Also stop using herbicide and plant some clover. My neighbors hate me but I (and the bees, bunnies, and other critters) love my almost white lawn in July. It smells great, and the clover keeps the grass healthy.
I normally don't cut the grass until it's long enough that I can pick the flowers there and bring them inside (monthly?)
My real goal is to provide a maximally inhospitable environment for cockroaches of all sizes.
Though it's really just the grass and dandelions that grow tall. If I had my way, I'd kill all the grass and just throw out wild violets and clover. So much prettier, and requires way less maintenance.
Currently in the process of finding a house, and specifically avoiding HOAs. They'd never let something like this fly, which IMO should be illegal(not your yard, rules banning something like your yard).
We had some naturally move in last year and we really liked it So we’re going to help it out. It was soft, and keeping the lawn green/alive/pretty in the park strip is notoriously water wasteful.
Most herbicides require you to wear PPE. But in the residential market people ignore those instructions. Most of them are also unaware of the existence of safety data sheets, and are also unaware that the product packaging is not required to have every safety instruction for the product. The result: a proliferation of cancer lawsuits against herbicide manufacturers.
After use, herbicides still leave the dead plant behind that needs removal.
So, in practice, using herbicides for a residential yard is as stupid as declawing a cat.
I still love the clover, and it helps keep the grass a bit more sane - but the length of the grass is my primary fight.
They stay within about 50 yards of wherever their 'home' hole is, so they won't run off (although their offspring may!).
You still need to mow about twice a year to get rid of plants the rabbits don't like to eat, which will otherwise grow into bushes.
Your biggest headache with rabbits is they'll eat other plants you might want (vegetables etc), and will dig burrows in random places. But in my opinion, both those are well worth it for having a lawn that mows itself.
My lawn is about 1/3 clover. Just grows wild.
The dirt here is mostly clay, if that significates.
Do you have to milk clover seeds on the 3rd full moon after the 2nd Sunday after the Summer Solstice, in front of 2 dancing bears and 4 white bats?
The reality is the majority of our modern world and lives can be seen as a waste of energy, resources, and, "hubris against nature" and it seems like there is some subjective line for each person that delineates what is too far.
Why should we burn endless amounts of gas/coal/other energy when the "natural" solution is to either naturally adapt or to simply live in more habitable environments.
Anyways, yes, I'll give you that comparing HVAC to lawns is silly, but it doesn't take much imagination to think of less silly examples that we accept. So my question is who draws the lines? Whose standard is the standard that everyone should follow? Manicured lawns not cool, ok. What about backyard pools? What about irrigation systems? What about drainage ditches or other infrastructure that allow for land to perk so more housing can be made available, but negatively affects downstream wildlife? Etc, etc.
Speaking personally, it's about externalities: American suburbs have ludicrous amounts of common and private infrastructure, all financed through the lie of infinite and perpetual growth. All of that infrastructure has hidden externalities, ones that aren't being addressed on the individual or state levels. Monoculture lawns are just one tiny example of that, manifest in their cost to the local ecosystem (and additional water demands, pesticide use, &c.).
It's worth realizing that carefully curated and maintained lawns are more of a signifier of wealth than anything else. The trend originated in Victorian-era Europe, and somehow stuck.
If I ignore the smell of my body I'll eventually be rewarded with a staph infection or worse. If I don't use grass monoculture on my lawn I eventually am rewarded with pollinators, blooms, and an ecologically active space.
Lawns require 200 gallons of drinking water per day. In 2005, the amount of lawn cultivated in the US would cover the entire terrestrial surface of Texas. We use 17 million gallons of gas on lawn mowers every year, and tens of millions of pounds of chemical fertilizer and pesticides. All said, Americans spend more than $36 billion USD a year on lawn care, more than 4x the annual budget of the Environmental Protection Agency.
At least with a shower I get something out of the water I used. With lawns what do you get? Empty green space. Fuck bees, fuck butterflies, fuck rabbits, I need my neighbors to know I can afford to let my land lay fallow in an aesthetically inert way.
My lawn gets most of it's water from rain actually. We supplement occasionally when necessary. But during drought we just let it go a little brown. Not a big deal.
I still love my lawn and mowing it is a very nice break from sitting on the computer.
What horseshit is this ? What water-hungry grass do you use ?
But then it wouldn't look the certain way you want, would it? That seems to be the main concern for Americans.
Or the overgrazed pasture with no flowering plants?
Or the industrial areas? I guess those at least have the occasional dumpster from a candy factory.
If you don't want a weed on your garden, fair enough, but what's the point of the homogenous-lawn ideal Americans seem to have? It feels like a holdover from something like cold-war cultural propaganda.
People have different preferences and that used to be OK.
https://laidbackgardener.blog/2020/11/04/clover-in-the-lawn-...
The secret was to turn clover from a friend into an enemy. Pesticide companies decided to launch an intensive advertising campaign to convince homeowners that white clover was a weed that needed to be destroyed. They spent literally millions on advertising to persuade unconvinced gardeners.
You and Dow chemial, who demonized this Nitrogen fixing wonder in order to make more money.