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Comment by chewz | Hacker News Reader

> Lawns in US take 41 million acres. That figure makes lawn the most widespread plant under irrigation in the contiguous US.

https://healthylandethic.com/2013/11/17/why-prairies-matter-...

Pretty wasteful use of limited resource - water.

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And its a great plant to boot!

- Kids love to play in it.

- Quickly soaks up CO2 by growing phenomenally fast.

- Great at mitigating soil erosion and keeping slight hills from sliding

- Great feed if you live in the country (I drive by an old horse shelter on my way to work).

- Oh, and you don't have to water it if you don't live in a place where it's not supposed to be.

But that says more about the people that live where grass shouldn't be than it does for us who live where grass wants to be.

But how much of that is irrigated? As I understand it in California there is a lot of irrigated lawns. But I doubt the majority of lawns in the US is irrigated or watered.

Do you own a lawn? Scotland is perhaps the only place I know where you can not water lawn in summer.

I grew up in Ohio and currently live in western PA. I've never once watered my yard.

I envy you guys all. It takes me up to 2 hours in the evening and I am not happy with the results.

Those in New Zealand can avoid watering, particularly if the lawn is kikuyu. It is a complete pain to maintain though as it grows very fast when it’s warm, wet and sunny. It makes you itchy is you lie on it too.

A lot of people (at least in the PNW) just let their lawn go dormant in the summer rather than water it. Since we'd be using city water in most places, it is expensive to dump that on grass.

New England here, haven't ever watered the lawn

Please! There are plenty of places. Western PA for one.

Even if I did water my lawn, I don't even understand how I could waste water where I live, short of owning a fracking operation.

It depends on what species the lawn is. If it's the same species that grows naturally in vacant lots and by the roadside, it doesn't need watering unless there's a significant drought.

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