Lawn & Order
Photo by Bernd Opitz/Getty Images
Chez Chekhov is on the second floor of an apartment rental, and other than the jungle wilds of darkest Sumatra our laissez-faire landlord allows to flourish unbridled in the backyard, we have no greenery to speak of. Yet color me unsurprised when I discovered that lawns are the single most irrigated crop in terms of surface area in the U.S.—about 128,000 square kilometers or 40 million acres in all. NASA researcher Christina Milesi estimates we pour as much as 238 gallons of fresh, usually drinking-quality water per person, per day, to keep our lawns pert and verdant. Now consider that more than 1 billion people lack access to a safe supply of drinking water, holding water-related diseases responsible for 80 percent of illnesses—and the loss of 14,000 lives a day—around one thirsty globe.
Any carbon-dioxide-absorbing benefits lawn surfaces provide as they grow are offset by the 800 million gallons of gas burned annually by lawnmowers chugging along the grassy perimeters. And if people bag their lawn clippings and toss them into the landfill, instead of recycling the clippings on the grass, the oxygen-starved conditions actually increase the production of greenhouse gas methane.
We haven’t even touched upon the estimated tens of millions of pounds of fertilizers and pesticides homeowners often apply to their lawns at many times the recommended levels. “For what purpose?” Sally Kneidel kvetches on her blog. “Most yards don’t grow a single thing we use for food or clothing or fiber—they’re purely ornamental.” Nitrogen runoff from fertilizers is also a major source of water pollution, resulting in algae overgrowth and the development of dead zones where any chance of aquatic life is pretty much toast.
In most of the U.S., lawns aren’t natural, Milesi says.
When she had the ecosystem computer models generate a “control” scenario in which lawns were not irrigated or fertilized, she says, “The only places I could grow grass in the conterminous U.S. were a few areas in the Northeast and the Great Plains.” Everywhere else, lawns have to be coddled to keep them going and to keep weeds and other plants from taking over.
Now, a “delawning” movement is making its way across the country, replacing the ubiquitous lawn with native plants “from prairie grasses in suburban Chicago to cactus gardens in Tucson,” harkening back to an earlier period in history when yards were regarded as utilitarian spaces for raising vegetables and small livestock.
From the New York Times:
“Diversity is healthy,” [Fritz Haeg, founder of Edible Estates] said. “The pioneers were ecologically-minded out of sheer necessity, because they had to eat what they grew. But we’ve lost touch with the garden as a food source.”
Of further interest:
1. How to Convert a Lawn to a Native Meadow or Woodland
2. Native Plant Finder
3. Buzz Kill: Wild Bees and Flowers Disappearing, Study Says
Tash said,
July 21, 2006 at 6:59 am
Oh how I agree! Our garden, although in part used to grow ‘pretty’ things (which are used, not just aesthetically but also practically - i.e. in pot-pourri and medicinally), we actually grow food. We have not put one non-organic chemical on our garden in the year that we’ve been here so far and have an area specifically marked-out for ‘wild’ plants to grow, encouraging a plethora of wonderful insects. However, I do know people (neighbours) who do put large amounts of chemicals onto their lawns, and onto their vegetables, in order to keep them looking pristine. This to me is the silliest thing possible! But pointing this out to them would turn friendly neighbours into less-friendly ones!
Oh, and at some point I’ll send you the chutney recipe if you’d like it - easy to make and great if you grow your own tomatoes!
Is your ‘green area’ actually useable by yourselves? If so, what about putting a few veg-beds in? Not as aesthetically pleasing as flowers, but if the beds are taken out of the lawn, if you move out, the land can simply be re-sown with grass seed and no-one will be the wiser!
Kathy said,
July 21, 2006 at 12:23 pm
Also of interest, “Suburban Safari, a year on the lawn” (http://www.powells.com/n/99/biblio/7-1582344795-1) detailing one woman’s scientific survey of her (natural, unwatered, unfertilized) ordinary suburban lawn and the wild diversity of great creatures that call it home. There are warnings out here for Marin county to stop wasting so damn much water on their lawns. I very nearly flipped out when I came home yesterday and someone had put a sprinkler in our garden, in the sun-beating-down afternoon. Are you people mad?!
marie aka the FertilityBitch said,
July 21, 2006 at 4:32 pm
Great post! We live in the middle of Providence, RI, the lead paint capital of the world, so we can’t plant veggies (I do, in pots) in our front yard, which is basically our only extant yard, as we live on a literally small footprint. We went to to the Brown urban eco lab to see what were cool native plants (echinacea, black eyed susans, bee balm) and replaced the lame-o grass with these hardy flowers that need to pesticide, fertilizer, and basically seed themselves.
The other day, I was noticing that the garden was attracting things I hadn’t seen in ages: monarch butterflies. Plus bees and all sorts of other happy things, making it an interesting moving buzzing mix of urban eco system surrounded by a dead sea of perfect green chemlawns (and those damn leaf-blowers!!!). I hadn’t noticed the lack of butterflies and bugs before, because often when you don’t see, you don’t miss. We need to diversifiy even urban spaces!
cheers,
marie @ GreenFertility
meranie said,
July 21, 2006 at 4:59 pm
Oh, the memories. My mom and I would fight over who mowed the lawn (we both enjoy doing it)…. and, despite the fact that the last few years NC has been suffering droughts, we’ve never (to my knowledge) watered the lawn, nor used chemicals! The places where grass doesn’t grow (i.e. our walking paths) my dad put a patio down and my mom built a few little gardens. I can’t wait to get a place of my own, in the ’states, where I can have gardens galore… My current place is not meant to have all the plants I’m growing.
I miss lawns, because they don’t grow grass here (except in parks, and it’s a different kind of grass, the kind that grows to over-your-head level before it gets ‘mowed’ by a team of guys armed with weed wackers).
Speaking of water-consciousness, there’s a gardening technique that uses less land and if you water it from the top, less water… I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s like a spiral, with the highest point at the top. If you plant certain herbs at the top and certain herbs at the bottom, with a small amount of water you can effectively water all your plants.
Anonymous said,
July 21, 2006 at 6:49 pm
Lawn and Order
Green blogger “Worsted Witch” offers an excellent summary of the environmental impact of lawns, covering biodiversity, water use, pesticides and more.
Melissa said,
July 21, 2006 at 6:50 pm
I’m “anonymous” from the trackback above. I thought this was such a great entry that I “hugged” you! (My first hugg ever :))
mim said,
July 22, 2006 at 11:06 am
I think it is a conspiracy to keep us distracted so the big dogs can keep up their evil machinations. We are kept seduced into the sham of the quest for the perfect green lawn via subliminal images in advertizing and of course overt propaganda in prosports: the image of teh baseball diamond and football fields. Kind of like bread and circus the roman leaders used to keep the masses happy. Sort of tongue in cheek, of course, but a kernal of truth too.
Ben M said,
July 24, 2006 at 6:52 pm
Hi,
I’m completely in favor of de-lawning; I really enjoy walking around the Las Cruces, NM, where the vast majority of lawns are native cacti over lava rock.
However, I’m not completely on board with your line of argumentation. Over-irrigation of lawns in the US is completely irrelevant to issues of thirst, drought, and water quality in the rest of the world. The only way to solve water problems in East Africa, South Asia, etc., is to invest in local pumps/dams/treatment facilities very close to the affected people. The problems are *not* solved by having Americans conserve water—we can’t bottle it and export it. We can’t build canals or pipelines.
To a large extent, conservation is a watershed-by-watershed issue. Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and so on are straining their local supplies, and further east the Ogallala Aquifer is being depleted, etc., so lawn reduction is a vitally important issue in these and other regions. It’s always better for the environment (and the ratepayer) to build a *smaller* reservior, a *smaller* treatment plant, etc., so lowering water demand is a useful thing to do even in the soggy Northeast.
So, yeah, I’m happy to see the delawning movement gathering momentum, I don’t like the “There’s not enough clean water in Bangladesh, so let’s conserve in Peoria” argument. It’s a non sequitur.
Outside of the dry regions, where I’m appalled by the number of golf courses, I’m much more concerned about the lawnmower fuel and fertilizer runoff. Don’t forget insecticides, fungicides, and herbicides—people really heap that stuff on, and some common chemicals seem to mimic human and animal hormones. The other issue worth highlighting is the survival of bees (and biodiversity generally) which are mentioned in one of your links.
Jasmin said,
July 24, 2006 at 6:57 pm
Reposted from e-mail:
===
Hi Ben,
I wasn’t saying we should transport our water to Bangladesh etc … just some numbers to put our wastage into perspective.
===
Oh, also that the resources we’re depleting so thoughtlessly could be better applied elsewhere. (Even people living in arguably the most powerful nation face water problems. See SFGate article here.)
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