Lawns........
If you need encouragement to change lawn into something more interesting and environmentally friendly, then hear me shouting “shishboombah!” If you have already put some thought and effort into this endeavour you have likely found that it snowballs. Alternatives to manicured lawns are wonderful and worthwhile.
Next time you pass a vacant lot, stop and look at what grass becomes when left to grow. Usually there are at least six varieties, sometimes nine and occasionally a dozen exquisite types of fronds swaying in the slightest wind. If you come across them when in flower you will likely be astonished to see and realize that grass does, indeed, flower. I cannot look upon a lawn without thinking of its potential as a meadow, which is not everyone’s choice but it does offer a startling perspective to contrast properties that seem to be hoping for a white golf ball award.
The cause of my crankiness is the knowledge of what goes into making and keeping a lawn, the pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers, noise of the 3 p.m. weekend mowing, the water needed to keep it green. Like cigarette butts where do people imagine all the stuff they put on lawn goes. It leaches back into our water supply. I feel badly enough that I can remember a time when it was safe to drink from a stream: it makes me really upset to think my grandkids, heck – my kids! won’t be able to safely drink from a tap.
There are alternatives. Suited nicely to the individual. That’s what I find so satisfying about joining Nature’s club – there are some common sense practices but you set your own rules.
Many people want to escape the tedium of an expanse of lawn but it seems so daunting to get rid of it. Grass is tenacious and hard to dig out. To dig up a lawn – no way!
Maybe it is as simple as turning a manicured lawn into a grassy area. Cutting longer, cutting less. A lawn says don’t walk on me I’ve just been aerated, treated, patterned by a mower. Silky, fragrant grass welcomes people. And once the people are there they might just look around and say, hmmm, a comfortable chair or two would be nice right about here and a tree or two for shade and some bushes for privacy and some flowers for colour and fragrance…
If a more sudden wish for lawn-gone!, is desired then start small. Start with a corner of the yard one year and see what happens. The notion and the actuality will spread, trust me.
And think well on what to put in place of the water-guzzler. I have often enough in life tripped over the “oh, I could have done that” to invite awareness so it becomes, “hey, I could do that.” It’s incredibly satisfying to break free from a rut, and it may just be a new way of seeing.
Toss your dreams out on that tabula rasa of a lawn and see what comes to mind. An orchard? Why not. With the dwarf trees available now, picking fruit, instead of rooting out ‘weeds’ (I love dandelions) is a near-future possibility.
A maze like the one that worked its magic on you in England? A giant chess or checker board and the chance for games with living figures? Bird baths, bird houses, bird feeders in abundance?
Dream big and dream fantastic. Get something back from that land. Enhance the neighbourhood.
Ah, the neighbours. They have been lurking in the back of mind and may be the major reason for mindless lawn care: the whole block is doing it! It has been my experience that when one person tickles the status quo with something more satisfying, the fun spreads.
Karen continues her passion for urban wilderness gardening in Victoria BC
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