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Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’

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Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’

#161

Post by cptskippy »

pm215 wrote: post #126
vanderZwan wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have to do a lot less maintenance, and when I do it's more varied and interesting. The irony is that people think a lawn is easier to maintain because it looks simpler

It is simpler in the sense that there is not really any thought required. I have to mow my small lawn every three weeks or so, true, but I know how to do that, because it's the same thing everybody does and you grow up watching your parents mow the lawn. It requires no judgement skills, and no gardening skills -- just run the mower over all the grass, and you're done. I would actually potentially be interested in hav…

I guess maybe that's a regional thing. In the southeast US, lawn care is a year round battle against weeds and invasive species. Without weeding and chemicals, grass can easily be choked out in one growing season. Mowing the actual lawn is a very small part of the regiment.

It's particularly difficult with the mild Winters we have had of late because it's almost as if spring goes from December to May now. Sods like Bermuda or St Augustine still go dormant in fall but the weeds don't stop growing.

Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’

#162

Post by dyeje »

pm215 wrote: post #126
vanderZwan wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have to do a lot less maintenance, and when I do it's more varied and interesting. The irony is that people think a lawn is easier to maintain because it looks simpler

It is simpler in the sense that there is not really any thought required. I have to mow my small lawn every three weeks or so, true, but I know how to do that, because it's the same thing everybody does and you grow up watching your parents mow the lawn. It requires no judgement skills, and no gardening skills -- just run the mower over all the grass, and you're done. I would actually potentially be interested in hav…

Installing a native lawn does require a startup cost, but it's not too bad. You kill your grass, lay down mulch, and plant the native species. After a few months of watering, your lawn is self sufficient and you don't have to do anything to it ever again. Picking out the native species might seem daunting, but there are many resources online these days to help you pick out a handful of native species that will work for your lawn.

Source: friends and I installed native lawns.

Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’

#163

Post by lr4444lr »

_qwfv wrote: post #25

Getting rid of our lawn and growing other stuff has been amazingly fulfilling. I have fresh produce most of the year, I've got honeybees and bumblebees and mason bees coming around. I have to do a lot less maintenance, and when I do it's more varied and interesting. Everything from fruit trees to berries, flowers to vegetables, herbs to herbal teas like chamomile. Strongly recommend looking at what will grow in your…

I have both a lawn, and a perimeter where I grow flowers, edibles, and trees. I am happy that you find your conversion satisfying, but there is no conceivable way I am going to believe the careful weeding, deadheading, variable watering, pruning, shading, trellising, etc. is less maintenance than simply running the mower and edger once a week at MOST, and relying on an automated sprinkler system. (Maybe a 2x/year weed and feed application too.)

Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’

#164

Post by Nasrudith »

weinzierl wrote: post #108

> “Get rid of your lawns,” she said. “Lawns are total biological deserts. It’s just grass with pesticides. The way it’s grown does not support a lot of biodiversity.” > Instead, plant native flowers that provide nectar and pollen for pollinators, Berenbaum said. I see this a lot recently where I live in Germany, but at the same time I see the opposite as well. Lawn replaced by gravel, often pitch black one. I don't m…

I think that is more about water usage in their original context but the kind of people who do it for fashion cargo-cult it as I don't believe Germany has desert biomes and are more likely in a "keep sonething green there for drainage" territory.

Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’

#165

Post by digitalsushi »

EricE wrote: post #124

Get rid of HOA’s first :/

Or if you want to be a bit of a rebel, make seed bombs: seeds mixed in with spheres of fertilizer, dried, and then lobbed onto the sides of roads (safely, at a low speed, and not to be destructive to personal property); you can litter with native species to help bee populations.

Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’

#166

Post by jsjohnst »

digitalsushi wrote: post #151
colechristensen wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My family never put anything on the, eh, 3 acres of grass I regularly had to mow as a kid. It wasn't perfect, nobody cared. There were dandelions, there was some clover. If you can bear to tolerate the fact that your lawn isn't going to look like a putting green, you can do literally nothing but cut it and perhaps water it if your climate requires and be done with it. If there are plants you don't want in your lawn,…

Some homeowner associations have rules about what can be grown on a property. Some (many? I'm not in a HOA) require it be a traditional lawn. Some people try to do alternative lawns like native bushes, or even raised bed gardens, and then have legal push back to turn it back into a lawn. I think it sucks.

My father constantly battled the HOA where I grew up. It was strictly written up in the HOA agreement the requirements around lawn care and changes to landscaping and I personally hated it as I was stuck doing the work (my father hated it for different reasons).

Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’

#167

Post by spodek »

Rob Greenfield's videos about living for a year in Orlando eating only food he grew himself or foraged from the wild are amazing stories of abundance https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHrhas5pE0W4rtw6yAsxi....

He found a few people to let him grow plants in their yards and ended up with abundance, diversity, and joy.

Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’

#168

Post by mooreds »

lr4444lr wrote: post #163
_qwfv wrote: post #25

Getting rid of our lawn and growing other stuff has been amazingly fulfilling. I have fresh produce most of the year, I've got honeybees and bumblebees and mason bees coming around. I have to do a lot less maintenance, and when I do it's more varied and interesting. Everything from fruit trees to berries, flowers to vegetables, herbs to herbal teas like chamomile. Strongly recommend looking at what will grow in your…

I have both a lawn, and a perimeter where I grow flowers, edibles, and trees. I am happy that you find your conversion satisfying, but there is no conceivable way I am going to believe the careful weeding, deadheading, variable watering, pruning, shading, trellising, etc. is less maintenance than simply running the mower and edger once a week at MOST, and relying on an automated sprinkler system. (Maybe a 2x/year wee…

Depends on how nice you want your yard to look (and how productive you want or need it to be). I am a big fan of the set and forget with a sprinkler system. Some stuff lives, some dies. I have had waves of different plants across the yard over the years. It's not tidy, but it's easy.

Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’

#169

Post by foxhop »

alex_duf wrote: post #156
foxhop wrote: post #153

I'm covering half my lawn with leaves, woodchips, and hugelkulture. I also have many editable perennials like strawberries and raspberries taking over a large portion of my old hillside lawn. I'm building systems which hold and sequester large amounts of both water and carbon. We should start a movement, I have an awesome domain name for the project, if anyone wants to join up, (unturf.com) I'm using less and less ga…

I'd like to know more about how you're achieving that. Any pointers or plans to write up what you've done?

Follow me on Mastodon for real-time ideas, strategies, processes:

https://social.unturf.com/@russell

I'll link to long form posts from there, planning a few soon.

Here are a couple basic posts to show examples of whats to come:

https://social.unturf.com/@russell/102787710856378930

https://social.unturf.com/@russell/102787713603718588

Here you can see me create both a garden path, and a new garden bed with nothing but a spade shovel and woodchips.

Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’

#170

Post by frockington1 »

digitalsushi wrote: post #165
EricE wrote: post #124

Get rid of HOA’s first :/

Or if you want to be a bit of a rebel, make seed bombs: seeds mixed in with spheres of fertilizer, dried, and then lobbed onto the sides of roads (safely, at a low speed, and not to be destructive to personal property); you can litter with native species to help bee populations.

Please do not encourage to trespassing and littering. While the reasoning is in good faith, most people will just see a trespasser on their property and may take action against you.
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