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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’

#251
post #247

A fairly large chunk of the border areas around my lawn are left wild with trees and tall grasses and etc. But otherwise I have kids and such a while they love to climb through the wild areas, they also love playing on the open lawn too.... I'm not ready to take that from them even if it was feasible. If I were in the southwest where lawns were more or less optional then yeah, but not where I am now.

Nature is just starting to tell us that our way of life isn't sustainable.

There are more sustainable ways to live, we just have to be open to discussing them. You want a lawn - how often do your children play on it? An hour per day? That means your lawn is unused 96% of the time.

How about we redesign our living spaces so we have one large common lawn that many residences can share. Kids will be more encouraged to play outside and play together. And we can put markets within walking distance of these residences, and movie theaters and other stores.

Suddenly our children are more social, we're getting more exercise, driving less, not having insect-killing monospecies lawns that aren't used 96% of the time and many other benefits.

There are solutions to this but if we put our fingers in our ears and say we want things how they've been for the last 60 years then we are no smarter than the cyanobacteria that converted so much carbon dioxide to oxygen that they suffocated themselves 2.5 billion years ago.

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

#252

I can't get rid of my lawn. I would be sued by my HOA and fined and eventually evicted.

You could try finding like minded people in your HOA and then bring suggestions & alternatives (zero-spacing, clover, etc.) to the HOA meetings. Of course many HOAs are controlled & populated by retired boomers so YMMV.

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

#253
post #251
post #247

A fairly large chunk of the border areas around my lawn are left wild with trees and tall grasses and etc. But otherwise I have kids and such a while they love to climb through the wild areas, they also love playing on the open lawn too.... I'm not ready to take that from them even if it was feasible. If I were in the southwest where lawns were more or less optional then yeah, but not where I am now.

Nature is just starting to tell us that our way of life isn't sustainable. There are more sustainable ways to live, we just have to be open to discussing them. You want a lawn - how often do your children play on it? An hour per day? That means your lawn is unused 96% of the time. How about we redesign our living spaces so we have one large common lawn that many residences can share. Kids will be more encouraged to p…

While I appreciate your general design point.

My neighborhood probabbly isn't going to be reconfigured anytime soon... so that really didn't change anything.

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

#254
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going for a perfectly maintained look to wild plantings, then yeah, that's a a lot of work. We've replaced our lawn with wild savanna, and it's zero work. We just let it go. It looks totally wild, and I'm happy with that. (Getting it in place - removing the invasives, improving the soil, planting trees, and spreading native wildflower and grass seeds was a lot of work - but since its established its very li…

Oh- so you're that neighbor. It's not just a change in your aesthetics that's needed. If you live in a community then it's prudent to get community buy-in. Especially if you have kids. Community reputation means a lot more than some people realize. Source: I've been on both sides of this one.

That horrible neighbour growing native plants and attracting pollinators? The horror of it.

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

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it is unreasonable to want to surround oneself with like-minded individuals? I am not trying to imply the opposite isn't _also_ reasonable.

Yes. It is particularly unreasonable to want to surround yourself with individuals who think grass lawns, kept cut to a uniform length between 4" and 8", are a good idea, and a worthy goal for landscaping. That's a 1946 ideal. In the same way that it was a 1946 ideal to build a residential-only neighborhood away from the big city, with racist covenants and redlines to keep the black people out. It was designed to evo…

Nobody is being forced to purchase property governed by an HOA. If you want the freedom to choose how you maintain your property, just... live somewhere else. To be clear, I'm not advocating for these schemes (and would personally never live in such a place), but the idea that it's _unreasonable_ to have a preference is silly. People are allowed to have opinions.

The irony here is that your response violates the very same principals for which you seem to be advocating. "If you want _____, follow my instructions exactly". Hmmm....

- I am fully aware that the kinds of rules, in particular, that spurned this conversation have been (and likely continue to be) abused as a facade to hide bigoted motivations. I absolutely DO NOT condone the tactic of using "personal freedom" as a means to promote these kinds of views. That IS NOT the point I was trying to make, rather, that people often _do want_ to surround themselves with like-minded people. The social science on this is crystal clear.

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

#256
post #253
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nature is just starting to tell us that our way of life isn't sustainable. There are more sustainable ways to live, we just have to be open to discussing them. You want a lawn - how often do your children play on it? An hour per day? That means your lawn is unused 96% of the time. How about we redesign our living spaces so we have one large common lawn that many residences can share. Kids will be more encouraged to p…

While I appreciate your general design point. My neighborhood probabbly isn't going to be reconfigured anytime soon... so that really didn't change anything.

My neighborhood probabbly isn't going to be reconfigured anytime soon

The problem is new neighborhoods are being put up literally every day across the country and we are cookie-cutting them out the same way we've done since the 1940s because everyone has the same attitude you've exhibited of "Don't care, want my lawn."

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

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it is unreasonable to want to surround oneself with like-minded individuals? I am not trying to imply the opposite isn't _also_ reasonable.

Yes. It is particularly unreasonable to want to surround yourself with individuals who think grass lawns, kept cut to a uniform length between 4" and 8", are a good idea, and a worthy goal for landscaping. That's a 1946 ideal. In the same way that it was a 1946 ideal to build a residential-only neighborhood away from the big city, with racist covenants and redlines to keep the black people out. It was designed to evo…

Conversely, if you don’t want to adhere to agreed community standards then don’t move into an area with a home owner’s association who meet, agree and try to enforce those standards.

Go grow your wildflowers on your nice, square mile of property in the country instead.

There’s nothing admirable about petty rebels who’ll cry “racism” at the first sign of something they disagree with.

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

#258
post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In New England letting grasses flourish would also provide a home for ticks and Lyme disease. I try to be friendly to pollinators but unfriendly to ticks.

Get a couple chickens? I'm only partially joking, they do eat a ton of ticks.

But then you need coyotes to control the chicken population in your yard.

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

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you're going for a perfectly maintained look to wild plantings, then yeah, that's a a lot of work. We've replaced our lawn with wild savanna, and it's zero work. We just let it go. It looks totally wild, and I'm happy with that. (Getting it in place - removing the invasives, improving the soil, planting trees, and spreading native wildflower and grass seeds was a lot of work - but since its established its very li…

I think about the generation that first started having lawns and how they came from farm country and knew all about having native/weed "lawns". The hay fever, the bugs and parasites, the snakes, all this drove them to appreciate a nice fresh lawn your kids could roll around on and enjoy.

It's gonna be a hard sell to get people to enjoy something their grandparents overwhelmingly knew to be inferior.

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