Kill your lawn!

[XemaSab]

Put in drought-tolerant natives!

Don't be a slave to suburbia!

:o

[Buzz Clik]

1. Why?

If you live in the desert, don't plant anything. Grow rocks.

If you live where rainfall is plentiful, grow whatever the hell you like.

Home owners: use your head; one size does not fit all.

[bloom]

11. Generally "Lawns" require mowing

Which for most people requires using gasoline.

Mowing a lawn for an hour can be the equivilent of driving 350 miles - pollutions wise.

Also - lawns are not helpful to wildlife. Butterflies, etc. do not get anything out of a lawn.

At the very least - grow white clover and cut it high - some butterflies can benefit from the white flowers.

But people should rethink having a "Lawn" - esp. if the only reason is that they like the "Look" of it. It looks stupid and usually wasteful - to me.

[Buzz Clik]

12. "Native" in my yard was a swamp.

I'll pass on that.

A well designed, well executed landscape with non-turf plants can be beautiful.

[bloom]

14. and I was talking about lawns

"landscape with non-turf plants" does not sound like a "lawn" - which it sounded like you were defending.

[Buzz Clik]

17. ?? I was talking about lawns originally, because of the title of the thread.

Then you started talking about growing white clover and cutting it high. That's not a lawn, that's an agricultural crop. I couldn't grow that at my home because it violates all kinds of codes.

Hells bells. Somebody wants a "native", drought tolerant grass lawn in an area that gets 45 inches of rainfall? Well, go for it. I'm not sure of the point, but there you go. I have kids and a dog. We all like to play on the lawn. That won't work with knee-high clover. Or patches of little bluestem mixed with wildflowers and bluegreen algae.

To each his own.

[bloom]

19. So codes need to be changed.

If people are actually using their green outdoor carpet - that's not as bad as lawns that are there just for looks (which many are) - or for "codes" for that matter.

[XemaSab]

25. Why you got to hate on the cyanobacteria, man?

:shrug:





































:P

[TheWraith]

13. Er, that's completely wrong

"Mowing a lawn for an hour can be the equivilent of driving 350 miles - pollutions wise."

No, it's not. A lawn mower, at least my lawn mower, eats about half a gallon of gas an hour. That's about 12.5 miles of driving for me, or for the average vehicle. So please, try fact checking before you repeat completely bogus ELF talking points.

[bloom]

16. It was my understanding

with the "talking point" that was mentioned - that the way lawn mowers process the fuel that is burned is done so is a far more pollutive manner than with cars that have filters and converters and such.

[HereSince1628]

2. My "lawn" is 54 acres of alfalfa...I've almost escaped suburbia

And I feel GREAT; 7 out of 8 exurbanites recommend alfalfa over fescues.

[Deep13]

3. The lawn is just there. I don't do anything except mow.

The only reason I mow is to keep it up to code.

[Arkansas Granny]

8. That's all I do to mine.

[GliderGuider]

4. Try putting in something useful like vegetables.

Nothing beats good home-grown. Tomatoes, zucchini and Swiss chard, that is.

Nobody except sheep ranchers should have sheep pasture around their house.

[hobbit709]

7. Don't want to run around barefoot

in the tomatoes. They're squishy and get between your toes.
Besides my yard is mostly native grasses, some weeds, a couple of wild pepper plants-tasty and HOT and in the springtime I have wild onions. I mow maybe 3 times a year.

[TwilightGardener]

5. LOL! My lawn is killing itself, it doesn't need my help. But I have some

acreage in Colorado (out on the high plains), and when I eventually move there it will all be native grasses--no lawn.

[eggplant]

6. With today's weather in the northeast...

...I doubt anyone is concerned about draught. We just mow our yard when it gets tall, to keep down the deer tick risk.

[seemunkee]

9. Does crabgrass and ground ivy count

If so its already done.

[TwilightGardener]

15. Sounds exactly like mine, crabgrass and ground ivy and dandelions--

if I killed the weeds, I would have no actual lawn.

[MuseRider]

10. Native Buffalo grass.

Does it look nice? Sometimes. Do we have to mow? Not really. Get the right kind and it does not get very tall.

Native is the way to go, always has been. I would never put all that chemical crap around my house or my animals.

[Buzz Clik]

18. Buffalo grass. The lawn for people who don't want a lawn.

Doesn't green up until June. Goes dormant in September. Soft as a briar patch. It's just one step above gravel.

[hobbit709]

20. Grows just fine here in Austin

Stays green until August, turns green again when it rains and feels just great when walking on it.

[hunter]

21. Got rid of the lawn out front, have a Darwin lawn out back.

One of the reasons we chose this place is that there are no codes or homeowner associations telling us how to landscape.

In our back yard our "lawn" is whatever survives the electric lawnmower, the kids, the dogs, and the gophers. No chemicals. It's surrounded by a lot of things that look pretty and make food. The birds, the spiders, the ants, the salamanders, the frogs, and the lizards do an adequate job of insect control, and the only real problem is the ant's desire to raise aphids on the fruit trees, but there are organic ways of discouraging that if the little birds and ladybugs don't happen to eat all the aphids before the ants get ideas.

[InvisibleTouch]

24. Now THAT sounds perfect!

I'm officially jealous. :)

[YankeyMCC]

22. It's a serious topic but

believe me my lawn needs now help being killed :)

I do nothing and it shows. I do mow it once a month (it's real small) but I think soon even that will become unnecessary.

[InvisibleTouch]

23. My dogs have gotten a good start on it. ;)

But I've never understood how a trimmed and managed monoculture has come to be a standard of "homeowner status." I hate the lawncare companies that spray poison, and the whole obsessive ritual of water-and-mow. What's truly sick is that unless you're living in the middle of nowhere, the neighbors and city laws will force you into compliance with all that bullshit. How warped is it to douse the ground with clean drinking water - not to water crops or food plants or trees that positively affect the microclimate - but just to make it "look pretty." It's a system rife for collapse.

[NMDemDist2]

26. i'm working on it. I live in a high plains desert and I have three critieria on what

gets water

1. does it feed me?

2. does it cut the wind?

3. does it shade the house in summer?

if it doesn't do at least one of the above, it ain't getting any water from me. If Nature chooses to water it, I won't complain, but other than food, it better be self sufficient within 5 years

;)