this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2024
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No Lawns
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I used to think lawns were dumb but then I moved to a place where if you don't take care of your yard, it's just overrun with bugs and weeds. Planting too many trees makes things damp and miserable, open areas are key, but that's where stuff grows. Most plants can't survive being mowed, but grass loves it, and the birds can pick out insects when it's low. So now I like lawns, it's the human version of a meadow. And I don't see an alternative, other than growing an extra long beard, converting myself in mud, and becoming a druid
I don’t understand. Are you implying that’s not the obvious solution here?
It depends on how much lawn you have, too. If you're sitting on a quarter acre (1000 square meters), then just mow it. You don't want bug habitats literally on top of your house.
If you have five acres, you can probably leave a good chunk of it as natural. Mow the stuff closer to your house, and whatever you want to be able to use, and leave the rest. Maybe take a scythe to it every once in awhile.
I used to have about five acres and would only mow the area around my house. But when I went to sell it the realtor said I had to mow all of it because it looked "messy."
Dumbasses want to move out to the country and live in a damn suburb smh
To be fair, I do love mockingbirds, and mockingbirds love mowed lawns :)
I would wager that the majority of people posting about lawns that require maintenance don't actually own a home with one or are forced to do said maintenance by their parents.
The native plants that can grow in my lawn are not appealing so if I were to just let it go wild I would have a shitty looking, pest riddled, brown, half-dirt/half sticker mess that my kids can't play on. We have beds where we can make them work but I do not have the time, money, or inclination to make it fence to fence flora. Also the most common bugs we get are mosquitoes and I would rather not encourage them any more.
Why not just fill it with gravel, put a few planters in if you still want some vegetation and then move on?
Ah yes, let's take the low life area and make it 0 life
OP is literally saying they want less life... I wouldn't consider an artificially manicured patch of grass to be much life anyway. The overgrown druid land OP describes sounds much better to me
So close and yet so far
This is quite nice in desert areas, but doesnt work well for areas like Florida where if you dont spend hours weeding or edging religiously, you'll end up having to weedwhack your lawn because the grass and weeds have still grown, but now your mower has turned iinto a rock flinging machine with very dull blades
A yeard can be great space for kids to run and play, but still, fuck lawns for the most part. One basketball-court-sized lawn per couple blocks is plenty sufficient for kids. A soccerfield per 5 miles, and a major sports field per 10 miles...
Folks should let their yards be what the yards are in the wild.
In Florida, that means pine/oak forest with palm fronds. Maybe small grassy garden if folks want a spot to hang. But grass for the most part is shaded out by trees and covered by pine-straw and leaves.
Residential half-acre-plus fertilized lawns are stupid AF.
Maybe was cool in the 1950s when lawncare was a handy mode of wealth redistribution for a healthier economy, and no-one had thought of the negative environmnetal impacts.
Lawns used to be a big flex specifically because it took crazy labor to do; lords would show off how many gardeners they had under employ. Now folks are flexing in how they can kill everything including their wallets, free time, and planet
Push mowers are superior for small lawns.
Mowing lawnbots are the future for lawncare.