about half our lovely state grass, blue gramma grass. It's super-pretty, doesn't really need watering (after getting it established) and the only problem is that I need to weed out the non-blue-gramma grass from that section every spring (and probably also in the fall) while it's growing back.
That's a pretty small section of yard: the back is a dwarf fescue that looks more like "lawn", and still hardly needs watering (maybe 12 times/year, if we're having a dry year), and we pretty much don't fertilize it. It's also slow-growing, so it only really needs mowing about once every couple weeks (it was once/week in the spring, when it was raining every day). I'm slowly planting out the rest of the property with something resembling a food forest (in places that will support it) and/or native Xeric plants (in places where that's needed). It feels like a reasonable compromise! (The "and" is for things like the two elderberry plants I just put in, that are at least related to native elderberries, but we can use the berries and flowers in years when we're organized and leave them to the birds in years when we're not.)
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Around here lawns don't ever need watering. If it gets really hot and dry for a few weeks they'll turn yellow, but the next major rainfall they all wake back up and are green again. If I lived somewhere where a lawn needed watering to survive, I don't like the odds of the lawn making it.
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Seems appropriate to share this article here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2023/water-scarcity-map-solutions/
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Around here lawns don't ever need watering. If it gets really hot and dry for a few weeks they'll turn yellow, but the next major rainfall they all wake back up and are green again. If I lived somewhere where a lawn needed watering to survive, I don't like the odds of the lawn making it.
Basically here one of the functions of mowing is to keep the trees down. And the goldenrod. I know of a field that has been mostly goldenrod for over 20 ears. The trees can't get a foothold.
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Around here (Perth, Western Australia) there's some interesting things happening with lawns and getting rid of them.
Firstly, the new advice for new lawns is to add clay and compost before your grass to increase water/fertiliser retention (we're on sand around Perth), then consider using sieved compost instead of fertiliser once per year or so. I did this when I replaced paving bricks with lawn for my kids to have somewhere to go.
Councils are also encouraging replacing your hellstrip (love that term for the verge) with native plants, so I smothered my verge lawn with cardboard and mulch for a few months and now I'm planting a cool native garden. I've got some fun groundcovers, flowers and shrubs, and a lemon myrtle (which isn't locally native, but you can eat the leaves). Should look good when it's settled in.
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4. Be extra careful about using fertilizer and pesticides on your lawn if you or your neighbors use well water. https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells (https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells)
...
If your lawn fertilizer is contaminating a water well, the well has a casing integrity problem which should be addressed as all sorts of bacteria will be entering the well.
"Before the mid-1970s, it was thought that soil acted as a protective filter that stopped pesticides from reaching groundwater. Studies have now shown that this is not the case. Pesticides can reach water-bearing aquifers below ground from applications onto crop fields, seepage of contaminated surface water, accidental spills and leaks, improper disposal, and even through injection waste material into wells." - https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/pesticides-groundwater (https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/pesticides-groundwater)
According to the NIH, there is a 98% chance your local groundwater is NOT contaminated with pesticides. So while it is possible, it's not very likely. Just the same, those on private well water (which you apparently are not) know to test their water regularly for contaminants.
The point is to not be the source of groundwater contamination.
I'm sure we're all for that, but pesticides are not used so much on lawns as on crops. I mean, what pests/weevils are devouring your fescue or rye grass?
Um, what?? There’s literally a half dozen lawn pesticides for sale at the big chain home improvement store near me. Promises to kill ants, ticks, spiders, mosquitos and more. There’s foggers, sprays, granules and more. Ortho, Off! Sevin, Raid are all big brands that offer lawn pesticides….
Just take a look in your local Ace, Home Depot, Lowes, AgWay or whatever.
I think of most of those as outdoor pest killers sprayed on surfaces or in the air, both of which are more likely to affect people via inhaling or skin contact rather than than traveling hundreds of feet underground into their water source. If lots of people are spraying their lawns for bugs I'm not familiar with that; fertilizer and weed killer are more common.
-67,000,000 pounds of synthetic pesticides are used on U.S. lawns.
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But most of that is weed killer, not ant/spider, etc. I don't lump herbicides and pesticides together. I know some do. Splitter vs lumper.
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But most of that is weed killer, not ant/spider, etc. I don't lump herbicides and pesticides together. I know some do. Splitter vs lumper.
It depends on what impact you ate looking at.
A lot of research lumps then together because they all have similar negative impact. For example, I've cited a lot of obesity research that lumps them together because they have similar endocrine disruption effects.
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4. Be extra careful about using fertilizer and pesticides on your lawn if you or your neighbors use well water. https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells (https://agwt.org/content/lawns-safe-wells)
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If your lawn fertilizer is contaminating a water well, the well has a casing integrity problem which should be addressed as all sorts of bacteria will be entering the well.
"Before the mid-1970s, it was thought that soil acted as a protective filter that stopped pesticides from reaching groundwater. Studies have now shown that this is not the case. Pesticides can reach water-bearing aquifers below ground from applications onto crop fields, seepage of contaminated surface water, accidental spills and leaks, improper disposal, and even through injection waste material into wells." - https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/pesticides-groundwater (https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/pesticides-groundwater)
According to the NIH, there is a 98% chance your local groundwater is NOT contaminated with pesticides. So while it is possible, it's not very likely. Just the same, those on private well water (which you apparently are not) know to test their water regularly for contaminants.
The point is to not be the source of groundwater contamination.
I'm sure we're all for that, but pesticides are not used so much on lawns as on crops. I mean, what pests/weevils are devouring your fescue or rye grass?
Um, what?? There’s literally a half dozen lawn pesticides for sale at the big chain home improvement store near me. Promises to kill ants, ticks, spiders, mosquitos and more. There’s foggers, sprays, granules and more. Ortho, Off! Sevin, Raid are all big brands that offer lawn pesticides….
Just take a look in your local Ace, Home Depot, Lowes, AgWay or whatever.
I think of most of those as outdoor pest killers sprayed on surfaces or in the air, both of which are more likely to affect people via inhaling or skin contact rather than than traveling hundreds of feet underground into their water source. If lots of people are spraying their lawns for bugs I'm not familiar with that; fertilizer and weed killer are more common.
-67,000,000 pounds of synthetic pesticides are used on U.S. lawns.
...
But most of that is weed killer, not ant/spider, etc. I don't lump herbicides and pesticides together. I know some do. Splitter vs lumper.
I get that there is a definition between weeds and other types of pests, but for your reference, in the United States at least, herbicides are legally a sub-category of the umbrella term "pesticide."
For purposes of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), a pesticide is defined as “any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any pest.” FIFRA defines a “pest” broadly to include “(1) any insect, rodent, nematode, fungus, weed, or (2) any other form of terrestrial or aquatic plant or animal life or virus, bacteria, or other micro-organism (except viruses, bacteria, or other micro-organisms on or in living man or other animals).”
Not sure what the law may be in other locations.
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I can't even tell what I'm supposed to do. There's ordinances to keep your grass below 4 inches, and then flyers from the town to go no mow.....I dont know what that even means unless I'm supposed to install astroturf....
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But most of that is weed killer, not ant/spider, etc. I don't lump herbicides and pesticides together. I know some do. Splitter vs lumper.
I get that there is a definition between weeds and other types of pests, but for your reference, in the United States at least, herbicides are legally a sub-category of the umbrella term "pesticide."
For purposes of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), a pesticide is defined as “any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any pest.” FIFRA defines a “pest” broadly to include “(1) any insect, rodent, nematode, fungus, weed, or (2) any other form of terrestrial or aquatic plant or animal life or virus, bacteria, or other micro-organism (except viruses, bacteria, or other micro-organisms on or in living man or other animals).”
Not sure what the law may be in other locations.
And just in case this sounds like a technicality thing, I'd add that I've worked in the agricultural industry, research and production, and everyone uses pesticide as the umbrella term for all the other "-cides" including herbicides and insecticides.
It sounds like GilesMM is trying to say they distinguish between insecticides and herbicides. But wasn't the original argument that fertilizer doesn't get into well water?
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At some point, 10 to 12 years ago, we started replacing the lawn. Our mistake was that we replaced it with a more or less formal garden, which ended up being way more work that mowing - and pretty expensive, too. It's now harder to switch to native plants, since so much effort was invested in non-native ones; and they look really nice. We have a replaced a section with the natives, though, and plan to do more.
As for the remaining lawn, we don't water it; mow rarely with an electric mower on a highest setting; don't use pesticides, but fertilize once a year. It has a fair share of clover, which manages to bloom in between the mows.
Even with the less than ideal space allocated to native plants, we have a ton of wildlife. We are 1 specie away from that Audibon designation, and we weren't even trying.
If I can only figure out now what to do with the damn stiltgrass - it may kill the lawn before I do, and with no environmental benefit.
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In ecotoxicology the term pesticide covers all the -cides - herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, rodenticides, etc. If it is toss and used to kill a pest, any pest, it is a pesticide.
Fertilizer by itself is a different issues. Too much fertilizer goes into the ground water and into streams, where it promotes algal blooms. Look up dead zones sometime.
Phosphorus used to be the worst culprit, which is why it is no longer in detergents.
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But most of that is weed killer, not ant/spider, etc. I don't lump herbicides and pesticides together. I know some do. Splitter vs lumper.
I get that there is a definition between weeds and other types of pests, but for your reference, in the United States at least, herbicides are legally a sub-category of the umbrella term "pesticide."
For purposes of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), a pesticide is defined as “any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any pest.” FIFRA defines a “pest” broadly to include “(1) any insect, rodent, nematode, fungus, weed, or (2) any other form of terrestrial or aquatic plant or animal life or virus, bacteria, or other micro-organism (except viruses, bacteria, or other micro-organisms on or in living man or other animals).”
Not sure what the law may be in other locations.
And just in case this sounds like a technicality thing, I'd add that I've worked in the agricultural industry, research and production, and everyone uses pesticide as the umbrella term for all the other "-cides" including herbicides and insecticides.
It sounds like GilesMM is trying to say they distinguish between insecticides and herbicides. But wasn't the original argument that fertilizer doesn't get into well water?
Yes, I like to distinguish between herbicides and insecticides. That's just me!
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But most of that is weed killer, not ant/spider, etc. I don't lump herbicides and pesticides together. I know some do. Splitter vs lumper.
I get that there is a definition between weeds and other types of pests, but for your reference, in the United States at least, herbicides are legally a sub-category of the umbrella term "pesticide."
For purposes of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), a pesticide is defined as “any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any pest.” FIFRA defines a “pest” broadly to include “(1) any insect, rodent, nematode, fungus, weed, or (2) any other form of terrestrial or aquatic plant or animal life or virus, bacteria, or other micro-organism (except viruses, bacteria, or other micro-organisms on or in living man or other animals).”
Not sure what the law may be in other locations.
And just in case this sounds like a technicality thing, I'd add that I've worked in the agricultural industry, research and production, and everyone uses pesticide as the umbrella term for all the other "-cides" including herbicides and insecticides.
It sounds like GilesMM is trying to say they distinguish between insecticides and herbicides. But wasn't the original argument that fertilizer doesn't get into well water?
Yes, I like to distinguish between herbicides and insecticides. That's just me!
When you actually need one it's nice to buy the right thing. ;-)
They all affect ecosystems and human health, so they do get lumped in to one collective category. But when you start analyzing effects, it is more than just herbicide versus insecticide. It is things like how biodegradable they are (or are not, think DDT/DDD/DDE, half life of 30 years or more), what are the effects of the breakdown products (again think DDT -> DDD -> DDE), how water/fat soluble they are, what are their effects on reproduction and behaviour (think neonicitinoids and bees), are they carcinogenic or teratogenic or both, are they xenoestrogens, and on and on.
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But most of that is weed killer, not ant/spider, etc. I don't lump herbicides and pesticides together. I know some do. Splitter vs lumper.
I get that there is a definition between weeds and other types of pests, but for your reference, in the United States at least, herbicides are legally a sub-category of the umbrella term "pesticide."
For purposes of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), a pesticide is defined as “any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any pest.” FIFRA defines a “pest” broadly to include “(1) any insect, rodent, nematode, fungus, weed, or (2) any other form of terrestrial or aquatic plant or animal life or virus, bacteria, or other micro-organism (except viruses, bacteria, or other micro-organisms on or in living man or other animals).”
Not sure what the law may be in other locations.
And just in case this sounds like a technicality thing, I'd add that I've worked in the agricultural industry, research and production, and everyone uses pesticide as the umbrella term for all the other "-cides" including herbicides and insecticides.
It sounds like GilesMM is trying to say they distinguish between insecticides and herbicides. But wasn't the original argument that fertilizer doesn't get into well water?
Yes, I like to distinguish between herbicides and insecticides. That's just me!
And as we’ve established here, there are a great number of insecticides marketed for residential lawns, and they are used extensively. We can also draw a straight line between their application and how they migrate into the groundwater. What exactly are you disagreeing with now?
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It sounds like GilesMM is trying to say they distinguish between insecticides and herbicides. But wasn't the original argument that fertilizer doesn't get into well water?
Yes it was. Threads get awful tedious when people start arguing about definitions. Bottom line is that "stuff" you put on your lawn can and often does enter groundwater. So it is good policy to minimize the amount of "stuff" you put on your lawn. Maybe even get rid of some lawn if you don't use it.
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But most of that is weed killer, not ant/spider, etc. I don't lump herbicides and pesticides together. I know some do. Splitter vs lumper.
I get that there is a definition between weeds and other types of pests, but for your reference, in the United States at least, herbicides are legally a sub-category of the umbrella term "pesticide."
For purposes of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), a pesticide is defined as “any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any pest.” FIFRA defines a “pest” broadly to include “(1) any insect, rodent, nematode, fungus, weed, or (2) any other form of terrestrial or aquatic plant or animal life or virus, bacteria, or other micro-organism (except viruses, bacteria, or other micro-organisms on or in living man or other animals).”
Not sure what the law may be in other locations.
And just in case this sounds like a technicality thing, I'd add that I've worked in the agricultural industry, research and production, and everyone uses pesticide as the umbrella term for all the other "-cides" including herbicides and insecticides.
It sounds like GilesMM is trying to say they distinguish between insecticides and herbicides. But wasn't the original argument that fertilizer doesn't get into well water?
Yes, I like to distinguish between herbicides and insecticides. That's just me!
And as we’ve established here, there are a great number of insecticides marketed for residential lawns, and they are used extensively. We can also draw a straight line between their application and how they migrate into the groundwater. What exactly are you disagreeing with now?
I saw there are insecticides available but not aware how much they are used on lawns. Not much I suspect. And I saw that up to 2% of groundwater may have some sort of contamination, most likely from agricultural chemicals.
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We have too much shade for a lawn. We planted "shady" grass seed and it still doesn't grow. I think the trees take all the water they can and the dry/shade combination is better for non-grassy plants. We've got a nice variety of shade plants, mostly woodland-type, and less and less lawn over time. We have a good selection of native shade tolerant plants that we're just letting seed themselves. They'll move to their favorite spots.
When I first moved into this place, 27 years ago, the trees were smaller, so more light came through and grass was possible. No longer. Shade is fine. Our house stays really cool in summer. We haven't had to turn on our AC yet this year, if you can believe it. We just run the dehumidifier on warmer days.
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I wish.
We are in a rental (and the home is under an HOA) so we have no say in the matter. it is also a massive pain to water, due to the terrible location of the hose bibs and the shape of the yard, meaning we have to run about 8 different sprinkler placements, one at a time, plus do one small section standing there spraking with a hoze nozzle. (We could buy a longer hose and do a sprinkler, but it is a long, very thin--~2.5 feet--section so we'd be doing more watering of street and sidewalk than lawn. It's a mess.
Thankfully, this year has been rainier, or more specifically the rain has been more spread out, so we've only done a full water twice, and a few supplemental waterings where I just did the main sections.
The owners also pay for a lawn service (not mowing) to come--I think quarterly. They dose us with chemicals based on the season and condition of the lawn. It's ridiculous, for what amounts to a dog bathroom and canine play area for us.
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But most of that is weed killer, not ant/spider, etc. I don't lump herbicides and pesticides together. I know some do. Splitter vs lumper.
I get that there is a definition between weeds and other types of pests, but for your reference, in the United States at least, herbicides are legally a sub-category of the umbrella term "pesticide."
For purposes of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), a pesticide is defined as “any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any pest.” FIFRA defines a “pest” broadly to include “(1) any insect, rodent, nematode, fungus, weed, or (2) any other form of terrestrial or aquatic plant or animal life or virus, bacteria, or other micro-organism (except viruses, bacteria, or other micro-organisms on or in living man or other animals).”
Not sure what the law may be in other locations.
And just in case this sounds like a technicality thing, I'd add that I've worked in the agricultural industry, research and production, and everyone uses pesticide as the umbrella term for all the other "-cides" including herbicides and insecticides.
It sounds like GilesMM is trying to say they distinguish between insecticides and herbicides. But wasn't the original argument that fertilizer doesn't get into well water?
Yes, I like to distinguish between herbicides and insecticides. That's just me!
Why would you distinguish between them in the context of this discussion? As RetiredAt63 pointed out, they all can impact ecosystems and that's what matters. It would make more sense to categorize them by how harmful they are, but measuring harm gets pretty complicated.
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I wish.
We are in a rental (and the home is under an HOA) so we have no say in the matter. it is also a massive pain to water, due to the terrible location of the hose bibs and the shape of the yard, meaning we have to run about 8 different sprinkler placements, one at a time, plus do one small section standing there spraking with a hoze nozzle. (We could buy a longer hose and do a sprinkler, but it is a long, very thin--~2.5 feet--section so we'd be doing more watering of street and sidewalk than lawn. It's a mess.
Thankfully, this year has been rainier, or more specifically the rain has been more spread out, so we've only done a full water twice, and a few supplemental waterings where I just did the main sections.
The owners also pay for a lawn service (not mowing) to come--I think quarterly. They dose us with chemicals based on the season and condition of the lawn. It's ridiculous, for what amounts to a dog bathroom and canine play area for us.
Are the chemicals even dog safe?
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But most of that is weed killer, not ant/spider, etc. I don't lump herbicides and pesticides together. I know some do. Splitter vs lumper.
I get that there is a definition between weeds and other types of pests, but for your reference, in the United States at least, herbicides are legally a sub-category of the umbrella term "pesticide."
For purposes of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), a pesticide is defined as “any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any pest.” FIFRA defines a “pest” broadly to include “(1) any insect, rodent, nematode, fungus, weed, or (2) any other form of terrestrial or aquatic plant or animal life or virus, bacteria, or other micro-organism (except viruses, bacteria, or other micro-organisms on or in living man or other animals).”
Not sure what the law may be in other locations.
And just in case this sounds like a technicality thing, I'd add that I've worked in the agricultural industry, research and production, and everyone uses pesticide as the umbrella term for all the other "-cides" including herbicides and insecticides.
It sounds like GilesMM is trying to say they distinguish between insecticides and herbicides. But wasn't the original argument that fertilizer doesn't get into well water?
Yes, I like to distinguish between herbicides and insecticides. That's just me!
And as we’ve established here, there are a great number of insecticides marketed for residential lawns, and they are used extensively. We can also draw a straight line between their application and how they migrate into the groundwater. What exactly are you disagreeing with now?
I saw there are insecticides available but not aware how much they are used on lawns. Not much I suspect. And I saw that up to 2% of groundwater may have some sort of contamination, most likely from agricultural chemicals.
Why do you suspect this? There are lots of things that damage grass other than weeds.
Why is contamination most likely from agriculture? fertilizer and pesticides are expensive so farmers tend to be careful how they use them but on the small scale of lawns, homeowners are much more likely to use chemicals irresponsibly because the cost of overuse or poor application is much smaller. I'm not sure where well water contamination comes from either, but I wouldn't just assume it's agriculture.
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I wish.
We are in a rental (and the home is under an HOA) so we have no say in the matter. it is also a massive pain to water, due to the terrible location of the hose bibs and the shape of the yard, meaning we have to run about 8 different sprinkler placements, one at a time, plus do one small section standing there spraking with a hoze nozzle. (We could buy a longer hose and do a sprinkler, but it is a long, very thin--~2.5 feet--section so we'd be doing more watering of street and sidewalk than lawn. It's a mess.
Thankfully, this year has been rainier, or more specifically the rain has been more spread out, so we've only done a full water twice, and a few supplemental waterings where I just did the main sections.
The owners also pay for a lawn service (not mowing) to come--I think quarterly. They dose us with chemicals based on the season and condition of the lawn. It's ridiculous, for what amounts to a dog bathroom and canine play area for us.
Are the chemicals even dog safe?
Supposedly (according to the company, so...) it's "perfectly safe" as long as we wait an hour (til they are dry, I guess?) after application. But I definitely don't like it and try to keep the dogs off the lawn entirely for as long as possible (usually 8 hours+, if I let them out in the back right as the guy starts in the front) and as much as possible for at least a day, other than quick potty breaks right outside the door, when possible.
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We have too much shade for a lawn. We planted "shady" grass seed and it still doesn't grow. I think the trees take all the water they can and the dry/shade combination is better for non-grassy plants. We've got a nice variety of shade plants, mostly woodland-type, and less and less lawn over time. We have a good selection of native shade tolerant plants that we're just letting seed themselves. They'll move to their favorite spots.
When I first moved into this place, 27 years ago, the trees were smaller, so more light came through and grass was possible. No longer. Shade is fine. Our house stays really cool in summer. We haven't had to turn on our AC yet this year, if you can believe it. We just run the dehumidifier on warmer days.
My position is that violets (which are growing into the shadier parts of our lawn) = grass. They're green, you can walk on them (up to a point) and they survive being mowed (with an electric mower, on the highest setting). Good enough for me!
I've actually been having fun experimenting with what'll grow in fairly dry shade. Along with the violets.
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I sold that house in 2019. I don't really miss the house that much, being that rural wasn't working for me any more, but I sure miss having a yard and gardens. I had a 100' perennial low maintenance border - peonies, mostly grown from seed, day-lilies, Siberian Iris, and low perennials in the front. Asparagus at the back. Basically all tough plants, almost no watering, and very little weeding. 448 sq. feet of raised beds for vegetables. A big fenced yard to play frisbee with the dog.
Gah, I'm going to talk myself into getting another house instead of my apartment with a balcony garden. No lawn here.
Sounds beautiful!
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I killed the last of my lawn last year. Utah has been in an awful drought, so I just stopped watering. I'm in the process of putting in drip irrigated perennial beds in the front. The back and north sides are food gardens. And I'm trying to get a drought tolerant grass mix to take off on the south side with the clover and grape hyacinths. I don't like using herbicides. I'll use pesticides if nothing else will save a crop, but it's a last resort.
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I killed the last of my lawn last year. Utah has been in an awful drought, so I just stopped watering. I'm in the process of putting in drip irrigated perennial beds in the front. The back and north sides are food gardens. And I'm trying to get a drought tolerant grass mix to take off on the south side with the clover and grape hyacinths. I don't like using herbicides. I'll use pesticides if nothing else will save a crop, but it's a last resort.
Sounds beautiful, great work.
My Dad's garden had grape hyacinths when he bought the place, and they were tough little things. They were taking over a bit, I think he ended up having to sift the bulbs out of the soil.
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Our front lawn never gets anything, no fertilizer, no pesticides, no watering. Just mowing, no bagging, leave the cut grass wherever it falls. There is a lot of clover and some patches of what looks like tiny strawberries. It's fine. The back yard is all garden, no grass.
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We have too much shade for a lawn. We planted "shady" grass seed and it still doesn't grow. I think the trees take all the water they can and the dry/shade combination is better for non-grassy plants. We've got a nice variety of shade plants, mostly woodland-type, and less and less lawn over time. We have a good selection of native shade tolerant plants that we're just letting seed themselves. They'll move to their favorite spots.
When I first moved into this place, 27 years ago, the trees were smaller, so more light came through and grass was possible. No longer. Shade is fine. Our house stays really cool in summer. We haven't had to turn on our AC yet this year, if you can believe it. We just run the dehumidifier on warmer days.
My position is that violets (which are growing into the shadier parts of our lawn) = grass. They're green, you can walk on them (up to a point) and they survive being mowed (with an electric mower, on the highest setting). Good enough for me!
I've actually been having fun experimenting with what'll grow in fairly dry shade. Along with the violets.
We have violets, but they lose the battle to the creeping charlie- which I hate.
Let me know how your experiments turn out!
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Our front lawn never gets anything, no fertilizer, no pesticides, no watering. Just mowing, no bagging, leave the cut grass wherever it falls. There is a lot of clover and some patches of what looks like tiny strawberries. It's fine. The back yard is all garden, no grass.
My understanding has always been that leaving the cut grass where it falls ends up being much better for your lawn. If you bag it and take it away you end up depriving your lawn of nutrients over time.
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I've heard the same thing. Also helps motivate a person not to let the yard go too long between mowings b/c clumps!
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I think that when we talk about pricing water appropriately, as it's ridiculously cheap in most areas, we need to find a way to target the super-user rich people. I have friends who keep a huge, lush property and large swimming pool (that needs frequent refilling in the desert climate) in southern CA. They're dumping hundreds and hundreds of gallons every day into that property. Basically every single property in their wealthy area is kept the same way, regardless of all of the drought. At ~$3 per ccf, the cost of water doesn't even cause these 7-figure earners to bat an eyelash.
You'd have to have some crazy pricing tiers for cost to change the behavior of water wasters like those. Even at 10 times that price, they probably wouldn't care very much, and I think there are legal ramifications for charging more for a public utility than it actually costs to provide.
I moved from Southern CA to western WA, where there is no water stress. Our household water usage has dropped a lot, but our water bills actually went up quite a bit. Kind of backward, though it's really the fixed costs driving our water bill here.
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I think that when we talk about pricing water appropriately, as it's ridiculously cheap in most areas, we need to find a way to target the super-user rich people. I have friends who keep a huge, lush property and large swimming pool (that needs frequent refilling in the desert climate) in southern CA. They're dumping hundreds and hundreds of gallons every day into that property. Basically every single property in their wealthy area is kept the same way, regardless of all of the drought. At ~$3 per ccf, the cost of water doesn't even cause these 7-figure earners to bat an eyelash.
You'd have to have some crazy pricing tiers for cost to change the behavior of water wasters like those. Even at 10 times that price, they probably wouldn't care very much, and I think there are legal ramifications for charging more for a public utility than it actually costs to provide.
I moved from Southern CA to western WA, where there is no water stress. Our household water usage has dropped a lot, but our water bills actually went up quite a bit. Kind of backward, though it's really the fixed costs driving our water bill here.
I'm sure it's not practical for a number of reasons, but I'd love to see an exponential pricing curve. I.E. the marginal cost of each gallon goes up. Scale it so low income, low usage households pay less, while people watering huge lawns and filling pools pay out the nose.
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Do most municipalities have a tiered cost for water?
For my area, the $/gal is tiered (like tax brackets) and the higher the volume, the greater the cost per unit in the tier. We're something like 0-3k gallons, 3k-10k, 10k+, IIRC. The cost goes up 25-30% for each tier.
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Do most municipalities have a tiered cost for water?
For my area, the $/gal is tiered (like tax brackets) and the higher the volume, the greater the cost per unit in the tier. We're something like 0-3k gallons, 3k-10k, 10k+, IIRC. The cost goes up 25-30% for each tier.
Ours is this way. The first 2 cubic yards per month are essentially free. You pay one rate for up to 9 cubic yards and a lot more for usage over 9 cubic yards. I think there’s a forth tier around 20 cubic yards but we’ve never hit it.
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If you are on a well, your water use directly affects your electricity use. Plus there is always the possibility of pumping out your well if you don't have lots of water available. I knew a family who ended up with mud in their house pipes. My neighbours on the same aquifer could do one water use at a time - shower, or wash clothes, or wash dishes. Not any 2 of the 3. It all depends on which aquifer your well is tapping, and their aquifer had lovely soft water but low pressure. We lived next door and our well was in a different aquifer (pump was 200 feet down, so think of the electricity), lots of pressure, we could do everything at once, but it was super hard iron-rich water.
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Scroll right
(https://media.architecturaldigest.com/photos/649477a09a22caaadfa06a3f/16:9/w_2580%2Cc_limit/AD0723_GEREMIA_1.jpg)
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Ronnie,
I would have to adjust my thinking (frequently do!0 to see that garden as anything other than a chaotic mess. But thanks for posting.
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I love that garden! Vegetables in the raised beds, flowers, paths, everything growing.
Ron, I save and resized your picture so it could be viewed all at once. It lost all the detail but you can see the overall garden. I think having to scroll all over it (or at least I had to) makes it harder to appreciate it. I will take it down if you want me to.
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Some examples I find appealing:
(https://santabarbaragardens.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/SS-06-SBCGFY_1600x750_web_JSB_7953.jpg)
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Rl_2a2LuVUE/maxresdefault.jpg)[size=78%]
(https://cdn.5280.com/2019/05/Garden_JS-Landscape.jpg)[/size]
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I love that garden! Vegetables in the raised beds, flowers, paths, everything growing.
Ron, I save and resized your picture so it could be viewed all at once. It lost all the detail but you can see the overall garden. I think having to scroll all over it (or at least I had to) makes it harder to appreciate it. I will take it down if you want me to.
Thanks for doing that!
We took a third of our (well maintained) backyard lawn and converted it into something like this. Everyone loves it.
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I think that when we talk about pricing water appropriately, as it's ridiculously cheap in most areas, we need to find a way to target the super-user rich people. I have friends who keep a huge, lush property and large swimming pool (that needs frequent refilling in the desert climate) in southern CA. They're dumping hundreds and hundreds of gallons every day into that property. Basically every single property in their wealthy area is kept the same way, regardless of all of the drought. At ~$3 per ccf, the cost of water doesn't even cause these 7-figure earners to bat an eyelash.
You'd have to have some crazy pricing tiers for cost to change the behavior of water wasters like those. Even at 10 times that price, they probably wouldn't care very much, and I think there are legal ramifications for charging more for a public utility than it actually costs to provide.
I moved from Southern CA to western WA, where there is no water stress. Our household water usage has dropped a lot, but our water bills actually went up quite a bit. Kind of backward, though it's really the fixed costs driving our water bill here.
I'm sure it's not practical for a number of reasons, but I'd love to see an exponential pricing curve. I.E. the marginal cost of each gallon goes up. Scale it so low income, low usage households pay less, while people watering huge lawns and filling pools pay out the nose.
It’s frustrating, the law in California says municipal water suppliers have to tie water prices to the cost of supplying water. So, they can not set prices for high water users to discourage wastefulness.
If you can show that it costs more to supply water for higher users, you can have a tiered structure that reflects the actual costs. But, for most people in California with big yards the cost of water isn’t enough to keep them from irrigating thirsty plants all summer.
If you wanted to change the system, you’d have to change the law first.
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Some examples I find appealing:
Those are beautiful too, but I look at all the rock mulch and think WEEDS! Because I inherited a rock mulch like that and spent huge chunks of my summers weeding it. Places that want to grow forests are also really good at growing weeds. ;-(
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We are moving to our new house in a place that used to be a marsh and has a very high water table. No one has done anything with the section in 60 years other than plant and mow a flat lawn. It’s so barren looking. I can’t wait to start replacing the lawn with other plants. We’ll still keep some clear for the dog to run around in but I’m looking up replacement options. I might just let the clover take it. We’re going to put in native flaxes and ferns to suck up the water. If the land wants t revert to marsh, it seems easiest to roll with it than to try fight it.
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Some examples I find appealing:
Those are beautiful too, but I look at all the rock mulch and think WEEDS! Because I inherited a rock mulch like that and spent huge chunks of my summers weeding it. Places that want to grow forests are also really good at growing weeds. ;-(
So true, Out here on the rock, the weeds are like Jurassic versions of normal weeds. They're just massive and very aggressive.
They swallowed my utility trailer, I doubt I'll see it again this season. I'm legit afraid of the grassy area on the far side of the RV, it's grown up to the height of my chest.
Our "grass" here is also hay, not typical lawn grass, and it's heavily mixed with stinging nettles, which will grow up to 10ft tall, shocking quickly in an environment that alternates intense sun and heavy rain every few days.
If we didn't have such long, harsh winters, I'm pretty sure the "lawn" would swallow the house.
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Some examples I find appealing:
Those are beautiful too, but I look at all the rock mulch and think WEEDS! Because I inherited a rock mulch like that and spent huge chunks of my summers weeding it. Places that want to grow forests are also really good at growing weeds. ;-(
So true, Out here on the rock, the weeds are like Jurassic versions of normal weeds. They're just massive and very aggressive.
They swallowed my utility trailer, I doubt I'll see it again this season. I'm legit afraid of the grassy area on the far side of the RV, it's grown up to the height of my chest.
Our "grass" here is also hay, not typical lawn grass, and it's heavily mixed with stinging nettles, which will grow up to 10ft tall, shocking quickly in an environment that alternates intense sun and heavy rain every few days.
If we didn't have such long, harsh winters, I'm pretty sure the "lawn" would swallow the house.
Sounds like an excuse to get some goats to me
:D
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Stinging nettles, ouch. Of course they are an introduced species. And timothy or whatever other grasses are grown in hay-fields there. You need someone with a scythe.
This is an interesting article. You may have the site for a garden,
https://www.thespruce.com/description-of-stinging-nettles-plants-2132937
(https://www.thespruce.com/description-of-stinging-nettles-plants-2132937)
Stinging nettles are great fibre plants. They were the fine plant fibre source of northern Europe before flax. The fibre is actually finer, so the cloth from it is fine. Of course this is all second-hand information, I haven't processed either fibre. But think of the length of fibre you would get from 10' tall plants. A spinner would need a good distaff for that.
Remember the story of the 12 princes who were turned into swans, and their sister could only free them from the enchantment by making shirts from stinging nettles and throwing them over the swans' heads? When I was a kid this made no sense, but now it makes all kind of sense. Of course royal swans would only get the finest of fibres processed into cloth and then shirts. That was a lot of work for their sister, though.
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It’s frustrating, the law in California says municipal water suppliers have to tie water prices to the cost of supplying water. So, they can not set prices for high water users to discourage wastefulness.
If you wanted to change the system, you’d have to change the law first.
Seems to me that the cost of servicing large customers with high usage is actually less per gallon than small users to be honest, but if you don’t want to pass law to effect change how do you propose to do it? I know it sometimes looks like we’ve lost our minds in America but for the most part we’re still a country of laws. This is not going to get done by authoritarian decree…
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It’s frustrating, the law in California says municipal water suppliers have to tie water prices to the cost of supplying water. So, they can not set prices for high water users to discourage wastefulness.
If you wanted to change the system, you’d have to change the law first.
Seems to me that the cost of servicing large customers with high usage is actually less per gallon than small users to be honest, but if you don’t want to pass law to effect change how do you propose to do it? I know it sometimes looks like we’ve lost our minds in America but for the most part we’re still a country of laws. This is not going to get done by authoritarian decree…
Yes, I would like to see the law changed so that tiered pricing can be put in place. That happens by voting for representatives, who then introduce a bill, debate it, then pass it. You know, how democracies work. That is exactly the opposite of an authoritarian decree.
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We took a third of our (well maintained) backyard lawn and converted it into something like this. Everyone loves it.
I love it too. Lovely garden paths with interesting plants that are always changing. Plus edible herbs and vegetables. I think this type of yard is great.
Those are beautiful too, but I look at all the rock mulch and think WEEDS! Because I inherited a rock mulch like that and spent huge chunks of my summers weeding it. Places that want to grow forests are also really good at growing weeds. ;-(
Weed burner baby! Weeds have no chance in my rock mulch or in-between cracks on concrete pavers.
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Sounds like an excuse to get some goats to me
:D
If it weren't winter here 8 months of the year, maybe, but there are almost no animals on this island because the conditions are too harsh.
Plus my lawn is tiny, it's just that I have an RV parked in my second driveway and I own a small patch of the land on the other side next to crown land that no one maintains. I didn't bother staying on top of the other side because out-os-sight-out-of-mind kind of thing. But the other day I wanted to grab my utility trailer to go pick up some materials and I was like "HOLY SHIT" because it's just gone. I only put it there 8 weeks ago.
Unless I hire someone to hack away the hay and nettles, both of which grow incredibly thick and sturdy, I'm just not getting it out this year. To even walk in there would mean having to cover my whole body with thick enough fabric to defend against the nettles, plus there are a lot of spiders in there, so no thanks.
None of it grows super thick as long as I stay on top of it with my little weed whacker, but I now understand why my neighbours were so concerned that I get on top of mowing my lawn and why they just did it for me last year when I didn't have a mower or anywhere to store one.
I get now how out of hand the situation gets if I let the plants get too thick. A regular mower or trimmer can't handle them past a certain height and heft. I had just never dealt with a lawn like this before that is eager to swallow things whole within a matter of weeks.
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Stinging nettles, ouch. Of course they are an introduced species. And timothy or whatever other grasses are grown in hay-fields there. You need someone with a scythe.
This is an interesting article. You may have the site for a garden,
https://www.thespruce.com/description-of-stinging-nettles-plants-2132937
(https://www.thespruce.com/description-of-stinging-nettles-plants-2132937)
Stinging nettles are great fibre plants. They were the fine plant fibre source of northern Europe before flax. The fibre is actually finer, so the cloth from it is fine. Of course this is all second-hand information, I haven't processed either fibre. But think of the length of fibre you would get from 10' tall plants. A spinner would need a good distaff for that.
Remember the story of the 12 princes who were turned into swans, and their sister could only free them from the enchantment by making shirts from stinging nettles and throwing them over the swans' heads? When I was a kid this made no sense, but now it makes all kind of sense. Of course royal swans would only get the finest of fibres processed into cloth and then shirts. That was a lot of work for their sister, though.
Yes! A scythe would definitely help. I used to use a scythe back in the day for hay, so I would just need to borrow one.
I'm not about to start farming nettles and spinning fibers though. Maybe if I move my mom here she'll do it, she loves that kind of shit. I did know as a kid that nettles can be used for fine fiber because of her, so that story made sense to me.
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Stinging nettles, ouch. Of course they are an introduced species. And timothy or whatever other grasses are grown in hay-fields there. You need someone with a scythe.
This is an interesting article. You may have the site for a garden,
https://www.thespruce.com/description-of-stinging-nettles-plants-2132937
(https://www.thespruce.com/description-of-stinging-nettles-plants-2132937)
Stinging nettles are great fibre plants. They were the fine plant fibre source of northern Europe before flax. The fibre is actually finer, so the cloth from it is fine. Of course this is all second-hand information, I haven't processed either fibre. But think of the length of fibre you would get from 10' tall plants. A spinner would need a good distaff for that.
Remember the story of the 12 princes who were turned into swans, and their sister could only free them from the enchantment by making shirts from stinging nettles and throwing them over the swans' heads? When I was a kid this made no sense, but now it makes all kind of sense. Of course royal swans would only get the finest of fibres processed into cloth and then shirts. That was a lot of work for their sister, though.
Yes! A scythe would definitely help. I used to use a scythe back in the day for hay, so I would just need to borrow one.
I'm not about to start farming nettles and spinning fibers though. Maybe if I move my mom here she'll do it, she loves that kind of shit. I did know as a kid that nettles can be used for fine fiber because of her, so that story made sense to me.
I'm thinking that not starting spinning nettles makes good sense. It would be fun if your mom tried though. Processing starts in late summer/fall, when the stalks are mature and dying so they can be retted. Probably just about now. Check out Sally Pointer's YouTube videos.
I wouldn't be surprised, given how small the area is, if you could find someone to cut it now. Better than letting it all go to seed. Remember the old gardener saying, 1 year of seeds = 7 years of weeds.
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I'm thinking that not starting spinning nettles makes good sense. It would be fun if your mom tried though. Processing starts in late summer/fall, when the stalks are mature and dying so they can be retted. Probably just about now. Check out Sally Pointer's YouTube videos.
I wouldn't be surprised, given how small the area is, if you could find someone to cut it now. Better than letting it all go to seed. Remember the old gardener saying, 1 year of seeds = 7 years of weeds.
Oh, the nettles totally took over a long time ago, there's no managing them, they're endemic. They're not so much weeds as just the makeup of the "grass" in general. I would say, like, 30% of my lawn is nettles. There isn't a spot you could possibly step barefoot. The whole area is like that, just hay, nettles, and absolutely enormous dandelions.
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I love those gorgeous perennials in those 3 photos. I hate grass. I never water mine, and it's only maybe 1/3 of my front yard. The rest is trees and ferns and perennials and bulbs. I love forests so I'm slowly going in that direction, planting trees and ferns.
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Some examples I find appealing:
Those are beautiful too, but I look at all the rock mulch and think WEEDS! Because I inherited a rock mulch like that and spent huge chunks of my summers weeding it. Places that want to grow forests are also really good at growing weeds. ;-(
In our previous house we had rocks like that in an atrium with specimen trees and some pine-scrub shrubs. Looked great but got weeds. So we redid the rocks putting landscape netting under them that allows rain to filer through but not weeds growing up. It lasts about 7 years or so. After that weeds can grow in the silt that settles over time and it will decay a bit. But it’s a good solution if you like the look.
Like this:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Vigoro-4-ft-x-50-ft-Point-Bond-Landscape-Fabric-NMV04050B/314273723#overlay (https://www.homedepot.com/p/Vigoro-4-ft-x-50-ft-Point-Bond-Landscape-Fabric-NMV04050B/314273723#overlay)
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Some examples I find appealing:
Those are beautiful too, but I look at all the rock mulch and think WEEDS! Because I inherited a rock mulch like that and spent huge chunks of my summers weeding it. Places that want to grow forests are also really good at growing weeds. ;-(
In our previous house we had rocks like that in an atrium with specimen trees and some pine-scrub shrubs. Looked great but got weeds. So we redid the rocks putting landscape netting under them that allows rain to filer through but not weeds growing up. It lasts about 7 years or so. After that weeds can grow in the silt that settles over time and it will decay a bit. But it’s a good solution if you like the look.
Like this:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Vigoro-4-ft-x-50-ft-Point-Bond-Landscape-Fabric-NMV04050B/314273723#overlay (https://www.homedepot.com/p/Vigoro-4-ft-x-50-ft-Point-Bond-Landscape-Fabric-NMV04050B/314273723#overlay)
That’s polypropylene fabric which you are using to line your yard. Ultimately you just get shredded plastic fibers everywhere in your soil and as you said isn’t a permanent solution. After a few years you have just as many weeds *and* plastic. I think it’s a terrible “solution” that future inhabitants will be cursing.
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That’s polypropylene fabric which you are using to line your yard. Ultimately you just get shredded plastic fibers everywhere in your soil and as you said isn’t a permanent solution. After a few years you have just as many weeds *and* plastic. I think it’s a terrible “solution” that future inhabitants will be cursing.
Co-signed. I hate that crap. A much more Earth-friendly solution and less work is to blast the weeds with a weed burner as they weeds start to poke up, a couple times a year, or as needed. You'll either be redoing to the landscape fabric or using the weed burner eventually anyway. So might as well skip a step.
If you need something to stomp down the weeds/grass initially you can lay down burlap bags.
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That’s polypropylene fabric which you are using to line your yard. Ultimately you just get shredded plastic fibers everywhere in your soil and as you said isn’t a permanent solution. After a few years you have just as many weeds *and* plastic. I think it’s a terrible “solution” that future inhabitants will be cursing.
Co-signed. I hate that crap. A much more Earth-friendly solution and less work is to blast the weeds with a weed burner as they weeds start to poke up, a couple times a year, or as needed. You'll either be redoing to the landscape fabric or using the weed burner eventually anyway. So might as well skip a step.
If you need something to stomp down the weeds/grass initially you can lay down burlap bags.
The weed fabric is the worst. The previous owners of my home had put in a smallish garden in the backyard. I discovered while weeding it out so i could plant it the first year that they had put down the fabric and then topped it with 6" or so of dirt. Now the weeds are going through it, I can't till, I can't get the shovel through... I've let that one go for now, but am planning this winter to dig up the whole 10x20 area to get rid of that garbage.
Nowadays, when starting new beds and smothering weeds, I put down a thick layer of cardboard. Smothers the weeds and then decomposes. it's lovely.
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That’s polypropylene fabric which you are using to line your yard. Ultimately you just get shredded plastic fibers everywhere in your soil and as you said isn’t a permanent solution. After a few years you have just as many weeds *and* plastic. I think it’s a terrible “solution” that future inhabitants will be cursing.
Co-signed. I hate that crap. A much more Earth-friendly solution and less work is to blast the weeds with a weed burner as they weeds start to poke up, a couple times a year, or as needed. You'll either be redoing to the landscape fabric or using the weed burner eventually anyway. So might as well skip a step.
If you need something to stomp down the weeds/grass initially you can lay down burlap bags.
The weed fabric is the worst. The previous owners of my home had put in a smallish garden in the backyard. I discovered while weeding it out so i could plant it the first year that they had put down the fabric and then topped it with 6" or so of dirt. Now the weeds are going through it, I can't till, I can't get the shovel through... I've let that one go for now, but am planning this winter to dig up the whole 10x20 area to get rid of that garbage.
Nowadays, when starting new beds and smothering weeds, I put down a thick layer of cardboard. Smothers the weeds and then decomposes. it's lovely.
If you are using rock mulch, you don't want that sinking into your dirt! What would be better under rock mulch? If I use cardboard or burlap, seems like it would just decompose and leave me with rocks sinking into my dirt.
I'm actually putting some rock mulch down ASAP so if people think I should not use landscape fabric, speak now or forever hold your peace! I don't want to use wood chip mulch because (a) I already own the surplus rocks and (b) it is right by the foundation where the downspout to the gutter comes down.
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That’s polypropylene fabric which you are using to line your yard. Ultimately you just get shredded plastic fibers everywhere in your soil and as you said isn’t a permanent solution. After a few years you have just as many weeds *and* plastic. I think it’s a terrible “solution” that future inhabitants will be cursing.
Co-signed. I hate that crap. A much more Earth-friendly solution and less work is to blast the weeds with a weed burner as they weeds start to poke up, a couple times a year, or as needed. You'll either be redoing to the landscape fabric or using the weed burner eventually anyway. So might as well skip a step.
If you need something to stomp down the weeds/grass initially you can lay down burlap bags.
The weed fabric is the worst. The previous owners of my home had put in a smallish garden in the backyard. I discovered while weeding it out so i could plant it the first year that they had put down the fabric and then topped it with 6" or so of dirt. Now the weeds are going through it, I can't till, I can't get the shovel through... I've let that one go for now, but am planning this winter to dig up the whole 10x20 area to get rid of that garbage.
Nowadays, when starting new beds and smothering weeds, I put down a thick layer of cardboard. Smothers the weeds and then decomposes. it's lovely.
If you are using rock mulch, you don't want that sinking into your dirt! What would be better under rock mulch? If I use cardboard or burlap, seems like it would just decompose and leave me with rocks sinking into my dirt.
I'm actually putting some rock mulch down ASAP so if people think I should not use landscape fabric, speak now or forever hold your peace! I don't want to use wood chip mulch because (a) I already own the surplus rocks and (b) it is right by the foundation where the downspout to the gutter comes down.
You will eventually get weeds in your rock mulch. That is what weeds do, colonize open areas. So cardboard, or a biodegradable fabric that is tighter than burlap.
I too had a garden that the previous owners used weed fabric on, and it was hell once the weeds moved in.
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That’s polypropylene fabric which you are using to line your yard. Ultimately you just get shredded plastic fibers everywhere in your soil and as you said isn’t a permanent solution. After a few years you have just as many weeds *and* plastic. I think it’s a terrible “solution” that future inhabitants will be cursing.
Co-signed. I hate that crap. A much more Earth-friendly solution and less work is to blast the weeds with a weed burner as they weeds start to poke up, a couple times a year, or as needed. You'll either be redoing to the landscape fabric or using the weed burner eventually anyway. So might as well skip a step.
If you need something to stomp down the weeds/grass initially you can lay down burlap bags.
The weed fabric is the worst. The previous owners of my home had put in a smallish garden in the backyard. I discovered while weeding it out so i could plant it the first year that they had put down the fabric and then topped it with 6" or so of dirt. Now the weeds are going through it, I can't till, I can't get the shovel through... I've let that one go for now, but am planning this winter to dig up the whole 10x20 area to get rid of that garbage.
Nowadays, when starting new beds and smothering weeds, I put down a thick layer of cardboard. Smothers the weeds and then decomposes. it's lovely.
If you are using rock mulch, you don't want that sinking into your dirt! What would be better under rock mulch? If I use cardboard or burlap, seems like it would just decompose and leave me with rocks sinking into my dirt.
I'm actually putting some rock mulch down ASAP so if people think I should not use landscape fabric, speak now or forever hold your peace! I don't want to use wood chip mulch because (a) I already own the surplus rocks and (b) it is right by the foundation where the downspout to the gutter comes down.
Plastic landscape fabric won’t stop rock mulch from accumulating sediment and growing weeds. Within a few years the spaces within the rocks will trap finer particles (“dirt”) and weeds will grow above the fabric. There is nothing that will prevent this from happening. There is a continuous source of particles in the form of pollen and dust, plus any leaves, grass clippings or other debris will become dirt in short order.
To stop rock mulch or gravel from “sinking” you need to have a firm base rather than loose soil. A couple inches of decomposed granite or sand, lightly compacted, work very well.
For barrier fabrics you can find fine mesh burlap at some garden supply centers, but I’d still recommend double or triple layering.
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You will eventually get weeds in your rock mulch. That is what weeds do, colonize open areas. So cardboard, or a biodegradable fabric that is tighter than burlap.
I too had a garden that the previous owners used weed fabric on, and it was hell once the weeds moved in.
I have lots of weeds in my rock mulch. I hate rock mulch but my husband prefers it and like I said, we already have some and it's by the foundation. Will I have to replace the underlayer more often if I use something biodegradable, or does it last about as long as it would anyway before the weeds start up again?
A coworker loaned me his very Mustachian homemade trammel so I can dig up some of the beds, clean the rocks and put them back down.
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You will eventually get weeds in your rock mulch. That is what weeds do, colonize open areas. So cardboard, or a biodegradable fabric that is tighter than burlap.
I too had a garden that the previous owners used weed fabric on, and it was hell once the weeds moved in.
I have lots of weeds in my rock mulch. I hate rock mulch but my husband prefers it and like I said, we already have some and it's by the foundation. Will I have to replace the underlayer more often if I use something biodegradable, or does it last about as long as it would anyway before the weeds start up again?
A coworker loaned me his very Mustachian homemade trammel so I can dig up some of the beds, clean the rocks and put them back down.
The weeds will be harder to pull (much much harder) if you have landscape fabric. They will always be there, for the reasons nereo pointed out.
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Took out another 100+ sq ft of lawn in the back yard today (we are taking the gradual approach). Plan is to leave a reasonably-sized central lawn area but have native perennials and vegetable gardens everywhere else. The side yards have now been fully converted with a grass path.
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I have lots of weeds in my rock mulch. I hate rock mulch but my husband prefers it and like I said, we already have some and it's by the foundation. Will I have to replace the underlayer more often if I use something biodegradable, or does it last about as long as it would anyway before the weeds start up again?
A coworker loaned me his very Mustachian homemade trammel so I can dig up some of the beds, clean the rocks and put them back down.
If you are relying on a barrier, you'll get weeds eventually. One problem is that as @nereo say soil will naturally build up through wind and rain action and you'll still get weeds regardless of the barrier type.
Digging up the beds, cleaning up the rock, and putting it back sounds like a lot of work to me. I'm sounding like a broken record, but what you need is a weed burner like this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Propane-Control-Trigger-Igniter-Flamethrower/dp/B09DYB7DM6/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?crid=1584DUMFIBWOE&keywords=weed%2Bburner&qid=1693087027&sprefix=weed%2Bburner%2Caps%2C156&sr=8-2-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&th=1
A couple times a year or however often it needs it, you simply make a flaming pass over the rock mulch and all the weeds die. Despite the name, you don't actually need to burn the weeds. The killing action is boiling the water in the cells which causes them to burst and the weed dies. Way less work and way more fun than digging up all the rock and weeding.
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I have lots of weeds in my rock mulch. I hate rock mulch but my husband prefers it and like I said, we already have some and it's by the foundation. Will I have to replace the underlayer more often if I use something biodegradable, or does it last about as long as it would anyway before the weeds start up again?
A coworker loaned me his very Mustachian homemade trammel so I can dig up some of the beds, clean the rocks and put them back down.
If you are relying on a barrier, you'll get weeds eventually. One problem is that as @nereo say soil will naturally build up through wind and rain action and you'll still get weeds regardless of the barrier type.
Digging up the beds, cleaning up the rock, and putting it back sounds like a lot of work to me. I'm sounding like a broken record, but what you need is a weed burner like this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Propane-Control-Trigger-Igniter-Flamethrower/dp/B09DYB7DM6/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?crid=1584DUMFIBWOE&keywords=weed%2Bburner&qid=1693087027&sprefix=weed%2Bburner%2Caps%2C156&sr=8-2-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&th=1
A couple times a year or however often it needs it, you simply make a flaming pass over the rock mulch and all the weeds die. Despite the name, you don't actually need to burn the weeds. The killing action is boiling the water in the cells which causes them to burst and the weed dies. Way less work and way more fun than digging up all the rock and weeding.
The barrier is not to prevent weeds. It is to keep the rocks from sinking into the soil. I've tried burning but actually usually find hand-pulling to be easier and to last longer as well as being more environmentally friendly. Not to mention, I can't figure where to recycle the empty propane canisters and they are cluttering my garage.
I'm only planning to re-do like two small beds. One I don't think has ANY barrier under it, the rocks are too thin a layer (I will scavenge some more from elsewhere) and the weeds are real bad. But the longer the rock sits there the more dirt it has- I don't see an option that does not involve eventually digging it up and cleaning or replacing it.
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Depending on the size of the rocks, how about chicken wire or hardware cloth (or window screen?) under the rocks?
Won't break down like landscape fabric and will serve to keep the rocks and dirt separate. Plus you can (very likely) get that free from craigslist, or FB marketplace.
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Depending on the size of the rocks, how about chicken wire or hardware cloth (or window screen?) under the rocks?
Won't break down like landscape fabric and will serve to keep the rocks and dirt separate. Plus you can (very likely) get that free from craigslist, or FB marketplace.
Hmm, that's an interesting idea! I might try it!
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Depending on the size of the rocks, how about chicken wire or hardware cloth (or window screen?) under the rocks?
Won't break down like landscape fabric and will serve to keep the rocks and dirt separate. Plus you can (very likely) get that free from craigslist, or FB marketplace.
Or a tamped construction sand base? They use gravel and sand for usual paving, so the same principles would apply. And I know from experience that weeds pull more easily out of sand than out of soil.
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I'm sounding like a broken record, but what you need is a weed burner like this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Propane-Control-Trigger-Igniter-Flamethrower/dp/B09DYB7DM6/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?crid=1584DUMFIBWOE&keywords=weed%2Bburner&qid=1693087027&sprefix=weed%2Bburner%2Caps%2C156&sr=8-2-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&th=1
A couple times a year or however often it needs it, you simply make a flaming pass over the rock mulch and all the weeds die. Despite the name, you don't actually need to burn the weeds. The killing action is boiling the water in the cells which causes them to burst and the weed dies. Way less work and way more fun than digging up all the rock and weeding.
Does a weed burner work when weeds are full grown or does it need to be done while they are still small?
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Weed burners will kill full grown weeds. We have a gravel driveway and used one to “reclaim” the edges, where weeds had grown in and matured over several years.
As for canisters, just use a standard refillable propane tank. I use the same one we use on our propane grill.
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Weed burners will kill full grown weeds. We have a gravel driveway and used one to “reclaim” the edges, where weeds had grown in and matured over several years.
As for canisters, just use a standard refillable propane tank. I use the same one we use on our propane grill.
I've seen little dollies for the propane tank advertised as well, so you aren't lugging the tank.
Here is the torch - and they also have a mini torch
https://www.leevalley.com/en-ca/shop/garden/garden-care/weeders/47306-giant-weed-torch (https://www.leevalley.com/en-ca/shop/garden/garden-care/weeders/47306-giant-weed-torch)
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Weed burners will kill full grown weeds. We have a gravel driveway and used one to “reclaim” the edges, where weeds had grown in and matured over several years.
As for canisters, just use a standard refillable propane tank. I use the same one we use on our propane grill.
I have one and it sort of works. It is fine for, say, dry thin grass. But for larger, robust green weeds it is a lot of work and emissions. The burner won't touch the deep root of a dandelion. I had high hopes can't quite keep up with my gravel pad weeds.
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Weed burners will kill full grown weeds. We have a gravel driveway and used one to “reclaim” the edges, where weeds had grown in and matured over several years.
As for canisters, just use a standard refillable propane tank. I use the same one we use on our propane grill.
I have one and it sort of works. It is fine for, say, dry thin grass. But for larger, robust green weeds it is a lot of work and emissions. The burner won't touch the deep root of a dandelion. I had high hopes can't quite keep up with my gravel pad weeds.
I had a cheap harbor freight one that i found relatively useless on the garlic mustard but it was growing in a shady area on the edge of wetland so never got dry enough. Perhaps more expensive ones are better. I would not use one where I live now for fear of causing a wildfire.
AFAIK dandelions are not considered invasive weeds because they pose no threat to native species.
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Weed burners will kill full grown weeds. We have a gravel driveway and used one to “reclaim” the edges, where weeds had grown in and matured over several years.
As for canisters, just use a standard refillable propane tank. I use the same one we use on our propane grill.
I have one and it sort of works. It is fine for, say, dry thin grass. But for larger, robust green weeds it is a lot of work and emissions. The burner won't touch the deep root of a dandelion. I had high hopes can't quite keep up with my gravel pad weeds.
Good to know. My stinging nettles apparently have super deep weeds, so if this doesn't work for dandelions, I won't bother trying with nettles.
I'm following though because I have a gravel driveway that is being taken over by giant dandelions and nettles. I'm starting to think I'll need to pave it if I want to keep them from swallowing it.
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I was in Gros Morne last week and thinking about this thread. The lawns out there, if left un-mowed look like something prehistoric. Every patch of grass that was untended was taken over by towering 6-10ft giant hog weed plants, which can apparently burn like wild parsnip.
Suddenly my 4ft tall nettles don't seem so bad.
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Weed burners will kill full grown weeds. We have a gravel driveway and used one to “reclaim” the edges, where weeds had grown in and matured over several years.
As for canisters, just use a standard refillable propane tank. I use the same one we use on our propane grill.
I have one and it sort of works. It is fine for, say, dry thin grass. But for larger, robust green weeds it is a lot of work and emissions. The burner won't touch the deep root of a dandelion. I had high hopes can't quite keep up with my gravel pad weeds.
I suspect yours isn’t functioning properly. A weed burner shouldn’t have any problem killing dandelion tap roots. Your flame likely isn’t getting hot enough, which happens.
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Weed burners will kill full grown weeds. We have a gravel driveway and used one to “reclaim” the edges, where weeds had grown in and matured over several years.
As for canisters, just use a standard refillable propane tank. I use the same one we use on our propane grill.
I have one and it sort of works. It is fine for, say, dry thin grass. But for larger, robust green weeds it is a lot of work and emissions. The burner won't touch the deep root of a dandelion. I had high hopes can't quite keep up with my gravel pad weeds.
I suspect yours isn’t functioning properly. A weed burner shouldn’t have any problem killing dandelion tap roots. Your flame likely isn’t getting hot enough, which happens.
It works great and will "ashify" large weeds. The problem is perennials with tap roots, like dandelions, don't die. They will grow back. It is actually about as fast for me to yank them out with a weeding tool and then they are gone for good.
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Weed burners will kill full grown weeds. We have a gravel driveway and used one to “reclaim” the edges, where weeds had grown in and matured over several years.
As for canisters, just use a standard refillable propane tank. I use the same one we use on our propane grill.
I have one and it sort of works. It is fine for, say, dry thin grass. But for larger, robust green weeds it is a lot of work and emissions. The burner won't touch the deep root of a dandelion. I had high hopes can't quite keep up with my gravel pad weeds.
I suspect yours isn’t functioning properly. A weed burner shouldn’t have any problem killing dandelion tap roots. Your flame likely isn’t getting hot enough, which happens.
It works great and will "ashify" large weeds. The problem is perennials with tap roots, like dandelions, don't die. They will grow back. It is actually about as fast for me to yank them out with a weeding tool and then they are gone for good.
Read more critically. If you aren't killing the tap root with a weed burner, there is something wrong with your system or your technique, or both. As I and several others have emphatically stated, they will kill the entire dandelion plant, tap root and all.
No question that you can also irradiate individual plants by yanking them out. Whether it is 'as fast' will depend on your setup. For an area under 100sqft with a relatively light number of weeds I'd certainly just yank and pull - not worth it to drag the equipment out and then put it away. For a much larger area like a long gravel driveway I've found it to be much faster and more thorough (as you can simultaneously kill large weeds as well as destroy newly sprouted seeds in one quick swoop.
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Weed burners will kill full grown weeds. We have a gravel driveway and used one to “reclaim” the edges, where weeds had grown in and matured over several years.
As for canisters, just use a standard refillable propane tank. I use the same one we use on our propane grill.
I have one and it sort of works. It is fine for, say, dry thin grass. But for larger, robust green weeds it is a lot of work and emissions. The burner won't touch the deep root of a dandelion. I had high hopes can't quite keep up with my gravel pad weeds.
I suspect yours isn’t functioning properly. A weed burner shouldn’t have any problem killing dandelion tap roots. Your flame likely isn’t getting hot enough, which happens.
It works great and will "ashify" large weeds. The problem is perennials with tap roots, like dandelions, don't die. They will grow back. It is actually about as fast for me to yank them out with a weeding tool and then they are gone for good.
Well rooted perennials don't always die from being weeded, either. They will come back from the bits of roots left behind. So it is just a fact of life that some weeds may need more than one treatment.
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Have you weed burning folks had success eradicating the evil creeping bellflower? That I'd like to wipe out. It's taking over.
Any models to recommend?
I'm eyeing the $50 Flame King at Home Depot...
And nereo, I'm sending you a PM. I think I'll be in your neighborhood soon.
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Have you weed burning folks had success eradicating the evil creeping bellflower? That I'd like to wipe out. It's taking over.
Any models to recommend?
I'm eyeing the $50 Flame King at Home Depot...
And nereo, I'm sending you a PM. I think I'll be in your neighborhood soon.
Ooooo, following to hear this answer. I've been battling the creeping bellflower myself.
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You can't have creeping Charlie if you are worrying about a bellflower. ;-)
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Ah, we have a million invasives in our yard that we battle! I thought the nice purple bellflowers were pretty, until I learned this year that I should add them to the long list.
Though, admittedly, I worry about creeping bellflower less than I do the oriental bittersweet and the other vine whose name I can't remember... both of those were thundering straight up our trees before we did a major advance on them. Now they're reassembling their troops...
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Maintaining them takes gas-guzzling mowers, toxic pesticides, regular application of fertilizer that contaminates rivers and streams, and huge amounts of water
None of this is factual or required.
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Weed burners will kill full grown weeds. We have a gravel driveway and used one to “reclaim” the edges, where weeds had grown in and matured over several years.
As for canisters, just use a standard refillable propane tank. I use the same one we use on our propane grill.
Be careful around your shrubs. I did not get the heat directly on them but the lower leaves died all the same. Waiting to see if they come back. Otherwise great tool. HF has them. $40 for the fancy one.
I put the propane canister on my electric lawn tractor and drive it around. You can carry it too or sit the tank on a furniture mover if the surface is hard like a sidewalk. A kids' wagon would be good too.
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Maintaining them takes gas-guzzling mowers, toxic pesticides, regular application of fertilizer that contaminates rivers and streams, and huge amounts of water
None of this is factual or required.
That's what I learned, too.
Huge respect to people who cultivate native plants or grow veggies - we do both to some extent. But lawn can be pretty low maintenance; and while they will never be as ecologically useful as native plants, they don't have to have a huge environmental cost, either.
All you have to do is to sufficiently lower your standards. Let it go dormant (brown) when it's hot, tolerate crabgrass, dandelions and whatever else decides to take root. Mulch, don't bag clippings. Mow rarely. You may not be popular with the Johnsons of your street, though.
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All you have to do is to sufficiently lower your standards.
New favorite quote.
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Maintaining them takes gas-guzzling mowers, toxic pesticides, regular application of fertilizer that contaminates rivers and streams, and huge amounts of water
None of this is factual or required.
That's what I learned, too.
Huge respect to people who cultivate native plants or grow veggies - we do both to some extent. But lawn can be pretty low maintenance; and while they will never be as ecologically useful as native plants, they don't have to have a huge environmental cost, either.
All you have to do is to sufficiently lower your standards. Let it go dormant (brown) when it's hot, tolerate crabgrass, dandelions and whatever else decides to take root. Mulch, don't bag clippings. Mow rarely. You may not be popular with the Johnsons of your street, though.
I'm still fascinated that this isn't just the norm. It's always been the norm everywhere I've lived.
Who bags clippings?? Is that a thing normal people really do on a regular basis? Why?
I feel like I just found out that the majority of the world uses unicycles and I'm the weirdo who rides a bike.
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Maintaining them takes gas-guzzling mowers, toxic pesticides, regular application of fertilizer that contaminates rivers and streams, and huge amounts of water
None of this is factual or required.
That's what I learned, too.
Huge respect to people who cultivate native plants or grow veggies - we do both to some extent. But lawn can be pretty low maintenance; and while they will never be as ecologically useful as native plants, they don't have to have a huge environmental cost, either.
All you have to do is to sufficiently lower your standards. Let it go dormant (brown) when it's hot, tolerate crabgrass, dandelions and whatever else decides to take root. Mulch, don't bag clippings. Mow rarely. You may not be popular with the Johnsons of your street, though.
I'm still fascinated that this isn't just the norm. It's always been the norm everywhere I've lived.
Who bags clippings?? Is that a thing normal people really do on a regular basis? Why?
I feel like I just found out that the majority of the world uses unicycles and I'm the weirdo who rides a bike.
It’s not the rest of the world. It’s just the US, which is a deeply weird country.
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Maintaining them takes gas-guzzling mowers, toxic pesticides, regular application of fertilizer that contaminates rivers and streams, and huge amounts of water
None of this is factual or required.
That's what I learned, too.
Huge respect to people who cultivate native plants or grow veggies - we do both to some extent. But lawn can be pretty low maintenance; and while they will never be as ecologically useful as native plants, they don't have to have a huge environmental cost, either.
All you have to do is to sufficiently lower your standards. Let it go dormant (brown) when it's hot, tolerate crabgrass, dandelions and whatever else decides to take root. Mulch, don't bag clippings. Mow rarely. You may not be popular with the Johnsons of your street, though.
I'm still fascinated that this isn't just the norm. It's always been the norm everywhere I've lived.
Who bags clippings?? Is that a thing normal people really do on a regular basis? Why?
I feel like I just found out that the majority of the world uses unicycles and I'm the weirdo who rides a bike.
It’s not the rest of the world. It’s just the US, which is a deeply weird country.
In such surprising and confusing ways...
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There’s a great deal of myth, legend and lore about why people from the US treasure green lawns of near monocultures so much. All wrapped up together is the concept of a space which is strictly decorative (of no use growing plants), some clever marketing by chemical companies and the desire to appear rich to absolute strangers or at least well maintained).
Objectively, the often-mandated ritual includes frequent cutting below what is healthy for both the grass and the soil, removal of the clippings which strips the soil of nutrients, requiring seasonal addition of fertilizer to replenish what was bagged away, and the liberal application of pesticides to prevent any sort of ecosystem services.
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There’s a great deal of myth, legend and lore about why people from the US treasure green lawns of near monocultures so much. All wrapped up together is the concept of a space which is strictly decorative (of no use growing plants), some clever marketing by chemical companies and the desire to appear rich to absolute strangers or at least well maintained).
Objectively, the often-mandated ritual includes frequent cutting below what is healthy for both the grass and the soil, removal of the clippings which strips the soil of nutrients, requiring seasonal addition of fertilizer to replenish what was bagged away, and the liberal application of pesticides to prevent any sort of ecosystem services.
This is fucking fascinating, and an insane example of the power of marketing to get people to commit to that. That takes some serious effort to get people to want to spend that much effort on being inefficient.
I'm gonna go search for an audiobook about the history of this, there must be one out there.
It's the bagging of clippings part that floors me most. Isn't that totally counter productive?? Who came up with that plan??
Although, thanks to clippings I currently have a lawn absolutely filled with giant slugs. I find them delightful, like a lot of things out here, they are abnormally humongous, like over 6 inches in length.
...but I can see why some folks might not delight in a lawn full of slugs...I guess...
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History and money (of course money) - weed killers kill broad leaf plants but not grasses. So if you want to convince people to buy your weed killers, you have to convince people that any broad leaf plants in your lawn are weeds. Like clover. Lawn seed mixes used to contain clover, since clover fixes nitrogen and the clippings feed the lawn.
If you get people to cut grass too short and remove the clippings then the roots will suffer and "weeds" will move in, and you can convince them to buy fertilizer, and weed killer, and at some point fungicides and insecticides. And all the irrigation/watering equipment. Lawns are not golf courses but somehow the expectation that they be golf courses is there.
As you can imagine, none of my lawns have looked like golf courses. ;-)
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*sigh* our lawn is fine as is for now - full of clover and some buttercups. But we just discovered a quarter of our slope is covered in African Boxthorn, which is just a nightmare to remove.
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*sigh* our lawn is fine as is for now - full of clover and some buttercups. But we just discovered a quarter of our slope is covered in African Boxthorn, which is just a nightmare to remove.
Boxthorn is horrible stuff. We have 25 acres of it on the farm to be dealt with (waves hands...) later. Goats will stop it from spreading as they eat the small ones, but larger ones really need to be pulled out by the roots. We used to use a tow rope, wrapped around the base, and drag them out that way. Put them in a pile and burn them.
Currently we live in a high rainfall area and have never watered, weeded or fertilised this lawn. It gets mown occasionally when I get the chance as it is too wet most of the time. I look forward to replacing my petrol mower with an electric one when it dies, which going on my past history won't be too long away. I am hard on mowers.
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Maintaining them takes gas-guzzling mowers, toxic pesticides, regular application of fertilizer that contaminates rivers and streams, and huge amounts of water
None of this is factual or required.
That's what I learned, too.
Huge respect to people who cultivate native plants or grow veggies - we do both to some extent. But lawn can be pretty low maintenance; and while they will never be as ecologically useful as native plants, they don't have to have a huge environmental cost, either.
All you have to do is to sufficiently lower your standards. Let it go dormant (brown) when it's hot, tolerate crabgrass, dandelions and whatever else decides to take root. Mulch, don't bag clippings. Mow rarely. You may not be popular with the Johnsons of your street, though.
I'm still fascinated that this isn't just the norm. It's always been the norm everywhere I've lived.
Who bags clippings?? Is that a thing normal people really do on a regular basis? Why?
I feel like I just found out that the majority of the world uses unicycles and I'm the weirdo who rides a bike.
It’s not the rest of the world. It’s just the US, which is a deeply weird country.
Hmm, but it has to be a minority, right? And just to be clear on the denominator, I'm only talking households that have yards. I'd guess less than 20% dispose of their clippings. If you have a compost pile and/or use it for mulch, I view that differently compared to a green waste bin.
My guess is that it is more of an upper class, upper middle class type activity to care about the lawn since it requires disposable income. This forum is going to skew that way in terms of US participants being above the median hh income level. Plus, those people are going to live next to other upper/upper middle people who treat their lawns similarly. It creates a bubble.
Go to lower class and middle class yards. I'm guessing they're not tended to as much on a % basis nor are the clippings bagged. I mean, you will find lawn nuts at every income level but it has to scale somewhat with class/income level.
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In my 'hood, I don't think I've ever seen anyone bag their clippings. Same with watering, except for establishing a new lawn. Up until about a week ago when the weather turned, everyone's lawn was brownish.
We do have a few that chem-dip their lawns a couple of times a year, though. The crazy part is their grass doesn't look much better than those of us that don't.
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Hmm, but it has to be a minority, right? And just to be clear on the denominator, I'm only talking households that have yards. I'd guess less than 20% dispose of their clippings. If you have a compost pile and/or use it for mulch, I view that differently compared to a green waste bin.
My guess is that it is more of an upper class, upper middle class type activity to care about the lawn since it requires disposable income. This forum is going to skew that way in terms of US participants being above the median hh income level. Plus, those people are going to live next to other upper/upper middle people who treat their lawns similarly. It creates a bubble.
Go to lower class and middle class yards. I'm guessing they're not tended to as much on a % basis nor are the clippings bagged. I mean, you will find lawn nuts at every income level but it has to scale somewhat with class/income level.
In my neighborhood the greenest lawns belong to Latino families who seem to have lived there a long time- long-established immigrant families. From looking around, I think the houses that have been bought by middle-class white people like myself are more likely to go xeriscape or other lower-maintenance solutions. Or maybe this is a generational divide? White millennials vs people old enough to be their parents?
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I live in what passes as relatively affordable neighborhood in the land of datacenters and Beltway bandits, and people do bag clippings. Only recently our county banned placing clippings in plastic bags. If you go one step above my neighborhood in terms of house prices, manicured lawns are a norm. It is sad, really - all the resources spent on appearances (that are not even that appealing) could do so much good.
Oh, and someone decided that every yard has to have a Bradford Pear, a Myrtle, or preferably both.
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Oh, and someone decided that every yard has to have a Bradford Pear, a Myrtle, or preferably both.
Yeah... Bradford pears are EVERYWHERE here... included as part of city planning in many locations.
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Hmm, but it has to be a minority, right? And just to be clear on the denominator, I'm only talking households that have yards. I'd guess less than 20% dispose of their clippings. If you have a compost pile and/or use it for mulch, I view that differently compared to a green waste bin.
My guess is that it is more of an upper class, upper middle class type activity to care about the lawn since it requires disposable income. This forum is going to skew that way in terms of US participants being above the median hh income level. Plus, those people are going to live next to other upper/upper middle people who treat their lawns similarly. It creates a bubble.
Go to lower class and middle class yards. I'm guessing they're not tended to as much on a % basis nor are the clippings bagged. I mean, you will find lawn nuts at every income level but it has to scale somewhat with class/income level.
In my neighborhood the greenest lawns belong to Latino families who seem to have lived there a long time- long-established immigrant families. From looking around, I think the houses that have been bought by middle-class white people like myself are more likely to go xeriscape or other lower-maintenance solutions. Or maybe this is a generational divide? White millennials vs people old enough to be their parents?
Given how little time my DD and her husband have to give to lawn care, or yard care in general, I am guessing a generational thing. Plus possibly some families have more generational experience in gardening for local conditions?
Seriously, I know how to garden in a cold wet snowy climate. Put me in Colorado or Arizona and I would be worse than a beginner, I would have incorrect knowledge.
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There’s a great deal of myth, legend and lore about why people from the US treasure green lawns of near monocultures so much. All wrapped up together is the concept of a space which is strictly decorative (of no use growing plants), some clever marketing by chemical companies and the desire to appear rich to absolute strangers or at least well maintained).
Objectively, the often-mandated ritual includes frequent cutting below what is healthy for both the grass and the soil, removal of the clippings which strips the soil of nutrients, requiring seasonal addition of fertilizer to replenish what was bagged away, and the liberal application of pesticides to prevent any sort of ecosystem services.
This is fucking fascinating, and an insane example of the power of marketing to get people to commit to that. That takes some serious effort to get people to want to spend that much effort on being inefficient.
I'm gonna go search for an audiobook about the history of this, there must be one out there.
It's the bagging of clippings part that floors me most. Isn't that totally counter productive?? Who came up with that plan??
Although, thanks to clippings I currently have a lawn absolutely filled with giant slugs. I find them delightful, like a lot of things out here, they are abnormally humongous, like over 6 inches in length.
...but I can see why some folks might not delight in a lawn full of slugs...I guess...
It fascinates me too! While certainly not everyone is a believer, high-maintenance lawncare is a big point of pride for at least a certain subset of Americans. There's whole episodes of the cartoon "King of the the Hill" that goes into this. In one, (https://kingofthehill.fandom.com/wiki/King_of_the_Ant_Hill), main character Hank is lawn-proud but chooses to discontinue weekly pesticide spraying by his exterminator friend, who eventually decides to sabotage Hanks' lawn with an ant infestation. Chaos ensues before everything's eventually resolved. And lawnmower pride is also a whole subculture.
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It fascinates me too! While certainly not everyone is a believer, high-maintenance lawncare is a big point of pride for at least a certain subset of Americans. There's whole episodes of the cartoon "King of the the Hill" that goes into this. In one, (https://kingofthehill.fandom.com/wiki/King_of_the_Ant_Hill), main character Hank is lawn-proud but chooses to discontinue weekly pesticide spraying by his exterminator friend, who eventually decides to sabotage Hanks' lawn with an ant infestation. Chaos ensues before everything's eventually resolved. And lawnmower pride is also a whole subculture.
Lawnmower pride?? Do I want to know?
I mean, my step dad frickin' LOVES his John Deere because they live in the country on 30 acres and he's 70, so I totally get why some people absolutely love their ride mowers, but something tells me you're not talking about some kind of wholesome love between a rural senior gent and his John Deere...
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It fascinates me too! While certainly not everyone is a believer, high-maintenance lawncare is a big point of pride for at least a certain subset of Americans. There's whole episodes of the cartoon "King of the the Hill" that goes into this. In one, (https://kingofthehill.fandom.com/wiki/King_of_the_Ant_Hill), main character Hank is lawn-proud but chooses to discontinue weekly pesticide spraying by his exterminator friend, who eventually decides to sabotage Hanks' lawn with an ant infestation. Chaos ensues before everything's eventually resolved. And lawnmower pride is also a whole subculture.
Lawnmower pride?? Do I want to know?
I mean, my step dad frickin' LOVES his John Deere because they live in the country on 30 acres and he's 70, so I totally get why some people absolutely love their ride mowers, but something tells me you're not talking about some kind of wholesome love between a rural senior gent and his John Deere...
Ha ha, lawn mowers aren't my passion in life so I hesitate to imply I know too much about the pride thing and I doubt it's exclusively an American phenomenon, but like any category of tech there's just some folks who get really into it: carefully maintaining their machines themselves, doing rebuilds of old models, running their own forums (e.g. https://www.mylawnmowerforum.com/), and having strong feelings about things like which is the best brand/model/motor size or debating stuff like whether ride-on is a necessary feature or a sign of laziness. John Deere people do have a reputation for being passionate about the brand, so your stepdad's definitely not alone in enjoying his mower.
Lawnmower racing is also a thing, but that's a bit different and I believe started in the UK.
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It fascinates me too! While certainly not everyone is a believer, high-maintenance lawncare is a big point of pride for at least a certain subset of Americans. There's whole episodes of the cartoon "King of the the Hill" that goes into this. In one, (https://kingofthehill.fandom.com/wiki/King_of_the_Ant_Hill), main character Hank is lawn-proud but chooses to discontinue weekly pesticide spraying by his exterminator friend, who eventually decides to sabotage Hanks' lawn with an ant infestation. Chaos ensues before everything's eventually resolved. And lawnmower pride is also a whole subculture.
Lawnmower pride?? Do I want to know?
I mean, my step dad frickin' LOVES his John Deere because they live in the country on 30 acres and he's 70, so I totally get why some people absolutely love their ride mowers, but something tells me you're not talking about some kind of wholesome love between a rural senior gent and his John Deere...
Here’s a glimpse - my neighborhood would have a “lawnmower parade” each 4th of July. The participants were nearly all male, with a median age north of 50. They would spend hours decorating their riding lawnmowers to drive them in a line down the street at a casual jogging pace. One guy gave his a custom paint job that had flames and probably took him at least three weekends and a few hundred dollars to complete. Lawnmower “skins” (essentially enormous stickers designed to fit a particular lawnmower model are also popular. So we’re battery powered Christmas lights and cup holders for beer.
Basically they spent days making their mowers less useful for the function they were built.
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It fascinates me too! While certainly not everyone is a believer, high-maintenance lawncare is a big point of pride for at least a certain subset of Americans. There's whole episodes of the cartoon "King of the the Hill" that goes into this. In one, (https://kingofthehill.fandom.com/wiki/King_of_the_Ant_Hill), main character Hank is lawn-proud but chooses to discontinue weekly pesticide spraying by his exterminator friend, who eventually decides to sabotage Hanks' lawn with an ant infestation. Chaos ensues before everything's eventually resolved. And lawnmower pride is also a whole subculture.
Lawnmower pride?? Do I want to know?
I mean, my step dad frickin' LOVES his John Deere because they live in the country on 30 acres and he's 70, so I totally get why some people absolutely love their ride mowers, but something tells me you're not talking about some kind of wholesome love between a rural senior gent and his John Deere...
Here’s a glimpse - my neighborhood would have a “lawnmower parade” each 4th of July. The participants were nearly all male, with a median age north of 50. They would spend hours decorating their riding lawnmowers to drive them in a line down the street at a casual jogging pace. One guy gave his a custom paint job that had flames and probably took him at least three weekends and a few hundred dollars to complete. Lawnmower “skins” (essentially enormous stickers designed to fit a particular lawnmower model are also popular. So we’re battery powered Christmas lights and cup holders for beer.
Basically they spent days making their mowers less useful for the function they were built.
And probably had a ton of fun doing the work and playing in the parade.
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Given how little time my DD and her husband have to give to lawn care, or yard care in general, I am guessing a generational thing. Plus possibly some families have more generational experience in gardening for local conditions?
Seriously, I know how to garden in a cold wet snowy climate. Put me in Colorado or Arizona and I would be worse than a beginner, I would have incorrect knowledge.
My grandfather and his friends (Silent Generation) seemed to value bagging clippings and all that - if the yard was sufficiently small. With a push mower, catching the clippings for a larger yard might take all afternoon compared to just mowing it which might take an hour. Just how dedicated to this idea is this person? I remember in the 1970s people having piles of clippings at the back corner of the yard and us kids digging in it for worms to go fishing with.
Around here today people don't seem to collect the clippings, they just mow often so the clippings don't pile up and - for some folks lawn striping is important. For some reason.
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All the professional lawn services and golf courses seem to bag the clippings for a far neater look to the mowed grass.
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All the professional lawn services and golf courses seem to bag the clippings for a far neater look to the mowed grass.
They also spray a bunch of crap that stinks to high heaven. I used to live near a golf course and hoa neighborhood and my eyes would water if I took a walk through there on lawn day. There's more to aesthetics than just looks. (The hoa also had cabbage growing as an ornamental near their sign which I found hilarious).
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This NASA study estimates that lawns take up 128,000 square kilometers in the U.S., which would make them the single largest irrigated "crop" in the country. There's another study which says that three-quarters of residential water use is people watering their lawns:
https://www.businessinsider.com/americas-biggest-crop-is-grass-2016-2?op=1
I certainly have never watered my lawn - and that seems to be true for the overwhelming majority of people who have a lawn:
(https://www.groundworks.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2021/11/how-often-do-you-water-your-lawn-groundworks.jpg)
If you want to ban watering lawns (probably a sensible thing to do), seems like the majority of people with lawns would not be impacted. There are a few psychopaths (twice a day????) who are ruining things for everyone else.
Of course, if we really gave a shit about water conservation we would simply charge more for it. People waste it because it's cheap enough that they don't think twice about wasting it.
We should probably ban other non-essential water uses as well, such as producing beer, wine, and recreational weed. Strictly speaking, these are not necessities yet require a lot of water.
It’s so weird how we’re living through a mass extinction event and still get defensive about not wanting to manage resources. Like, do we really need to pull stats on how much water ends up in beer vs what is used to water golf courses, obviously not a necessity?
Good lord. I remember how many bugs used to die on the car windshield during a suburban night drive when I was a kid. When’s the last time you needed to wash bug guts off your windshield (unless you live in a very rural area…)
This. I'm amazed by how we can drive an hour an a half and get one bug on the windshield. I don't miss them, but it can't be good.
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Good lord. I remember how many bugs used to die on the car windshield during a suburban night drive when I was a kid. When’s the last time you needed to wash bug guts off your windshield (unless you live in a very rural area…)
This. I'm amazed by how we can drive an hour an a half and get one bug on the windshield. I don't miss them, but it can't be good.
I still seem to splatter plenty at night... I guess this would have been through a pretty rural area though.
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It is definitley important to leave grass clippings, not spray toxic chemicals, allow diversity in different grasses and broadleaf plants etc. But I'm not sure that not watering is a good idea unless you're in an area where water is scarce like Arizona. I live in the PNW and we do not have water issues, and if we did it's a reservoir size issue not a rainfall issue which is easier to fix. Like currently my reservoirs are both sitting around 80%, at the end of summer, in a year where we received much less rainfall than normal, and will be 100% by December. A brown hibernating lawn is not sucking in CO2, I dont think its providing food, flowers or habitat for foraging insects, it's just not really doing much. My approach is to allow and plant a variety of different ground covers, mow very rarely, and water it a couple times a week during the summer. Water conservation is not the issue in my area, habitat loss for bugs and climate change are the issues and not watering seems to do more harm than good. (I know most lawn grass arent particularly efficient at it but it's better than nothing).
My mind can be changed though.
I'm hopeful we're going to start seeing an end to lawn culture though. I think that's a boomer thing who got brainwashed by monsanto marketing in the 60s-90s. If people let their lawns become more meadow it would probably go a long way. I do think there's a potential market for a non-profit that converts peoples front lawns to natural meadows or farms it.
Also the lawnmower parade sounds hilarious! While odd I bet the people doing that have a lot of fun.
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It is definitley important to leave grass clippings, not spray toxic chemicals, allow diversity in different grasses and broadleaf plants etc. But I'm not sure that not watering is a good idea unless you're in an area where water is scarce like Arizona. I live in the PNW and we do not have water issues, and if we did it's a reservoir size issue not a rainfall issue which is easier to fix. Like currently my reservoirs are both sitting around 80%, at the end of summer, in a year where we received much less rainfall than normal, and will be 100% by December. A brown hibernating lawn is not sucking in CO2, I dont think its providing food, flowers or habitat for foraging insects, it's just not really doing much. My approach is to allow and plant a variety of different ground covers, mow very rarely, and water it a couple times a week during the summer. Water conservation is not the issue in my area, habitat loss for bugs and climate change are the issues and not watering seems to do more harm than good. (I know most lawn grass arent particularly efficient at it but it's better than nothing).
My mind can be changed though.
I'm hopeful we're going to start seeing an end to lawn culture though. I think that's a boomer thing who got brainwashed by monsanto marketing in the 60s-90s. If people let their lawns become more meadow it would probably go a long way. I do think there's a potential market for a non-profit that converts peoples front lawns to natural meadows or farms it.
Also the lawnmower parade sounds hilarious! While odd I bet the people doing that have a lot of fun.
In climates where the grass goes dormant at the height of summer and then comes back in the late summer, letting it go dormant is most likely not hurting wildlife Having good plant variety in the lawn, and letting things flower, is more helpful. Grasses just are not that great for a lot of animals - they are great for cows and grasshoppers. But they do nothing for pollinators, they are wind pollinated. Clovers and dandelions and whatever in the lawn are good pollinator plants.
Plus remember the bumblebees are native but honeybees are not. We have lots and lots of native solitary bees that never get noticed. So growing native plants that are good pollen and nectar sources is useful. Native insects may not be able to use introduced plants. Leaving habitat for egg-laying is useful. Doing garden cleanup in the spring instead of the fall leaves places for insects to overwinter. Having areas where larger plants can grow also helps - goldenrod and asters, for example, are important late summer/fall nectar plants.
Also, more generally, our butterflies (and many other insects) need plants for their caterpillars to eat. So if you see damage on a plant, be glad that it is feeding something. ;-) (not including cabbage family plants and cabbage white butterfly here, it is an introduced species).
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Plus remember the bumblebees are native but honeybees are not. We have lots and lots of native solitary bees that never get noticed. So growing native plants that are good pollen and nectar sources is useful. Native insects may not be able to use introduced plants. Leaving habitat for egg-laying is useful. Doing garden cleanup in the spring instead of the fall leaves places for insects to overwinter. Having areas where larger plants can grow also helps - goldenrod and asters, for example, are important late summer/fall nectar plants.
Also, more generally, our butterflies (and many other insects) need plants for their caterpillars to eat. So if you see damage on a plant, be glad that it is feeding something. ;-) (not including cabbage family plants and cabbage white butterfly here, it is an introduced species).
Since we're talking about bugs . . . I ran across an interesting fact recently. Earthworms are also an invasive species not native to North America - and as they continue to expand into our forests a couple hundred years after intentional introduction by settlers they are causing a fair amount of damage to native creepy crawlies and forest plants.
It's something that I don't think gets enough press - and I suspect that many of the perfect lawn people transport them around the country while getting new sod.
https://www.ontarioparks.com/parksblog/earthworms-invasive-species/#:~:text=Some%20simple%20ways%20to%20help,not%20on%20land%20or%20water. (https://www.ontarioparks.com/parksblog/earthworms-invasive-species/#:~:text=Some%20simple%20ways%20to%20help,not%20on%20land%20or%20water.)
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Yes! My partner was telling me that some scientists hypothesize that we may have some unknown native worms in the driftless area (sw wisconsin) but no one has tried to find them yet. How neat.
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I read many years ago that we are losing forest plants that need deep leaf litter for germination, because of European earthworms.
We know so little about soil organisms, because they are small and hidden and hard to research. And most people don't care.
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I read many years ago that we are losing forest plants that need deep leaf litter for germination, because of European earthworms.
We know so little about soil organisms, because they are small and hidden and hard to research. And most people don't care.
I just downloaded a book called The Insect Crisis, looks really interesting
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I read many years ago that we are losing forest plants that need deep leaf litter for germination, because of European earthworms.
We know so little about soil organisms, because they are small and hidden and hard to research. And most people don't care.
Is the author Oliver Milman?
I just downloaded a book called The Insect Crisis, looks really interesting
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I read many years ago that we are losing forest plants that need deep leaf litter for germination, because of European earthworms.
We know so little about soil organisms, because they are small and hidden and hard to research. And most people don't care.
I just downloaded a book called The Insect Crisis, looks really interesting
Is the author Oliver Milman?
Yeah. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
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I read many years ago that we are losing forest plants that need deep leaf litter for germination, because of European earthworms.
We know so little about soil organisms, because they are small and hidden and hard to research. And most people don't care.
I just downloaded a book called The Insect Crisis, looks really interesting
Is the author Oliver Milman?
Yeah. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
It's a good thing - my library has it and I just put it on hold.
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Also, more generally, our butterflies (and many other insects) need plants for their caterpillars to eat. So if you see damage on a plant, be glad that it is feeding something. ;-) (not including cabbage family plants and cabbage white butterfly here, it is an introduced species).
Once I learned about it, it totally changed the way I see things. I now rejoice at seeing leaves someone munched on, and get annoyed at pristine-looking exotics.
About disappearing insects, a bit of anecdata: we used to have tons of swallowtails and monarchs. We were actually annoyed by them. Yesterday I saw the first monarch of the season, and called my wife so that she had a chance to look at one. That despite milkweed being re-introduced in every neighborhood park, planted near every school, and many neighbors planting it.
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I read many years ago that we are losing forest plants that need deep leaf litter for germination, because of European earthworms.
We know so little about soil organisms, because they are small and hidden and hard to research. And most people don't care.
Well, we now have hammerhead worms that eat European earthworms, so balance will be swiftly restored.
/sarcasm off
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One of our goals in early retirement is to expand our already expansive native garden of wildflowers all the way to the strip of mini-woods we purchased for $15K to keep it from being torn down at some point (it was part of the still unbuilt on lot behind us.
Our new rule is only natives though we still have things like catmint and Russian sage that aren’t native but not invasive. We DID have to rip up all of the blue forget me nots as we learned they’re not only not native but invasive at least in Wisconsin. It’s a joy watching all of the birds and bumblebees and squirrels etc.
My Garden of 1000 Bees is a delightful film well worth watching (saw it on my recent flight to Asia).
Our lawn is a mixture of clover, grass and other green stuff...looks ok to us and the bunnies love it but the neighbor next door HATES it and occasionally flies into a rage (he LOVES chemicals of all kinds). But it’s green and no desire to kill bugs or animals (or ourselves).
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I read many years ago that we are losing forest plants that need deep leaf litter for germination, because of European earthworms.
We know so little about soil organisms, because they are small and hidden and hard to research. And most people don't care.
I just downloaded a book called The Insect Crisis, looks really interesting
Is the author Oliver Milman?
Yeah. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
It's a good thing - my library has it and I just put it on hold.
Ooh my son loves bugs. I'll try to get the audio book the next time we have a long car ride.
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I live in a US gulf coast area neighborhood with a lightly controlled HOA that does require basic grass and landscaping, so my front yard does look like a typical one with a st augustine grass lawn (so stupid). I do have native flowers that are pretty/low need/grow well/good for birds/bees/butterflies in all my beds and mow once a month (as I know when they do their drive throughs). I water the front more because this and last year, we've had record-setting heat and major drought.
My side/back yard is a hellscape at the moment. I lost my native maple tree we put in 10 years ago to the heat/drought last year. My back yard grass is mostly dead. My one giant potted plant on the patio (also a native flowering shrub that was delightful for attracting butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds) died this past month as far as I can tell despite being in full shade and watered every single day. The heat just baked it to death.
At this point, I'm looking at not putting ANY grass into the back yard if this weather ever breaks. I'd like to just add in some more heat/drought resistant tree/shrubs and create some massive raised beds so I can try to grow a food garden. I am looking into clover and buffalo grass as a possible fill in but have to do more research to see if they'll do okay here. But ideally, I would love for the side and back to be a no mow zone that doesn't require pesticides and helps out both my household and the neighborhood critters.
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posting to follow as Hubby wants to re-do our lawn and make it all nice and uniform
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posting to follow as Hubby wants to re-do our lawn and make it all nice and uniform
“Nice and uniform” should trigger internal alarm bells. Nature is seldom uniform, and when it is, that’s because the system is missing entire levels in the food web (“tropic levels”)
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posting to follow as Hubby wants to re-do our lawn and make it all nice and uniform
But why?
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posting to follow as Hubby wants to re-do our lawn and make it all nice and uniform
If he wants to make it smoother, fewer bumps, so less likely to turn an ankle, great. I've had a few lawn areas that were like obstacle courses for ankles. But what does he think "nice and uniform" means?
For your Hubby, and just a general info, weeds are weeds because their ecological role is to colonize bare soil and they are very good at it. So no matter how perfect the grass mix is to start, there will always be weeds. There are already weed seeds in the soil, and more will arrive on the wind and in bird poop. So a healthy lawn of mixed species will be better, because when conditions are poor for one species they will be great for another, and there will always be vegetation. But any little bare spot is saying to the weeds, come grow here.
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My Garden of 1000 Bees is a delightful film well worth watching (saw it on my recent flight to Asia).
Apparently available on PBS for streaming.
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posting to follow as Hubby wants to re-do our lawn and make it all nice and uniform
If he wants to make it smoother, fewer bumps, so less likely to turn an ankle, great. I've had a few lawn areas that were like obstacle courses for ankles. But what does he think "nice and uniform" means?
For your Hubby, and just a general info, weeds are weeds because their ecological role is to colonize bare soil and they are very good at it. So no matter how perfect the grass mix is to start, there will always be weeds. There are already weed seeds in the soil, and more will arrive on the wind and in bird poop. So a healthy lawn of mixed species will be better, because when conditions are poor for one species they will be great for another, and there will always be vegetation. But any little bare spot is saying to the weeds, come grow here.
I hand-pull weeds in my yard (a mix of mostly bluegrass and clover, mowed to 3" so we don't get all that many weeds) because we use a push mower and it can't cut tall weeds!
If your DH has his heart set on a green lawn you could maybe try talking him into a less water- and fertilizer-dependent turf, depending on your location?