Lawns are Evil

[Cloud]

Living in the Southwest, there are very few people who have lawns. We just can no longer afford the water.

I do think there is something to be said for the (and against) the psychological effect of a wide expanse of glistening sward. It says: "I can do this better than you. I can afford the time and money and to waste water on this."

But house's footprints bother me some; and urban permaculture interests me more. Here's a guy who is campaigning to turn front lawns into productive, food growing spaces:

Edible Estates

[Weird Harold]

Glistening sward sounds so dirty. Now I have to look up sward, and find out what one is.

[monster]

Lawns are for fun. Vegetables get damaged when you wrestle on them, asphalt hurts, shrubs do not join in the game and will not give you your ball back.

[piercehawkeye45]

A garden would be great for an older couple but it is nice to have a lawn for kids unless there is a good park nearby.

[Kingswood]

My lawn is struggling to survive in the drought. Right now, it's mostly green bits shouting defiance at the waterless sky, surrounded by large bare patches where the grass has given up the ghost and returned to the dust from whence it came.

I never water the lawn. Especially right now when watering it is illegal due to water restrictions. Some autumn rain has made parts of the lawn green again, and it may yet return to the green vigour it once had. But right now it's looking rather like a bald man with a combover.

[Hyoi]

Living in the Southwest, there are very few people who have lawns. We just can no longer afford the water......Cloud

I came very close to accepting a position with the drilling division of the Nuclear Test Facility near Las Vegas. If I had decided to live in the Vegas suburbs, I would have been condemned to an hour long bus ride every work day, so I decided to continue to suffer the Houston humidity. Every home I saw there had rock gardens instead of lawns, cacti, the whole bit, and they looked great to me. Of course, after the flight back my first chore was to mow the effing lawn. Stupid me.

[glatt]

I think there's some grass in my lawn. Mostly its just various weeds. Some of them, I can identify. Others, I can't. We've got a good crop of dandelions growing in the front yard now.

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by glatt

I think there's some grass in my lawn. Mostly its just various weeds. Some of them, I can identify. Others, I can't. We've got a good crop of dandelions growing in the front yard now.

Pretty yellow dandelions have gotten a bad rap, I say!

[Cloud]

you're growing food--dandelions are edible. If you don't put weed-killer on them, that is!

[glatt]

If I killed the weeds, all I would have is bare dirt. No lawn at all.

No weed killer here.

[Sundae]

I don't think small lawns are worth the effort.
We ruined my parents' every summer with our swing, tent, paddling pool etc and wore patches bare simply by being there.

It was horrible to lie out on because of the ants, hard and knobbly to fall on and would have great growth spurts timed when it was especially miserable weather so my poor old Dad got nagged about mowing it for days.

My dream house will have a lovely big deck and then either a sunken brick terrace, with a vegetable patch at the end (although I will be happiest if someone else is prepared to look after it).

My best friend when I was at school had a half lawn/ half vegetable patch garden and I spent many happy hours helping to pick and prune and weed (proving that children will enjoy anything as long as it's not their own parents asking them to do it).

[Weird Harold]

Originally Posted by glatt

If I killed the weeds, all I would have is bare dirt. No lawn at all.

No weed killer here.

I now have a song from Hee Haw stuck in my head. If it wern't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all. Gloom, despair, and agony on me.

[Undertoad]

If it wern't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.

I now have a Albert Bell/Cream/Pat Travers song stuck in my head.

[monster]

Originally Posted by Sundae Girl

I don't think small lawns are worth the effort.
We ruined my parents' every summer with our swing, tent, paddling pool etc and wore patches bare simply by being there.

It was horrible to lie out on because of the ants, hard and knobbly to fall on and would have great growth spurts timed when it was especially miserable weather so my poor old Dad got nagged about mowing it for days.

My dream house will have a lovely big deck and then either a sunken brick terrace, with a vegetable patch at the end (although I will be happiest if someone else is prepared to look after it).

My best friend when I was at school had a half lawn/ half vegetable patch garden and I spent many happy hours helping to pick and prune and weed (proving that children will enjoy anything as long as it's not their own parents asking them to do it).

Lawns are so different here. And so easy in the Midwest (although Michigan is very much north and somewhat east of centre, it's apparently in the Midwest ) Plant stuff is such a doddle here, I now can't believe how hard it was to get stuff to grow in Birmingham. And lawns are bigger. In the UK, we used to struggle to keep 9*9 foot of lawn alive. Here, we could trash that and reseed it and it'd be back to normal by the end of the month. fantastic.

BTW my 9yo daughter was out voluntarily weeding the front garden after school today. She begged to be allowed to do it

(Multiple flower beds are called "English gardens" round here. Gardening just isn't a big thing compared to the UK. Shame, when the climate is so perfect. In general, in the "cookie-cutter" neighborhoods it's shove in a few symmetrical shrubs, mulch and grass the rest and you're done. Low maintenance. If you feel adventurous, throw in a few pre-grown annual plants every now and then, and when they die through lack of water, get some more.)

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Weird Harold

Glistening sward sounds so dirty.

The sward is only dirty on the bottom, Harold.

Now, glistening furze -- that's dirty. :p Sometimes.