Why are we so obsessed with lawns? | Hacker News Reader

Why are we so obsessed with lawns?

gardensillustrated.com

32 pointsandsoitis68 comments

I recently took over an old house and plot of land not used for ~20 years.

In that time, the main lawn is still grass dominated and fairly easy to cut. But many areas have become completely swamped with different bushes and willow.

I cut it all down twice per year but it shoots up like a jungle next year anyway.

Parts of old farm tracks have of course become unrecognizable and are slowly turning into a forest.

It's hard and tough to walk, you can't see properly as plants can grow quite tall (plus elevation differences).

I love plants; but for human enjoyment and passage between different areas on a plot of land; grass is superior. I dream of grass.

Sounds like you need to get a couple goats

Truly most helpful advice. The sheer speed with which they eat down bushes and small growth has to be seen to be believed.

Besides buying a couple goats, another option is to to rent a whole bunch of goats for a shorter--and shortening--engagement.

I just did this a month or so ago to take care of the growth around a creek. It was a fantastic experience and I will definitely be doing it again. The whole neighborhood loved them. My kids gave them all names and would go out to pet them periodically. And everything green that was within their reach (even standing on two legs!) was gone.

Seems like planting a tree there would address most of the issue.

A birch growing for 5 years is already 3 metres tall and will prevent anything larger from growing around it.

Birches can be very picky about where they grow, I've tried three in a row and they all died because the soil got too waterlogged in autumn. Radiata pine OTOH will grow in anything, grows almost as you watch it, and the acidic needles kill off anything around it. You just have to be careful with time because once they're 30+ years old they can drop large branches.

Because it’s the soft, clean, forgiving carpet for loads of outdoor activities.

Just the potential for a couple of great days a year is enough for me. I’m not talking about the mega mansions that have full time gardeners and unused lawns of course.

This question is never asked by people who have kids that love football for example. And that’s a large part of the population.

It’s snobbery, pedantry and a flex like a clean shaven face or a perfectly clean house: look at me, I can actually afford to do this Sisyphean task (or even better: I have it done for me!) more often than is necessary! Unlike you hairy dirty poor wild bastards

Someone, though I do not remember who, made the point that grasses are a highly successful parasite of the human species. The point was made in humour, but I still think it's a fascinating perspective.

Just like wolves selected for survival the humans who treated them well and eventually humans evolved to produce oxytocin on petting wolves =P

do not mention them cats.

If you want to be able to walk around the garden, rather than just stare at it from the window, you're going to need gravel, concrete, or a lawn. I know which I prefer.

You don't need to concrete the whole thing. A few paths is enough.

Does the entire surface need to be grass to be able to walk about? What about some grass pathways through a variation of shrub, trees and meadow?

My garden has grass - wild flowers and wild grasses and I can walk in it. Even barefoot (not often, I'm a city boy unused to that). I sometimes walk just to pick up fruit from the couple trees here and there. I'm not even sure what the problem is that requires you concrete in garden, maybe if you need a wheelchair then yes paths might the way to go (I only assume, because I'm not in that situation). Otherwise lawn looks to me barren, a sad splotch of green nothingness. Some neighbours insist on lawns, good for them, even asked me why I don't, and I gave them the above answer. They weren't happy with it as I assume you won't be either, but here I am.

You maybe misunderstood what I meant. I too prefer grass to concrete.

Maybe the entire disagreement in this thread is just between people who think a patch of grass constitutes a lawn, and people who think a lawn is something else?

Okay to me "lawn" means one single type of grass kept down to 2cm height, constantly in need of watering and looking like carpet.

2cm is extremely short. Outside of sport I'd imagine that is very uncommon as it would require a tremendous amount of time and water.

I just have some big flat rock set legs-length apart to make a path. I don't have anything against grass, but I much rather have wild flowers, vegetable and fruits growing.

Personally, my preference would be moss.

My young children both love the lawn and I can tell they get a lot from interacting with it, playing on it, etc. It is a little bit of accessible greenery in my small back-garden and I don't need to water it, just mow it occasionally.

I recently tore out my lawn and co-designed a native yard with my kids. We designed a map together with very narrow wood chip paths to play on and brought in soil to create berms for height variety. They love running around playing tag or hiding from each other. Once they get older I can imagine friends will enjoy capture the flag or foam dart wars in the space.

We had one small japanese maple tree that they designated as a reading / relaxation area and have been using that too.

I think the biggest thing was the berms + paths around and over them. The topographical variety added a lot of play opportunities.

All that said we kept a small patch of grass- but it just isn't the entire yard as it was when we got our place.

Edit: removed counter point as a phrase

I don't know how this is a counter-point, isn't it just a point? Can lawns co-exist with no lawns?

EDIT: parent has removed "counter-point".

Sure, fair.

I read your comment can be read as a reconfirmation of the articles thesis that we love lawns because they are always great for people where I am offering a counter-point that kids also love non-lawn yards.

Not creating an argument- just offering a different point.

Indeed. Small lawn for sports and activites + large forest garden is a nice combo if it's an option.

How is this a counter point? Do you know that their kids don’t like playing in the grass?

I recently killed my lawn, ordered soil to create berms, and planted 100+ native plants (small ones and a few trees/bushes) all over the yard.

It has brought me so much joy! I observe so many interesting animal behaviors like birds playing on the springy yarrow flowers or bumble bees tumbling around the tiny clarkia blooms.

The three things that motivated me the most was Concrete Botany Audiobook[1], the Kill Your Lawn youtube series[2], and the interesting chats with neighbors who are interested in doing the same or have done the same.

That isn't to say it was easy or that I haven't gotten some strange comments like "your yard produces a lot of seeds that come into my lawn".

[1]: https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9798317900410-concrete-botany

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npzXlugEvxM

This was never really true in the southwest where rock gardens are common.

When done right, they are so stunning and low maintenance. They also open up more options for interesting and dramatic lighting at night.

There are other counties further to the southwest than Wiltshire .. although a well earned high five for referencing Stonehenge.

Imagine buying up property of sand and covering it in rocks.

I think it may skip over a more fundamental reason in that they may look like the environment we evolved in, at least that's an impression I got in Africa in places like:

Serengeti https://cdn2.rhinoafrica.com/thumbnails/media/_en/destinatio...

and the Okavango Delta https://whc.unesco.org/uploads/thumbs/news_1987-890-520-2019...

As probable persistence hunters, grassy areas with animals in to run after likely would have been good.

> The act of pushing a mower around possesses an almost primordial appeal

I think the Climax Mower in TFA had a very different appeal.

Mowing two weeks of summer growth just before a thunderstorm is peak vibes.

Not everyone love lawns though, there's even an entire subreddit dedicated to hating them: https://www.reddit.com/r/fucklawns/

I’d consider those redditors to also be obsessed with lawns.

I mean, I also get obsessed with their horror when, after coming from abroad, I am back at my American suburb. All this mandatory front yard and setbacks that must be lawn, even though nobody in the entire subdivision seems to use said front lawn, ever. It's not the grass itself, but the utter waste of space, pushing any chance of walkability away, as it's ultimately increasing the distances to anywhere. It's not so different from the typical giant parking lot that is never half full.

When you prefer a better environment, but said better environment means having to at least leave the state... yeah, strong feelings seem warranted to me.

Is there a state that has absolutely no high-density areas? I’d think every city over 200K people would have such sections, and probably most that were over 100K.

Well count me in (I wouldn't join that sub though.) Almost all lawns are just a sad approximation of a proper meadow, and could be real gardens - instead of an artificial, plain, featureless green space, they could harbour plants and be a habitat to countless animals.

Plus, the obsession some people have with mowing their lawn - I've got a particular neighbour who does it daily in the summer, for two hours I've got a constant engine roar in my ear.

Agree.

I prefer having a vegetable garden that just plain grass, it's way more rewarding.

Same crowd as r/fuckcars and r/antiwork or distinct?

They don't own houses yet.

Distinct. The overlap is not substantial.

The act of pushing a mower around possesses an almost primordial appeal

No, no it doesnt. I leapt at the chance to get a robot to do it

I would call it obsession but of different kind! Every green patch of gras in city has to be covered in shit and piss. People have to shit on every bit of nature, and kill all animals in sight!

I went to park, some guy was hunting ducks at pond, and after took dump at picnic area!

I admire people who still maintain their front yard, despite this constant vandalism!

What city are you talking about specifically?

For many thinkers it's in a way a very relaxing occupation in some way. Would have to think about why.

I agree. Mowing the lawn is repetitive in a good way, almost meditative and flow-state-like.

I always thought it was a way to inconvenience lower-income people who don't have the means or time to maintain them. You make them into HOA laws, and you can make it yet another obstacle for poor people to go over in order to become your neighbors.

A short cut lawn signals productive land, a water source, and herbivore wildlife.

I've always assumed that we appreciate lawns because we are evolutionarily adapted to aesthetically appreciate the types of land that signal easy survival.

Engraved deep down in our primitive brain is the profound fear of high grass and forestry, which conceal bears, wolves, snakes, ticks and a lot of other dangers.

Thus, we have the natural inclination to raze it all and leave a very flat grass surface where no animal goes unnoticed.

This ends up translating into modern lawns a few hundreds of centuries later.

this is obviously bs, the lawn thing is mostly a north-american obsession. most people here in europe like shade and thus higher vegetation in their gardens.

The above comment is a prime example of pseudo-paleo rubbish confirming anything and predicting nothing. Popper would have a field day.

European upper class was obsessed with lawns first. Like other forms of decorative gardens, it was primarily a status symbol. The intended message was something like "Look how we can afford this land we don't actually need! And look how we can afford to pay others to make it aesthetically pleasing!"

But once there were public lawns in cities, people found practical uses for them. Many popular ball games are still played on surfaces that resemble a lawn.

That same distinction makes sense for private lawns. Do you have a decorative garden, because your lot is larger than what you actually need? Or is the lawn a practical surface for open spaces you occasionally use?

If by European you mean mostly British, sure! And you can see how Anglosphere metro areas resemble each other a lot. But Europe is not one thing.

The English and the French had different ideas about proper uses of lawn. Both spread widely across Europe.

Forgetting that part where the lawn was born in Europe.

OK, but that doesn't mean the comment I replied to is any less BS. What I pointed out is that if there was such a deep preference for short grass, you'd expect this globally. And this is simply not the case, empirically.

No it isn't, maybe you feel that way, I don't and don't know anybody who does

You can track the human diaspora throughout the world by the times megafauna went extinct in a area and massive wildfires left the area devoid of trees.

I have 30sqm of a yard and keeping up even that amount of lawn is a gigantic pain in the ass. Over the year I plan to get of all of it as much as possible and replace with flowers, shrubs and other bigger plants, a third is done already. Lawn is a crazy work.

I lived in Las Vegas for a few years, circa 2005. The HOA required a uniformly green lawn, with no yellow patches, a ticket otherwise. My in-laws lived a few houses further down the street. The FIL got a ticket, so he spray painted the yellow patches. My "lawn" was desert gravel, no tickets.

Now I live in the Miami area. There are huge parking lots, mostly barren of cars. These lots have island dividers covered with grass and the water sprinklers are just mindlessly adding to humidity. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Who is "we"?

10,000 years of agriculture has given us profound instincts to want to grow crops and harvest them. But you don't need to, it's a waste of your resources when you can head to the grocery store. So you grow grass that you can't eat and dutifully harvest it once a week. To satisfy that itch.

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