https://www.fs.fed.us/nrs/pubs/jrnl/2018/nrs_2018_Lerman_001... may suggest that is not the case. > Bee abundance differed among mowing treatments (p = 0.002), such that lawns mowed every two weeks had significantly more bees compared with the weekly and every three-week treatment (Fig. 4c, Tables 1, 2).
Bees aren’t the only insects. There may be spiders eating them. Habitat destruction leading to one species expanding doesn’t mean it’s beneficial to the ecosystem.
Anyone look into how the noise might affect insects/animals? Personally, nothing ruins my day more than hearing a lawn mower starting on a quiet morning or afternoon.
I don't know about op but keep in mind it's a big country. Very close in size to continental USA. With as much climate variation. Sydney for example has a higher annual rainfall than places that Americans consider rainy (eg. Seattle). Combine that with warmer temperatures and in many parts of Australia you are fighting a potential jungle more than fighting desertification. Canberra, the capital, on the other hand reg…
> higher annual rainfall than places that Americans consider rainy (eg. Seattle) a surprising amount of the US gets more rainfall than Seattle https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-17/this-simp...
Looking at that map, there are very few places that rain as often as Seattle. Most of the US that gets more precipitation, gets it in large downpours (thunderstorms).
Are you construing a requirement to have a lawn as prohibiting more intensive gardening? I have never heard of that. What I do see all the time is the front setback given over 100% to driveway and parking. These neighborhoods become very drab, even though if you look on satellite view there’s plenty of plant life - it’s just all locked away in private backyards. My personal preference is neither. Pull the buildings r…
Yes, a lawn precludes an alternative usage of that space. That's just physics.
I just checked my local code and it calls for “lawn, ground cover, hedges, bushes, or other vegetation, maintained as necessary to create a neat and attractive appearance.”
That seems reasonable. Are you seeing codes that require specifically grass and not other vegetation?
I don't feel the same way about bacteria colonizing my skin as I do about an ecologically dead crop monoculture that came into style among the British nobility as a way to show off wealth (look peasants! I don't need to grow food with my land) If I ignore the smell of my body I'll eventually be rewarded with a staph infection or worse. If I don't use grass monoculture on my lawn I eventually am rewarded with pollinat…
I can’t imagine getting so worked up over lawns that I post this frothy rage.
In my neighborhood, green lawns are frowned upon and most yards are left unmowed for the duration of the summer. Some are mowed infrequently for insurance reasons. Others are mowed frequently. It's grown on me and now I find the diverse array of wildflowers and grasses to a mowed yard. As a result, I've progressively become more curious about the results of different lawn maintenance strategies. Here what I've observed: (1) Many plants seem to require their seeds to stay on the plant until late autumn to effectively reproduce. Mowing, even if only in the late summer, seems to disrupt the overall plant diversity. Unmowed lawns have the most diversity. (2) Invasive plant species thrive because they are able to colonize recently disturbed soil most quickly, crowding out other species. They are incredibly effective at colonizing infrequently mowed yards. The unmowed yards have the least number of invasive plants. (3) Native species seems to be far more drought resistant than grass. They maintain a green appearance long after the grass has turned brown. (4) Bees are far more plentiful around large flowering plants which have been allowed to grow in unmowed yards than the clover found in infrequently mowed yards.
Yes, a lawn precludes an alternative usage of that space. That's just physics.
I just checked my local code and it calls for “lawn, ground cover, hedges, bushes, or other vegetation, maintained as necessary to create a neat and attractive appearance.” That seems reasonable. Are you seeing codes that require specifically grass and not other vegetation?
Yes that is what this thread of discussion is about.
> I don't understand why a lot of people have a lawn in the first place
I don't feel the same way about bacteria colonizing my skin as I do about an ecologically dead crop monoculture that came into style among the British nobility as a way to show off wealth (look peasants! I don't need to grow food with my land) If I ignore the smell of my body I'll eventually be rewarded with a staph infection or worse. If I don't use grass monoculture on my lawn I eventually am rewarded with pollinat…
> Lawns require 200 gallons of drinking water per day.
What horseshit is this ? What water-hungry grass do you use ?
I consider clover to be a weed and go to great lengths to eradicate it. People underestimate how many people just want lawns of perfect, green, undifferentiated grass.
What a waste of time, energy, and resources to maintain something so unnatural. Truly a testament to man's hubris against nature.
"Natural" at my house would be forest. I'd like some local "weeds" instead of grass, but all I get are invasive species, generally from Europe. I don't use herbicide, in any case, and the area is too large to remove all the weeds by hand.