
Get Rid of Your Lawn, It’s a waste of land and terrible for the environment - pseudolus
https://slate.com/technology/2019/05/lawns-are-bad-get-rid-of-them.html
======
Panino
> Lawnmowers suck up gas and pollute the air: Every year, U.S. homeowners
> spill about 17 million gallons of gas while filling up mowers.

I have a Fiskars "reel mower" that doesn't use any gas or oil, though it's not
getting much use now after recently converting most of the property to
xeriscape. I like it and there's _no way_ I would get a gas powered mower,
especially not a "riding mower."

> American lawns have so, so much potential—and right now, it’s going to
> waste. It’s time to culturally stigmatize the classic overwatered,
> overfertilized, overmowed American lawn—a symbol of excess that’s persisted
> for far too long.

I agree but instead of criticizing lawns, I'd rather promote the beauty and
functionality of a xeriscape yard. With a backyard food forest you can be
harvesting hundreds of kilograms of food per year with minimal upkeep (beyond
initial mulching and perennial planting). You can have stunning flower blooms
from peaches, plums, apples, and other fruit trees. You can have fruit of all
colors everywhere you look, just a rainbow of form and function. You can
investigate and plant cold hardy things like Chicago Hardy Figs and other
things you wouldn't dream were possible. Chances are, most figs available to
you are dried, in the store. Imagine having a fresh one right off the tree,
from your own yard picked less than 5 seconds ago.

Apart from the initial creation, based on personal experience, I think
maintaining a xeriscaped backyard food forest takes less work, less time, and
less money than maintaining a yard. For me the only demanding part was putting
down down all the (free!) wood chips, but we're supposed to exercise anyway --
and this kind has inherent value.

------
dev_dull
What an awful article. Not a single mention of required setback laws at play
in virtually every major city? We're required to keep 25 feet of setback. That
means 25 feet of dead grass, water-guzzling lawn, or some mixture of other
things.

Imagine how much more square footage could be added around the bay area if
that 25 feet was changed to just 5 feet? It's amazing to me that such
"progressive" cities such as in the bay area maintain such _awful_ laws
regarding required setbacks. Haven't these cities learned the more they try
and control things the worse it gets?

------
the_newest_acct
What an awful article. It completely ignores the ground truth of most suburban
and urban environments -- in many places you can be heavily fined for not
upkeeping a lawn. Even if we ignore that, the "numbers" don't prove themselves
out for having anything but a lawn. I would never make back the time invested
in growing anything agriculture related.

Not only that, I would limit my kid's (already limited) space in which they
could "run free" by having high grasses growing. I too have two small kids, I
don't water, feed, or otherwise treat my lawn other then cutting it and still
spend more then an hour per week with less than half and acre. Now the author
wants me to invest time or money in agriculture that will never pay back and
take more time out of my life?

This is coming from someone who studied the advent of lawns both in an
academic and professional setting.

------
village-idiot
Golf courses too.

