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Comment by gambler | Hacker News Reader

Lawns are one of the most ridiculous human inventions I have ever observed. You take normal self-sufficient grass out, then reseed with some sort of crippled grass that needs constant fertilization and watering. To make things worse, you mandate it to be unnaturally short, so people have to constantly mow and use herbicides to keep the normal grass out. And all of this is made mandatory for some reason. Aside from creating grass mono-cultures, this is just a gigantic waster of time and resources that doesn't produce anything in return.

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Lawns are a much more natural phenomenon in England, where the grass is native (apparently "Kentucky Bluegrass" is actually from Europe!) and they can be maintained organically. Capability Brown pre-dates the Haber process. It rains often enough that they don't need much watering if the soil is good.

Unfortunately in recent years global warming has made summers longer, hotter and drier and the natural temperate "lawn zone" is moving northwards. England will more and more see "hosepipe bans" against using clean water in gardens.

People choosing lawns in dry, unnatural areas of America are doing so to replicate some European ideal. People mandating lawns are doing so to mandate the Europeanness of their neighbours.

(A good summary: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/anthropology-in-practic... )

Granted I skimmed through it, but I could see no mention in that summary of organically maintained lawns. It does mention the English roots, but those were maintained by gardeners for upper class estates.

Lawns are historically grazed fields. That's organically maintained I guess, but no one has a lawn like that today, not even in England.

A lawn is very different to a grazed field.

Here in the UK, in an average garden, you'll have no issues you want to keep a lawn - simply mow once a month at most, and maybe water in the middle of summer. Really isn't hard to look after here - my parents even leave the cuttings where they fall as the worms will pull them into the soil pretty fast if you let them.

Not really true. Depending on rabbit population, or if you have a goat, you can fairly straightforwardly maintain a lawn without mowing. You have to be happy with random rabbit carcasses / holes though. It does take some care (in regards to what you do with fertilizer) if you don't want weeds, but if you keep the land very barren, the only 'weeds' you'll get are wild flowers.

Obviously this all depends on drainage/soil type.

Lawns are useful for standing on outdoors, given that they are not up to your knees, not concrete, and not dirt. That's why most people maintain them. If you never go outside then there is not much need for a lawn.

You know what's even better for standing on outdoors? The actual outdoors. Any park, arboretum, nature trail, beach, etc. The only people who need lawns are the ones who want to pretend they're enjoying the outdoors but can't actually stand to be more than fifty feet from their fridge at any time.

It's nice to get in the car and drive to a park, arboretum, nature trail or beach, but if you have a to-do list for the day (or have just come home from work, or are about to leave for work), then the only practical way to enjoy the outdoors is if you can fire up the grill in a small piece of it that you maintain for yourself. It is also a lot better to host social events on private land, because you will not contradict with anybody else's events, and you have the resources of your house.

You don't have to drive to find those things. Even the densest cities have parks. You can walk, you can bike, you can take public transit. I have a pretty long to-do list myself, but I can still find more natural places than my yard when I go for a run five or more days out of seven.

If you choose to host social events on your own property, that's fine. Houses are great for that. But is it really worth it to maintain a yard 365 days a year for those hypothetical three that you use it for entertaining? Is it worth it for everyone to do that, at such environmental cost? The universe is not all about your pleasure.

In my case, my hobbies preclude living in an apartment, so I do have to drive to find those things.

I'd love it if we had denser, walk-able, and affordable village style housing developments in America, but we don't.

Who said anything about an apartment? If you have a house in the 'burbs you probably have even more natural environments within walking or biking distance. Let's pull up Google Maps and see. I've been in many cities and suburbs across the US and in other parts of the world. Literally all of them had some green space within what I'd consider easy range. I'd be very surprised if it's any different where you are.

>I've been in many cities and suburbs across the US and in other parts of the world. Literally all of them had some green space within what I'd consider easy range. I'd be very surprised if it's any different where you are.

Then you haven't lived in low density suburbs/rural areas, you're very lucky, or you and I have different definitions of "easy range". There is a park about 5 miles from my house. Too far for an easy walk and even if it was, most of that is on a divided highway with no sidewalks that would be crazy to walk on.

Technically biking would work, but I'm not risking my life to drive down a divided highway with cars going 65+mph to bike to a crappy baseball park.

The closest park that is anything more than a few baseball fields is just under 15 minutes away by car, and I'm about 25 minutes from the downtown area of a major city (with no traffic).

This is normal for most of rural and suburban America.

I'm pretty skeptical about those claims. What metropolitan area is this? Let's look at a map. Are you sure you're not just being too picky about what kind of green space qualifies for you?

Atlanta. Have you spent enough time in rural and low density suburban areas to warrant your skepticism? You don't tend to see much of this kind of area when you visit because it's not near anything except houses.

Plenty of people out here (most where I'm at) live in subdivisions off of highways that would be absurd to bike on, and almost nowhere in my county has sidewalks.

>Are you sure you're not just being too picky about what kind of green space qualifies for you?

There's a cemetery that shows up as green on Google maps that's a bit closer than the park I mentioned. Still not safe to walk or bike to.

You are vastly underestimating how hostile most of the US is to biking/walking.

> Have you spent enough time in rural and low density suburban areas to warrant your skepticism?

Well, let's see. I've lived in cities of multiple sizes - Wellington, Detroit, Ann Arbor. I've lived in both inner and outer suburbs of Detroit and Boston. I've spent significant time visiting Silicon Valley and Seattle, shorter times visiting a few dozen other cities both in the US and internationally. Is that Scotsman enough for you?

My experience is that the cities have parks and (usually) mass transit. Inner suburbs also have parks, plus sports fields and playgrounds that residents can use when school's not in session. By the time you get to the outer suburbs, you can add patches and strips of undeveloped but still accessible woodland. The configuration changes, but the green's always there. Often all you need to do is find someone walking their dog and follow them, because they'll go to those places for exercise and socialization.

Maybe there's a peculiarly southern kind of sprawl in which all of the land for miles in any direction is enclosed in people's yards, but I just spot checked around Atlanta and there don't seem to be any places like that except for the airport. You don't live at the airport, do you? Sure, there aren't many green patches in a plain street view, but switch to satellite view and there's plenty. There are probably woodlands with cut trails near you that you don't even know about. At most it looks like you might have to go ~3000 feet (barely half a mile) to find something, so I think I'm going to stand by my theory that you're ruling out valid options.

>Is that Scotsman enough for you?

No it's not. With the exception of Wellington (don't know enough about it to know) those are all much higher density areas than the vast majority of the US.

As to the places you've visited, there is almost zero reason you would have spent much time in the areas I'm talking about while visiting.

>Maybe there's a peculiarly southern kind of sprawl in which all of the land for miles in any direction is enclosed in people's yards, but I just spot checked around Atlanta and there don't seem to be any places like that except for the airport. You don't live at the airport, do you? Sure, there aren't many green patches in a plain street view, but switch to satellite view and there's plenty. There are probably woodlands with cut trails near you that you don't even know about. At most it looks like you might have to go ~3000 feet (barely half a mile) to find something, so I think I'm going to stand by my theory that you're ruling out valid options.

No I don't, but this is absurd. Sure there are woods out behind my house because I own them, and there are trails through them because I made them.

All of the undeveloped land nearby is owned by someone else. We don’t have a right to roam in the US. You don’t just go walking onto someone else’s land--that’s a good way to get shot, or at the very least get a visit from the county sheriff. Just walking down the road outside of a subdivision around here will get weird looks from people (mostly because it’s not safe because the roads weren’t designed for it)--a large adult man walking through their property will definitely prompt a negative response.

When I was a kid we used to wander off into the woods behind a neighbor's house, and I used to explore the golf course nearby, but we got chased off by people, dogs, and cops as well.

Even if I did find a neighbor with land who was willing to let me use it, I couldn’t get to it without walking down divided highway unless it was in my subvision.

> those are all much higher density areas than the vast majority of the US

Don't you mean the vast majority of the tiny corner you know? You haven't even mentioned ever living anywhere else, let alone in the same variety of places I have, so I'll take your claims about vast majorities with more than one grain of salt. Maybe you really do live in a place uniquely deprived of public green space (though that's still unsubstantiated by actual maps or anything). If so, it's still your choice and you're welcome to it. It doesn't change reality for the true vast majority. Enjoy life in your self-made closet.

>Don't you mean the vast majority of the tiny corner you know?

No, I meant exactly what I said. Objectively, the vast majority of the US has a lower population density than most of the places you mentioned.

>Maybe you really do live in a place uniquely deprived of public green space (though that's still unsubstantiated by actual maps or anything)

It's not unique or unsubstantiated. Here's a study that says for people in small towns there the average distance to a park is 6.1 miles--that's consistent with my experience. Even in cities (outside of the city center--there it's 0.7 miles) the average distance is over a mile, and in the suburbs it's over 2 miles. [1]

If there are few nearby parks, what options are there? Trails on undeveloped land you mentioned? Who owns this land? Take a look at the green space on a satellite map in the metro Atlanta area. If it's not a park (or similar like a WMA), a private individual owns it. You completely ignored my point about trespassing on private land to start a pissing contest about who's lived in more cities.

The US is not a very walkable country, it shouldn't be so shocking to you that vast swaths of the country lack public greenspace that's accessible without a car.

>Enjoy life in your self-made closet.

I have plenty of green space of my own (complete with the odd deer, wild turkey, coyotes, foxes--hell I even had an escaped emu run through my back yard once) and a car (that I used to drive to the Smoky Mountains last week). Sure I'd like it if the US was more walkable, but the way development is currently done means the trade offs of living in a more walkable area aren't worth it for me.

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3590901/

Your citation uses a very narrow definition of parks - government owned, set aside for that specific use. It doesn't include things like the walkable areas often around sports fields, which are pretty much everywhere. It doesn't include private parks or areas which are implicitly - or quite often explicitly - open to the public. The vast majority of the population lives in cities or inner suburbs, and for them a walkable space is rarely even half a mile away.

And you're the one who started the pissing contest, by trying to claim that I'm unqualified to comment. Don't whine that you lost because your own horizon is so narrow.

>Your citation uses a very narrow definition of parks - government owned, set aside for that specific use.

No it doesn’t. Did you just make that up?

>It doesn't include things like the walkable areas often around sports fields, which are pretty much everywhere.

Sports fields are generally in parks, which are included in the data set. The vast majority of parks in rural and suburban areas are sports parks--definitely included in the data set.

Publically available sports fields not in parks tend to be part of schools. They aren’t always publically available, and they are never available during school hours. You certainly can’t use them to host events, grill out etc... Most of the school fields around here won’t even let you walk on the grass, and most of them keep the gates to the fields locked when school’s out.

>It doesn't include private parks or

Did you read the source? It even mentions that the dataset doesn’t different between private and public parks.

>areas which are implicitly - or quite often explicitly - open to the public.

An explicit public greenspace is a park. I’m not sure what an implicit public greenspace is. Undeveloped land that doesn’t have a no trespassing sign? Do you have any examples? Can you have a cookout on implicitly accessible land? Can you set up a volleyball net? Who’s cutting the grass? Clearing the trails? Can you even be sure you aren’t trespassing? When does it close? Will the police show up?

What implicity accessible land do you regularly use?

>The vast majority of the population lives in cities or inner suburbs,

When did we start talking about the majority of the population? I’ve specifically been talking about lower density areas throughout this entire thread.

>and for them a walkable space is rarely even half a mile away.

But while you’re on the subject... I assume you’re still talking about publicly accessible greenspace when you say “walkable space”. The median distance to a park for a person in a city center is 0.5 miles. That means that half of people live farther than that. For the suburbs the median distance is over a mile. Living farther than half a mile certainly isn’t rare.

Check out ParkScore. One of the metrics is percent of residents within a half mile of a park--it’s not rare, particularly in low income communities.

>And you're the one who started the pissing contest, by trying to claim that I'm unqualified to comment.

I never said that. You should go back and reread what I did say. Stop ignoring the topic and focusing on perceived slights and straw men.

>Don't whine that you lost…

There’s no point in declaring victory--no one else is reading.

> When did we start talking about the majority of the population?

Why wouldn't we be? If a few people choose to live in a virtual desert, that's their problem. What's important is what's available to those who lack the means to make such choices. I used to be one of those people, but even when I lived in one of the densest most blighted parts of Detroit it wasn't hard to find little pockets of green. Again, follow the dog walkers. They know.

And since you seem so determined to control the focus to what suits you, let's not forget that the original question is whether people need lawns specifically. You haven't even addressed that point. A lawn is an artificial environment, barely more natural than a wood floor or deck. Most people don't even use theirs, except occasionally during child-rearing years. They just pump them full of herbicides and insecticides, deplete often scarce water supplies with their sprinklers, waste tons of energy raking leaves, etc. Are you going to start making the case that having "a place to stand" (as whatshisface originally claimed) is worth all that?

Once again you've managed to completely avoid addressing anything I wrote, so I'll do the same.

This is a massive assertion on your part, and the quality of "green"space can vary widley in urban areas. Yards without rooty vegetation are safer for houses, they're good for warehousing children, they're nice to relax on in a private/semi-private setting, you can drink on your lawn, etc.

I rarely see anybody standing on their lawn in my neighborhood. In Florida they even warned us to not let our dog on the lawn because it was so toxic.

I think lawns are mainly for looks.

I think it was mainly a status thing, in that you could afford to have vast amounts of land that weren't producing anything, and the workforce to maintain it. Like, it's something a French king would do at a Chateau to complement their rose gardens.

It's just crazy to think that now it can be against the law (or at least against HOA rules) to not have a lawn. Like it's illegal to plant a vegetable garden in your front yard.

If you can put up with the dirty looks from neighbors and resist the peer pressure, cultivate crabgrass! it's drought-resistant, grows low so never needs to be mowed and still green. I'm quite the crabgrass cultivator - my main technique is negligence and general laziness.

If you live in a strata or HOA, all bets are off - maybe lobby for an astroturf exemption?

I googled it and the top 10 links are about getting rid of it!

I live in a pretty rural part of town (off of a dirt road that leads to the main road - across the street: it's back to your usual 120,000 people city), so nothing but whatever grows naturally. Some of my neighbors raise goats and sometimes they ask us if they can graze on our yard. It's nice.

>or at least against HOA rules

WTF!? I am from Europe, is this really a thing? Although,it wouldn't surprise me, watching American Movies, lawn and suburbia seems inseparable.

The homeowner's association has a lot of power in the US, so it is inevitable that it will be misused and used incompetently. However only in the most close-minded and controlling of suburbs can you not plant a vegetable garden.

But what is their reasoning for this?

I think it's about the looks. Everything needs to be tidy and clean.

What if someone wants tidy, clean and paved, or tidy, clean with lots of interesting shrubs and trees?

Simply a case of no, a lawn it must be?

HOA's and HOA bylaws are normally mandated and created by the bank doing the construction loan. They do this to protect the value of the property while they hold interest in the remaining lots. The mortgage industry also loves this since in the end they may be stuck with a property if there is a default.

HOAs are a fascist alternative to actual community.

> protect the value of the property

... which means "protect interest of neighbors".

People like when their neighbourhood looks nice and is safe from snakes, bugs and mosquitos.

In some areas, tall grass becomes a habitat for snakes, which can be problematic for children.

For most areas, it's aesthetic.

Here in the south-east, a short lawn will have no mosquitoes but a grassy area will have plenty (as in you'll get 20-30 bites in one evening outdoors), so that's a strong motivation.

On the other hand, snakes eating all the rats would be good for children. Rats are reservoirs for many human diseases, but the think on the snakes!! is a common alibi for forcing your neighborg not to having shrubs, roses, grass, climbers, rocks, ponds and everything that would make your own garden look duller by comparison.

Drop in property value comes to mind if there's an adjacent stretch of untamed wild.

Not plant a vegetable garden in the front yard?

You can't even hang your laundry out to dry. All in the name of freedom.

>WTF!? I am from Europe, is this really a thing?

In some places, particularly wealthy places built up after WW2. Some people like it because "muh property values". Just as many hate it because "muh freedom"

You have no idea. Many Master Planned Communities have very restrictive CC&R's (Covenants, Codes & Restrictions) that you must contractually agree to abide to in order to buy a property there. I've seen all kinds of fun rules like only being allowed to paint your house one of the approved seven shades of beige, only using one type of roofing material, only planting trees and shrubs in any publicly facing frontage/backage/sideage from an approved list, maintaining no publicly visible weeds, maintaining a green front lawn year round and even put up a minimum amount of holiday decoration (lights) during December. Little Boxes, indeed[0].

[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUoXtddNPAM

"Like it's illegal to plant a vegetable garden in your front yard. "

Making that illegal should be illegal.

They've made crossing the street at certain places illegal. This is the war on public spaces we've lost.

> In Florida they even warned us to not let our dog on the lawn because it was so toxic.

Care to elaborate? I spent over 40 years in Florida and maintained a few lawns during that time, and I have never heard of such a thing.

That was in a wealthier neighborhood in Vero Beach. Everybody had perfect lawns and was spraying them a lot. Nobody let their children on the lawn either.

Holy moly, what a waste! Thanks for clarifying.

I haven't commented in over 3 years, but you're the first person I've seen mention Vero Beach on HN in the 8 years I've participated. As a Vero native, your comment resonates.

Spraying lawns with toxic chemicals so that they can't be used? What an incredible, dangerous, disgusting waste.

The grass is very hard and would be really uncomfortable to step on barefoot but it looks good.

Florida grass is awful. It's not even fun to walk in. Coming from the Midwest the lawns here are dramatically better and the grass is very nice for running around in. As kids we spent a lot of time on the lawn running through a sprinkler, playing football/sports, etc...

> they even warned us to not let our dog on the lawn because it was so toxic

In my area those are called the TruGreen lawns, and they dominate much of the city 3 seasons out of the year. Those little signs that tell you to keep your living creatures off of them for a week after application, or longer depending on weather. I don't, however, think that anyone bothers to notify the squirrels, rabbits, opossum, and birds about those limitations - they will all continue to frolic on doused areas, eat and drink from those areas. Not to mention the impact on insects, the impact on the soil and water.

All for what? Fewer weeds?! It's disgusting to see such callous disregard for our environment being perpetrated as a matter of routine.

You don't need a lawn to stand outdoors if you live in a mild climate zone. You don't even need a lawn to have an open, walkable front-yard. If you regularly walk on a grassy area, it adapts. You might need to use a scythe on out-of-control patches once in a while (much more rarely than a lawnmower), but that's about it.

Source: my family has a rural house with walkable front- and backyard.

Even for that purpose, I'd rather have a white clover lawn than a grass lawn. Clover is great for bare feet.

Bees are not great for bare feet, and bare feet are not great for bees, but bees and clovers are great for each other.

Our apian visitors have never had a problem distinguishing petal from pedal. They always fled before I tread upon them.

Lucky you! I've not been so. ;-)

> Lawns are useful for standing on outdoors

Are they? Over here in Germany, most lawns I see, that ain't in parks, usually have "Keep off the lawn!" signs.

Wow just had a facepalm moment realising what you said is spot on. To make matters worse small-engined tools that pollute the environment are used weekly to keep the yard nice... what a waste

You'd think electric motor yard tools could be common by now, but instead the deafening gas-powered black-cloud-spewing machines are still ubiquitous.

"You'd think electric motor yard tools could be common by now ..."

You will be happy to learn that we are just on the cusp ...

Bosch and Dewalt have very high density battery power systems and they are using them for lawn tools - including normal push mowers. Other tool companies are quickly following suit.

Unlike past iterations, these tools really do have the power and longevity to do real work. To wit: my local volunteer fire department now carries a battery powered Dewalt chainsaw in one of our engines.

As for the embedded carbon cost in all of these new tools and batteries and the production pollution that is occurring "somewhere" ... an exercise for the reader.

I've got a set of power tools and a lawn mower from Ryobi that all use the same 36V battery pack. Works well for our small section in town.

Their hedge trimmer is quite good and still goes ok after a few years of use. Even works for edges that I would have used the whipper snipper on previously.

I've been using battery-powered yard tools for a few years now. String trimmer, blower, bush trimmer. The brand is Ego, sold at Home Depot. I haven't used their battery mower, as my TH's yard is small enough not to need a mower (just a string trimmer).

That said, I plan to remove the small bit of lawn that I do have and replace it with something of an English-style garden.

To go even more carbon neutral, try using a push mower:

https://www.scotts.com/en-us/products/tools-accessories/scot...

They are loads of fun! Your grass ends up looking better too.

(I have a small yard that was previously mowed using a string trimmer.)

In my neighborhood, 80% of the lawns are maintained by landscapers, we need battery powered lawn tools to be commercially viable in order to put a dent in the use of gas tools. I have a commercial grade gas landscaping mower myself. I tried replacing it with the ego battery powered mower, the power was adequate for single use, but the handling was awful compared to my gas mower, and I went back gas within 2 weeks.

DC is in the process of mandating electric leaf blowers... https://dcist.com/story/18/10/16/dc-gas-powered-leaf-blower-...

I've seen a few landscape crews using battery powered blowers and trimmers (not downtown, but near IAD). I have no idea how they manage the batteries.

When I bought my house last spring, I went for an electric mower. Unfortunately, my spouse's budget for yard tools made me not go for the best, and I got one that doesn't cut evenly(twin blades is a terrible design), and the batteries die too quickly for my 1/3 acre lot. I should have gone with a corded one. Since my neighbors were getting annoyed with how much I neglected my lawn, I bought a used gas mower. I look forward to when I can afford a robotic mower to deal with it, but in the meantime I'm going to turn a large portion of my lawn into garden, and build a fence so my neighbors aren't such busybodies about how long it is getting.

While visiting Sweden this summer I saw all these little contraptions wandering around people's yards. I got really excited when I learned that they're essentially "lawn roombas": https://www.digitaltrends.com/home/robot-lawnmowers-are-maki...

They were everywhere.

One disadvantage: they wound and kill hedgehogs.

The hedgehog will curl up and (at least some of) the machines will drive into it.

I once heard a broad transition to electric was tried, but they went back because people perceived the workers were just waving/pushing them around and not doing work without the gas engine noise. Electric tool companies need better sound designers.

> Electric tool companies need better sound designers.

The better alternative would be for society to realize that noise pollution can also be quite an issue, instead of insisting things need to be loud because "we like loud, it projects power!".

In most cases you don't need a motor at all. Reel mowers are perfectly adequate for most lawns. No air pollution, no noise pollution, plus they're lighter and easier to push.

I use reel mowers too. To add to what you said, you also get a bit of free exercise and time to look around the garden and notice things while doing something useful.

Beware some reel mowers though... they can have plastic gearing inside which wears out pretty quickly.

Also you need to get the hang of adjusting the bar against the cutters "just so" and the height of the reel above the grass depending on how damp and long it is.

Price. Reliability. Performance. Confusion

Price is obvious, buying a second battery can be a hundred dollar affair and then the confusion sets in as a lot of time the spare batteries are not exactly the same as the original, most manufacturers offer spares in lower amperage to make the price lower. Confusion over volts versus amperage and how it applies to functionality. Performance system because these air cooled solutions will run down faster in tall or wet grass and battery reliability hasn't been great.

anecdotal I owned a Ryobi 40V mower. Sold with a 5Amp battery. It was around four hundred dollars. A second battery a hundred and fifty dollars. If you had anything beyond a small lawn you need two or more else you just take an hour off. Grass gets tall or wet the motor works harder and battery life takes a hit and worse it got hot. A hot battery will not charge. Needless to say I returned it. the New 56V systems use a completely different batter and the higher amperage batteries are approaching four hundred dollars just for the battery.

I'm just one data point, but we opted to go for a corded mower. Considered a battery one but they're so expensive and we knew it'd run out of juice before we finished the yard. Wrangling the power cord while mowing is a bit annoying but I still vastly prefer it to gas. It's super fast and easy to turn off and on, quieter, and I never have to bother with storing and smelling a can of gasoline in the garage/fill it up at a gas station. Plus the environmental benefits.

I told a couple people in my family about getting a corded mower once and they just scoffed at me and extolled the "virtues" of their gas-powered mowers. I was pretty annoyed at their condescending attitude about it, as if they had the moral high ground on the issue.

As for why I maintain my lawn, well I have dogs, and dogs might enjoy sniffing tall grass, but they run a lot less than they do on short grass. We had both this year because we were too busy to mow for awhile and the difference in their behavior was pretty stark.

Also when you do finally mow it again with thick grass it takes at least twice as long to mow the lawn because the mower can't handle it as easily.

The performance and price of battery powered stuff like that just isn't there yet. All the cordless models are more expensive than economy brand gas equivalents and don't deliver nearly as much performance. It's like how electric cars were in the 90s. Corded stuff is a pain the butt for all non-stationary work and the price advantage isn't hit or miss depending on the tool you're looking for (small corded chainsaws are slightly cheaper than their gas equivalents but the inverse it true for lawmowers)

> doesn't produce anything in return

I get great enjoyment from my lawn, and my dog does too. In fact, I spend quite a bit of resources maintaining it so that it's a pleasure to use without getting covered in spurs. My lawn is my favorite surface on which to spend my time, and there are many, many others that get the same enjoyment from theirs.

Your neighborhood must be quite different from the one I grew up in, where people only ventured onto the grass to mow it, and those same patches were used as an excuse for dogs to be kept outside 24/7, howling through rain, snow or shine behind vinyl fences.

Myself, I quickly learned to avoid any lawn space because my skin would break out in small hives from touching it. I'm not sure if it's the grass species most commonly used, or the pesticides on it - but I know I wasn't the only one with such allergies.

I think most people here are not advocating for abolishing lawns like yours entirely. Instead, the consensus is that they should be optional, not enforced uniformly for aesthetic reasons. I'd add that what we should make mandatory is public outdoor spaces (with native species and plenty of shade) within easy walking distance of each house, so that someone might receive the kind of enjoyment you do without feeling like maintaining their own patch of green is the only way to get it. It might even help alleviate the sense of isolation acutely felt in a lot of suburbs.

My mother recently bought a new house and put in an artificial lawn. I didn't know what to think at first. It just went against "how things are supposed to be" in my mind, having grown up in northern Oregon where everything is (mostly) lush, green and "natural" looking. She's had it for 4 years now. She's never had to water it, never had to mow it and has never had to put chemicals on it. It looks great all year around. It feels nice. Not the nice "natural cool feeling" that you get with natural grass, but feels close enough. After a few minutes barefoot in it you forget it's not real. People stop their cars to get out and look. Some even get out and touch it. A few have even come up to the door to ask her about it. Needlessly to say, I've come around on this and think more people should do it. There is no need to dump hundreds of gallons of clean drinking water on a yard every year, or chemicals (which seem to be playing a part in bee population reduction), or noise from machines used by maintenance crews, or pollution from all of those machines. A lawn takes a LOT of work and resources.

I don't use a herbicide on my lawn - I didn't realise it was normal to do so

What's produced in return is a lawn that you can use - for all the purposes people use lawns. I'm not sure what's so ridiculous about this.

No snowflake blames itself on the avalanche. You may not use herbicide. You still now and create a monoculture. You probably water too. Add millions of you together and you have a problem.

Why would you water your lawn? Grass is almost impossible to kill (explicitly attacking it with herbicides aside). There is really no need.

Because in much of the world it dies and turns brown, which is considered unpleasant. Certainly lawns where I grew up (central California) needed it.

I despise lawns but there's a reason they're watered.

Because there are lots of climates and many of them require constant watering to have a green lawn? Sprinkling systems are a huge business.

Sure. The grass certainly turns brown around here. But that is just a water conservation state for the grass. It doesn't mean it is dead. As soon as it does rain again, it will turn green again. That is not a reason to water a lawn. A brown lawn functions equally well as a green one. In fact better as you don't have the same need to cut it.

The primary function of the lawn is decoration, though, and most people seem to prefer green grass.

I imagine there are climates that are better for grass or certain species of grass that are very drought tolerant. However, in my experience, not watering a lawn will kill it. I have a few patches in my lawn that were killed this summer by lack of water due to a poorly designed sprinkler system.

Remember that this is true for native grass to an area, and the first step to getting that perfect patch of green is to remove the native "weed" grass and replace it with some uniform species sold in every Lowes, from California to Kentucky.

Here in the SF Bay Area, we just went for about 7 months without a single rain drop, so one would absolutely need to water a species of grass that would never need watering in Kentucky.

No I don’t water it either. It rains in the UK often enough. It needs mowing and weeding and that’s it. The cut grass and weeds are used as compost.

That's the point. The original lawns were attached to mansions as a demonstration that the owner had fertile land that he didn't need to grow food on.

Well people enjoy their lawns. Why do they have to produce something?

People enjoyed watching criminals be torn apart by lions in ages past. That people enjoy something is hardly sufficient.

As a society we have to consider the amount of resources we put into, and damage caused by, all our pasttimes. Particularly for things which don't appear at all innate - maintaining lawns is by no means popular around the world, it's mostly a European diaspora thing. If it were stopped, it's doubtful most people would even remember them in a generation or two.

At the very least refusing to engage in wasteful and environmentally harmful activities shouldn't be illegal.

Do they?

Our whole neighborhood remained indoors 97% of the time because most days in the summer had temps of 95-100F. Every house nevertheless diligently watered their lawn, multiple times a day, to keep up a perfect shade of green. The one house that wouldn't would be shamed relentlessly until they straightened their act.

Our neighborhood did not "enjoy" its lawns. It was collectively petrified into maintaining them to avoid public scorn.

And then the exhaustion of it all urges us to take a vacation and get away to nature.

My husqvarna automower keeps me from wasting time. I haven't mowed my .3 acre lot in two years. So worth it.

I know, right? If I wanted green polygons I'd play Super Mario 64!

It's good for the economy. Creates a lot of jobs.

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