My favorite noxious weed
A number of years ago I came home to find a notice on my door from a lawn care company. A checklist detailed the ways they could make my lawn lovely by eliminating noxious intruders such as violets. I was offended. I carefully avoid mowing the yard as long as possible each spring, so that I can enjoy the profusion of “noxious” violets that tells me winter is finally over. My side yard is a carpet of Spring Beauties that provide habitat for a large colony of miner bees who circle busily for a few weeks each spring, then disappear for another year. My front yard is a mix of ivy, wild ginger and other wildflowers. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I wonder what people in other less affluent countries think of our lawn obsession. Rearcher Cristina Milesi from NASA’s Ames Research Center in California has come up with what she says is a conservative estimate that there are three times more acres of lawns in the U.S. that irrigated corn, making lawns and golf courses the single largest irrigated crop in America in terms of surface area. The implications of this, in a time of increased pressures on water use, are tremendous. Where else in the world do people grow a crop that no one eats, fertilize it and water it with drinking water so that it grows quickly, cover it with various poisons to create a monoculture, then create huge amounts of pollution trimming it to a uniform height, all so we can pride ourselves on its appearance?
Spring beauties provide food for bees and butterflies
My yard is focused on trees and natural areas of wildflowers. Large parts of my .75 acre lot are still grassy, but they are allowed to develop naturally. I like to think I am a good steward of my space, for a number of reasons:
Mowing: a regular mower creates as much pollution as about 11 cars; a riding mower can match the pollution of about 35 cars. A non-watered lawn grows more slowly and needs less mowing. When the grass grows slowly, clippings are short enough to be left on the lawn, which according to Milesi is actually a pretty good way to store carbon.
Watering: I water certain flowers and vegetables when needed, as well as newly planted trees. I never water my lawn. It gets by just fine. Drinking water is for people, not for sustaining huge swaths of drought-intolerant plants.
Fertilizer: I do fertilize trees and vegetables. Until I get that flock of sheep, I don’t see any need to make the grass any lusher. Runoff of improperly applied fertilizer is a significant non-point source polluter of streams, leading to algae blooms and fish kills.
Herbicide and pesticide: Farming is one of the most dangerous jobs in America. While accidents with large equipment is part of the mix, lifelong exposure to herbicides and pesticides produce high rates of neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s. Is this a risk anyone should be taking with themselves, their children and pet’s lives and health? The amounts used on lawns may be smaller, but in the case of childhood exposure, small repeated amounts can be as dangerous. And the workers making these products are exposed to high levels of deadly chemicals – and for what?
I admit to an occasional use of Roundup on pesky poison ivy and bindweed. But the profusion of birds, butterflies and fireflies (which are disappearing at a rapid rate) attest to the ecological benefits of leaving well enough alone.
A perfect grassy lawn is a monoculture which can’t be maintained without artificial means. I’ve tried with various kinds of ground covers and flowers and found that a monoculture lacks vigor and is an easy target for all sorts of insect, fungal or other pests. It’s not how nature works – nature uses a mix of plants that compliment each other in their use of resources. It may be a necessary evil for large scale agriculture to require artificial means of support (well, even that might be argued, but that’s a whole other topic). But why keep a vanity crop on life support in a world with critical need of these resources for life itself?
(This is a repost, transferred from my old blog. Original date Apr. 27, 2009)
