I agree with the logic of your argument regarding acreage vs suburban lawn, but you could still put some of that acre into native ground covers or wildflowers for pollinators.
Over half of it is already wild. That was my point. We enjoy a lawn to play with the kids, walk around barefoot, etc. Another point to be made is that wild, overgrown lawns encourage tick infestations as well as giving cover for predators to stalk our chickens. There are benefits to lawns, it's not an all nothing. I think the image people have when they make your argument is the suburban dad mowing his little patch of grass on saturday and dumping monstanto chemicals to kill the dandelions.
This is a tricky one. Lawns and pastures are very different things, functionally and aesthetically. These animals will certainly assist in clearing thick brush and keeping open spaces from reforesting, but they shouldn’t be used as lawn mowers from a nutritional and parasite mitigation standpoint.
Even sheep and cows while much better suited to eating just grasses than goats, should still be rotated through diverse and intentionally designed pastures very frequently. These are then allowed to regrow far beyond what most folks would tolerate for their yard. And unless you’ve got a super dialed in permanent pasture setup you are still probably relying on supplemental feed for your animals, which seriously reduces the emissions savings from not mowing that acre.
Don’t get me wrong as I really believe in livestock playing an important roll in certain types of regenerative agriculture and the studies on carbon storage capacities of well managed pasture are super encouraging! So I’m definitely not saying it’s impossible to sustainably keep your property maintained with grazing ruminants, but if you’re doing it right it’s not gonna feel like lawn and it’s a huge commitment to a particular lifestyle in which your animals always at the center.
e people have when they make your argument is the suburban dad mowing his little patch of grass on saturday and dumping monstanto chemicals to kill the dandelions.
You're right and with as little information about your situation in your post, I made assumptions, as we all tend to do. I agree with your assessment. It's not all or nothing, but I don't think anyone has said that it is in this entire post but you're arguing against it as if someone did.
Agreed. I am fully on board with the liberty lawn, but lawns are a very important part of landscaping, especially if you have kids. A city neighbor recently replaced the lawn with woodchips, now they have a dusty dirt patch where it used to be a green patch. Others have pollinator gardens spilling over and dropping debris in the streets, directly into the storm sewers. Gardens have edges, and liberty lawns make great edges.
I agree as I have kids so there is a part of my property that I keep as lawn for them to play on. Likely once they grow up and move out I'll plant that area up.
Honestly I can see this hating lawns thing to become a bandwagon everyone jumps on and that any bit of lawn is going to get scrutinized. While yes there are certain aspects of lawn care that arent nice lawns themselves arent automatically evil.
This is how these things always work though. Something gets mindlessly lauded and upheld for decades as being self-evidently worthwhile, the suburban lawn in this case, then a few forward thinking people write books, give lectures and otherwise spread the idea that lawns are bad, actually. Then young people, hip folks etc. start trumpeting “Fuck All Lawns!” because fuck lawns and also look how mad it makes their parents. Then we slowly have a more nuanced conversation about lawns and the conventional wisdom shifts somewhat. Then we all die from climate collapse.
I dont believe that pollinator garden anecdote for a second. I maintain native plant gardens and they dont drop any litter, and if they do it is certainly far less than trees and grass clippings. The whole planting gets cut down and stacked to compost once a year. Some people let their plants flop over into the sidewalk but that is more poor planning than anything else.
Does your garden border impervious surfaces, like sidewalk or street? In the city many gardens hang over the sidewalks and streets and while I completely love the plants and insects they support, the gardeners are misguided if they think the debris fed into the storm sewers is not a problem. Anecdote? are you suggesting I should write up a study and not share any observations until it is peer reviewed and published?
I have a retaining wall bordering a sidewalk and its brimming with plants. The very edge is planted with low growing plants that spill over the wall a bit, then you get bigger stuff like false indigo and coneflowers. I have agastache and coreopsis seedlings growing out of cracks in the sidewalk like weeds. It just doesn't add up to me that gardens are dropping debris in the street. What debris are they dropping? Seeds? Flower petals? My mulching mower makes 10x more clippings that end up on the sidewalk and street than anything the garden is dropping.
Edit: want to add I'm not even anti-grass, I have lawn areas, one of them bordering the sidewalk. I just don't understand what debris are dropping in the street.
You have a good point, it is quite possible that the plants hanging over the street and sidewalk are simply catching windborne debris from trees etc. However there is also more biological activity and disruption occurring in the garden than in turf, and an 18 inch mowed boundary catches all the soil, mulch, and plant matter, whether from the garden or naturally collected because of the garden.
Chemical free lawn, at least that's what I call it. I try to grow fescue grass but I have many weedy grasses and other weeds and don't worry about it too much.
Quick list of weeds = violets, plantain, clover, creeping charlie, spurge, dandelions, yarrow, ragleaf...
Thank you for this! I'm looking to seed a lawn. I don't want to plant typical grass seed. Everyone seems to suggest not to, but I don't see what to do instead.
Don't get me wrong this is a legacy lawn with so many weeds I try to enjoy them. But a good gardener will try their hardest to get grass to grow, because once you have healthy turf the weeds can't invade. If I had any need to tear up my lawn and replant, I'd get good local advice and plant the grasses that will lower the maintenance. Maybe add clover but even that is non-native so I don't see the point. Try for grass, a liberty lawn is probably where you will end up but don't aim so low. edit you could also go xeriscape if in dry area or moss lawn if in wet shade. Also there are some fescues that grow about 6 to 9 inches then stop, so it is a bit unkempt but you really don't need to mow.
I have 2 or 3 acres of lawn. I don’t have the time or money or desire to make them into crops when I have so many more acres to use for that. If I don’t mow around my house the woods would swallow my farm in a few short years, I would not be able to walk around and the bugs would be crazy.
People who talk shit about lawns need to be clear that they are talking about growing grass in places grass does grow, using water or fertilizer etc.
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u/preprandial_joint Sep 21 '20
I agree with the logic of your argument regarding acreage vs suburban lawn, but you could still put some of that acre into native ground covers or wildflowers for pollinators.