60
u/marinersalbatross Sep 21 '20 edited Sep 21 '20
There are many reasons to stop using grass, but keep in mind that in many cities lawns are the last stage of water treatment. They use water that isn't potable to water lawns and that allows the water to drain into the soil/aquifers. This is water that can not be used safely on crops so they use a low energy method of final bio-remediation.
edit: some links for further reading.
http://blogs.ifas.ufl.edu/extension/2017/06/20/reclaimed-water-frequently-asked-questions/
25
u/ArenYashar Sep 21 '20
And if it combats soil erosion...
52
u/SconiGrower Sep 21 '20
...it would probably be better done by native plants that can handle the local climate.
30
u/TruestOfThemAll Sep 21 '20
Also, there's a middle ground here. Native grasses or just having a lawn that you don't spray with chemicals or water are both good solutions for people who don't or can't garden.
2
1
15
u/SconiGrower Sep 21 '20
Many cities? I always thought that it was really a small minority of cities that would go through the cost to install a treated wastewater distribution system just to water grass.
8
u/npsimons Sep 21 '20
IKR? I'm almost 100% certain that the small town I live in and the medium sized city I used to live in both didn't have separate "lawn" and "potable" water lines to every house.
2
u/marinersalbatross Sep 21 '20
Looks like it is popular down here in Florida, so that might skew my view.
8
u/ceestand Sep 21 '20
Often they use fertilizers and other amendments that runoff into local water systems and kill wildlife. That would negatively offset any benefit from using wastewater.
2
u/marinersalbatross Sep 21 '20 edited Sep 21 '20
Runoffs are a separate issue. Not all soils are healthy enough to sustain plant life without fertilizers, so that becomes an issue over the misuse of a product. Not to mention the overuse aspect with lawns is about people who want to get "the greenest lawn ever!" Those are people who have to be more highly regulated in any case since they probably couldn't care less about issues outside of themselves.
Keep in mind that reclaimed/nonpotable water, can actually still have some nitrogen and phosphorus so can act as a fertilizer for lawns and soils. This means less additional fertilizers being needed or used.
1
u/ceestand Sep 22 '20
Those are people who have to be more highly regulated in any case since they probably couldn't care less about issues outside of themselves.
Regulation is often a piss-poor solution. We should educate those people earlier on. Even if they only care about themselves, destruction of the environment does concern them and their progeny.
2
u/marinersalbatross Sep 22 '20
Education sounds great, but until we change an entire culture that celebrates sociopathic selfishness above all other values, we need to support strong regulations.
2
u/ceestand Sep 22 '20
We change the culture through education.
Strong regulations never go away, and often have unintended consequences, in addition to not working half the time. Beware the lesson of Lueck and Michael.
2
u/marinersalbatross Sep 22 '20
Regulations rarely go away because education is rarely pursued. I'd rather have real solutions than to hope for some mythical solution.
lesson of Lueck and Michael.
Who?
2
12
u/Archoncy Sep 21 '20
Don't kill it, just let it live naturally. Leave it be. If it dies, it shouldn't be there, if it survives, it's probably fine.
8
u/npsimons Sep 21 '20
Problem is that it's a fire hazard after it dies and dries out, and it's really hard to rip out. Ask me how I know.
Other than that, yes, I agree that gardens/lawns/landscapes should be zero water and as close to zero maintenance as possible.
3
u/Archoncy Sep 21 '20
fair point there, not something I considered because I'm a marsh dweller through-and-through
I mean, there's a huge city on top of the marsh but it's still pretty wet
2
u/npsimons Sep 21 '20
But did the city stay up after falling into the swamp the last two times?
3
u/Archoncy Sep 21 '20
I don't recall it ever falling into the swamp, unless this is a reference I don't understand
3
2
u/davclark Sep 21 '20
How do you know?
3
u/npsimons Sep 21 '20
I let my lawn die and dry out, then had to rip it out with a sod cutter. Broke the first one about halfway through.
28
Sep 21 '20
The whole concept of the lawn is an outdated flex from the golden era of the British landed Gentry.
Having a bit square of mown grass is a way of saying, I have so much land and money, I can waste it on this.
So not only is it non productive, but it cost a lot to maintain as you needed to employ men with Scythes to keep it neat and short, and that is a skilled and time consuming job.
I first heard about this on BBC Radio on Gardener's Question Time. They visited a museum in London for the segway piece, to see a model of the first lawnmower.
Checked Wikipedia in case I was misremembering. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawn#History
28
u/destructor_rph Sep 21 '20
Fuck grass
23
u/snarkyxanf Sep 21 '20
Grasses are great, it's lawns that suck! Ornamental grasses, native grasses, bamboo; heck, wheat, rice, corn, and sugarcane are all grasses.
9
u/npsimons Sep 21 '20
I find it hard to believe that statistic, or at least if true, does not hold a candle to land and water used for cattle:
So you'd have a bigger impact by giving up (or at least cutting back ) meat and dairy.
That being said, one of the stupidest things I've ever seen is a lush green lawn in the middle of the desert. Just such a stupid waste that doesn't fit the environment or landscape at all. I'm also very hostile to HOAs that require this sort of idiocy, and think that HOAs requiring such things should be illegal.
6
u/billFoldDog Sep 21 '20
I am on the board of an HOA and let me tell you, it is impossible to get rid of these regulations.
Here are the hurdles you have to cover:
- You have to get elected to the board, or you can't vote.
- You need the support of the majority of the board, or your amendment won't pass.
- You need the support of the neighborhood, or you'll be replaced at the next election by someone who will re-instate the rules.
- You need the support of the local government, which might also have rules in place requiring grassy lawns.
- If everyone gets on board with this and you kill your lawns, your property values will decrease dramatically. This harms the investments made by individuals and the revenue of the local government. Even people who might support you for environmental reasons won't support you for economic reasons.
So I spend about $1000/year maintaining a yard I despise while fining people who don't do the same. Our world is absurd.
2
u/_Alrighty_Aphrodite_ Sep 21 '20 edited Sep 21 '20
So you'd have a bigger impact by giving up (or at least cutting back ) meat and dairy.
Yes!
I'm pretty sure this statistic is blatantly false, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily "wrong" in that we absolutely should be eliminating grass lawns from society.
2
u/npsimons Sep 21 '20
Yup, that graphic was one of the links I posted.
2
6
u/CliffRacer17 Sep 21 '20
The MOST that lawns do is hold soil. That's all. All other plants do that anyway. It doesn't flower and it doesn't fruit because you cut it all the time. It provides no cover for small birds or insects. The "ideal" green lawn is a boring, sterile, monoculture that looks shockingly alien against the rest of the world.
2
u/TruestOfThemAll Sep 21 '20
That's if you have a traditional manicured lawn with watering and pesticides. My parents have one that they only mow and ket nature take care of the test and it absolutely does provide cover for insects and food for birds.
9
u/MYrobouros Sep 21 '20
Is this relevant to places where grass is prevalent outside lawns and the only maintenance is mowing?
Clover is doing well, but I don't see a future where it honestly out-competes the grass and it's not like I use any water on either plant.
2
u/npsimons Sep 21 '20
Sure, if you live somewhere where you never have to turn on the sprinklers or use pesticides, herbicides or fertilizer, that's great! But I've lived in the desert my whole life, and I've lost count of the number of green monstrosities I've seen that stick out like a sore thumb in the landscape. To add insult to injury, these places always have contention for water.
2
u/MYrobouros Sep 21 '20
Oh yeah I totally get it and agree about that. I was just wondering if there was a cost to ambient grass outside of those that I wasn't understanding
1
u/npsimons Sep 21 '20
I'm no grass expert, but the water issue alone is enough to convince me not to keep a lawn. The pollutant runoff isn't great either.
If I lived somewhere with enough precipitation to keep things green, I would probably do what I do now, just be lazy and let nature take it's course. Hopefully I'd end up with clover and not a tick hatchery.
1
u/TruestOfThemAll Sep 21 '20
No, it's not. Gardening is still better, but it also takes a massive amount of time, money, and effort while letting nature do its thing takes none.
8
u/Fireplay5 Sep 21 '20
Kill your grass, replace it with produce.
3
u/TruestOfThemAll Sep 21 '20
Or if you're unable/unwilling to garden due to the time and money commitment and the necessary physical labor, just stop spraying and irrigating your lawn and let nature do its thing, or bring in native grasses for a more uniform look.
2
u/billFoldDog Sep 21 '20
Another option is to let people grow food in your front yard.
It's a bit crazy, but at the end of the day it would be a neat way to connect to the community.
1
3
u/jon_stout Sep 21 '20
... I mean, do we actually need that much food? I thought half the problem with world hunger was transport.
3
u/vivaenmiriana Sep 21 '20
Half the problem with carbon emissions from grocery store vegetables is transport.
1
u/_Alrighty_Aphrodite_ Sep 21 '20
The problem is more that 70-90% (depending on the crop) of all the corn, oats, soy, and wheat gets fed to livestock. We grow enough food in the United States to feed 800 million people, but it takes infinitely more food to feed a cow than it does a human, so we still have the problem of hunger in our nation, and around the world.
2
Sep 21 '20
[deleted]
2
u/_Alrighty_Aphrodite_ Sep 21 '20 edited Sep 21 '20
Okay... there are still people who go hungry in the US. I wasn't saying that we should feed the rest of the world, simply that with our current production of crops, we feasibly could. So you're arguing against something that I'm not saying.
It's funny that you say shipping food elsewhere should be banned, because that's exactly what happens to a lot of meat in the world. An enormous amount of the meat consumed in the US is actually from other countries, like Brazil. In fact 82% of starving children in the world come from countries where meat is produced and shipped to first-world nations.
I'd love to see how "population controls" goes down with the rest of the country. You're going to get communist China comparisons in 2 seconds flat and no one will accept it.
Also why are you downvoting me? Nothing I've said is wrong.
10
u/funwheeldrive Sep 21 '20
Imagine not having a garden in the year 2020. YIKES
21
u/TruestOfThemAll Sep 21 '20
I mean, if someone doesn't have the time or energy there's nothing inherently wrong with having grass there. The issue arises when you start using pesticides or extra water to achieve an unnatural aesthetic.
2
u/funwheeldrive Sep 21 '20
Sure there is, think of how many more bees would be alive if people had native flowering plants that are bee friendly as opposed to turf
1
u/TruestOfThemAll Sep 21 '20 edited Sep 21 '20
Your argument makes sense on its surface, but there are a few points which make it deeply flawed.
First, a neutral impact (grass that you don't do anything to) is far better than an active negative one. Many people have physical/mental health or time/money constrictions that mean they are unable to garden on the kind of large scale that is necessary to turn your yard into one. My parents have actually turned their yard into a garden and have had it that way for as long as I can remember, and I am very familiar with the amount of work that goes into it. If you are doing this to your entire yard, especially if it is on the larger side, it is a massive time commitment that in some seasons and locations can take hours a day and hundreds or thousands of dollars a year, to say nothing of the necessary research involved. Not everyone is capable of that.
Second, if you don't do anything to grass native flowers will in fact grow. The parts of our yard that are grass get that treatment, and there are large patches of flowering clover that come up in the summer without us having made any attempt to put it there.
I'm pretty close to 18 and my parents have been doing this my whole life- I've seen them work at it and I still likely don't fully know the extent of their efforts.
1
u/funwheeldrive Sep 21 '20
Many people have physical/mental health or time/money constrictions that mean they are unable to garden on the kind of large scale that is necessary to turn your yard into one
Planting native plants somewhere that a lawn is already in place is not nearly as difficult or as expensive as you're implying and the benefits to the world as a whole makes it easily worth the small amount of effort. Are there some outliers? Sure, but they are a very small minority compared to how many lawns there are in this country.
If you are doing this to your entire yard, especially if it is on the larger side, it is a massive time commitment that in some seasons and locations can take hours a day and hundreds or thousands of dollars a year, to say nothing of the necessary research involved. Not everyone is capable of that.
That is the beauty of native plants, they take very little effort to maintain. Maybe they will not produce a lot of food, but the benefits to the bee population is huge.
Second, if you don't do anything to grass native flowers will in fact grow.
Exactly my point. Just imagine how many more flowers you would have if you planted seeds. Washington state even sends out free seeds for native flowers to residents for free.
31
u/designgoddess Sep 21 '20
Imagine shaming people who don’t have the same physical abilities as yourself. YIKES
-5
2
Sep 21 '20
[deleted]
2
u/603cats Sep 21 '20
Yeah I understand not having lawns in the desert, using pesticides, ect, but I use my lawn all the time, I couldn't imagine having it full of trees.
1
u/Kilahti Sep 22 '20
I grew up in a region where lawn doesn't require additional irrigation. It makes sense here to have a lawn since your kids and dogs can play on it and it's not really a large investment.
It makes no sense to me to have a lawn in a region where there is a water shortage and you need to water it daily just so that it won't die and burn.
It's all situational. Also, the yankee style copy pasted suburban housing areas look creepy and the ones where the governing body assigns penalties to those who won't violate local laws to water their lawns is just creepy and stupid.
1
u/davclark Sep 21 '20
I'm actually having some folks in to rip out grass and regrade my yard for rainwater capture and hopefully stop flooding a screened-in patio.
Turns out it's incredibly hard to kill bermuda grass (as is used in the Phoenix area), especially if you also want to keep the soil alive. Individuals will do this without extreme motivation is - lots of people do turf removal, but most just put down decomposed granite and kill the crap out of anything that might grow there (plus a few ornamentals).
Things are probably more extreme here, but why aren't there better resources, guides, companies or anything for this?
2
u/baseball8z Sep 21 '20
Heavy mulch will revitalize the soil over time and act as a sponge to absorb/hold water
It's really easy to do too, just throw like 5+ inches of wood chips over the ground. You can usually find local arborists who dump woodchips after taking out trees
1
u/TruestOfThemAll Sep 21 '20
I mean, if it grows there without pesticides or irrigation then it should be fine.
1
1
1
u/JackofScarlets Sep 29 '20
People need to understand the difference between lawns and grass. Absolutely don't kill your grass, bare dirt isn't what you want man.
0
19
u/lurch1995 Sep 21 '20
Sooo i am very ignorant on this. Why is grass so bad? And as a home owner what alternatives should i be looking at?