Lawns & The American Obsession

[novella]

I believe some of the biggest problems with the water in our area (Delaware) is run off from the farming communities animal waste piles, and human waste not being treated properly. During heavy rains raw human sewage by-passes the treatment plants and gets dumped into the rivers that lead to the ocean and Delaware Bay. Run off from chicken farms are being blaimed for many of the problems in the Chesapeake Bay. We also have chemical plants and petroleum plants that are constantly fined for polluting the air and the water around them, but the fines are cheaper for the companies to pay than fixing the issues, so nothing changes. They just pay the fines and pollute everything around them.

Chemicals that are being sprayed on crops, and to fertilize farms lands to grow food for our consumption have got to be worse than what the average Joe American deposits on his lawn every once in a while.

That may be true, but those enterprises aren't allowed to operate in land that is part of the big reservoir systems that serve urban and suburban areas. They've never been allowed in those areas. And that's where the drinking water comes from, not from the rivers and oceans, but from the underground aquifers that feed into the reservoirs. The biggest threat to drinking water in the US is traditional suburban development, not commerical pollution or agriculture. In fact, most farms have to use their own wells for their own families and livestock, and they are very educated on this issue.

 

[Sergo]

Your language is good enough to get your point across, and that's a lot more than I could say if I tried to write in Russian. You made great points.

I raise my weed-wacker to salute your lawn Sergo.

Thanks Moto. Sorry for not answering earlier - had been busy mowing my lawn...

 

[Sergo]

You make your point very well, Sergo. The environmental problems introduced by cultivating lawns in the US are pretty serious. It's not so much the chemicals used to kill weeds, but the cultivation of a nonindigenous monoculture of two or three types of grass that are now ubiquitous across the suburban US, which is growing exponentially with the development of subdivisions. The overuse of fertilizer--even organic fertilizer--to keep this monoculture going is very bad for the water table.

It's reallyl an issue of ensuring a fresh, safe water supply for everyone to live off for generations to come. I agree that asphalt is worse, but the best thing for the water supply is to have an unfertilized, clean filtration system as exists often in nature. Water supplies are taken for granted, but believe me, when there is a shortage of clean, potable water, it's a very serious problem. Most of America is pulling off private wells and public reservoir systems that rely on rural areas to remain clean and undeveloped. It's going to be the biggest issue of the next century to continue to provide clean, abundant water to all these houses surrounded by grass.

The reason I know a lot about this is that I was deeply involved and formed a not for profit at one point to do some public education on this after three towns in my area had serious problems with their water sources. And I live in a relatively undeveloped area. The problem there came from a comblination of road salt storage and runoff, bad storage of approved, safe agricultural fertilizers, and drought. What would you do if you turned on your water tap and nothing came out?

I do realize that most people don't think about this issue at all and don't see the connections. People in cities and suburbs rely on people in rural areas to keep their water clean and safe. Someday, after every bit of open land is covered with a house and a fertilized lawn and a patio and a driveway, the problem will become all too apparent.

Hi Novella:

Your point is very seriously made. I think you should be right - of course my words above were not based on so wide a study of the problem.

But, just out of my natural inclination to argue: it seems you speak of a situation when "The overuse of fertilizer" takes place. OK, if one doesn't OVERuse fertilisers? I hadn't used any so far, by the way, so it is possible to have a lawn and not to fertilize it. I do not think my lawn could be as pretty as your American ones, but, let us remember that the famous English lawn (at least it is famous here: we have even several anecdotes about that) had not been made with much in the way of fertilizers etc.
And these words... "nonindigenous monoculture"... That's brilliant... I spent many minutes looking for it, but even Webster online has only "indigenous". So I imagine you have meant that some areas in USA are filled with some species of grass which were not specific for that region, and that is unhealthy for the nature? Errr... One would think that all the agriculture is about all over the world is just it: "cultivation of a nonindigenous monoculture", whether we speak of wheat, rye, corn, potatoes, tomatoes etc.
So. The problem surely exists, if you say so. But I cannot see it from here, as we do not "overfertilize" our lawns yet, etc. It seems Progress has not come here yet. (It seems to be at least a new thread here, but I have not time for it, alas). Would you believe that the biggest problem I can see near my dacha is tons of trash my neighbours throw out in the forest? Old TV sets, refrigerators, cans, bottles, construction materials etc. Each Spring I employ a man or two to collect and to dispose properly of the garbage, and it usually takes two or three days to clean area immediately near my small piece of land. I thought the neighbours will be ashamed and would stop to shit under themselves, but so far the only result is they seem to decide to pile garbage closer to my dacha, so that I would not have to pay too much my people for combing out all forest, but only for collecting shit in the much smaller area.

 

[«FickleMinded»]

You can eat dandelions, Moto. They're good for you. Good for the digestion. They don't need to be watered. They have pretty yellow flowers. They are very easy to grow. Those are significant merits.

--my son love those cute li'l yellow flowers and everytime he saw one,he'll make it sure that he'll pick and gave it to me,and when they turn into those white looks-like-a-dust ,he called it wish bec he love to blow it like a birthday candle.

 

[«FickleMinded»]

sorry, i overlooked this one.

Do you live in Ohio?

--Yeah,how'd you know?

 

[Sergo]

--my son love those cute li'l yellow flowers and everytime he saw one,he'll make it sure that he'll pick and gave it to me,and when they turn into those white looks-like-a-dust ,he called it wish bec he love to blow it like a birthday candle.

Yes, I think they looks great, especially when all my piece of land is covered with a yellow or a white blanket... But a lawn looks much more tidy, it is much easier to care after than a field of dandelions, alas... And if not to suppress these dandelions, - it would be impossible to have even a small patch not having them...
So far we have two lawns (roughly 20% of our land) and 80% of space covered with dandelions, clover and other natural grass. But I think that in future I will have more lawns made (If dear Novella doesn't succeed in making me believe that dandelions etc. are better than lawns...)

 

[abecedarian]

We are not lawn people..We have 5 acres that was a wheat field in an earlier life. We couldn't see the value of planting some high-maintenance grass that we'd just let go, so we planted Buffalo Grass, which is native to Kansas. It's not as pretty as some of the others, but it's great for hot dry summers. We also have tons of weeds that we just mow down with our little John Deere riding mower. Push mow 5 acres? Um, no. Life is just too short... Now, in town, just up the road, there's some lovely examples of lawn fetish.. but we just smile at those people and wave as we drive by..they're usually always outside slaving away

 

[sirmyk]

My lawn looks like the ground beneath it threw up.

 

[abecedarian]

My lawn looks like the ground beneath it threw up.

Sounds like my kind of lawn!

 

[Motokid]

Cut the front two halves of my lawn on opposing diagonals this evening. Looks totally sweet. Wish I could see it from about 50 feet up....

It's so freaking humid here today. I think it the moisture level was any higher we'd need gills....And the temp is about 90 degrees F.

Summer rocks....thank you to whoever developed air-conditioning....

 

[Jenem]

grass lawns are great, but i would love to have a lawn of thick, velvety moss. i LOVE moss. so soft and cushiony. even nicer on the bare feet than grass and you wouldn't have to mow it.

i haven't read all previous posts so if someone has already said this please excuse me

 

[lorrekarloff]

I have walked barefoot in my yard for four years now along with my two kids and have never been stung by anything. Our lawn gets mowed, but thats it. No fertilizer or bug or weed killers. I have 5 cats and they don't have fleas.

In spring we have lots of dandelions, but to us, it just looks like summers' finally coming! And they mow down just as easy as grass & weeds. Birds like our yard too. They come for nest material and bugs & worms every day. We've got robins, starlings, cardinals, blue jays, sparrows, goldfinches, mourning doves, orioles & barn swallows living all around our little 1/2 acre.
I wouldn't want to put anything on the ground to hurt them. I don't use any insecticide in my veggie garden either. I hand-pick bugs and eggs or use a natural method to get rid of the veggie-eating bugs. I also hand-pick weeds most of the time- our weed wacker doesn't work very well.

I'm sure my neighbors don't care what my lawn is made up of. This house was abandoned for two years before we bought it, so you can imagine what they had to look at before!

 

[Sergo]

Yep, moss could be a great idea. I like spaces with moss in some parts of my piece of land. I like it on my walks made of fragments of granite rock. But, alas, to have a whole land of moss is impossible.

Yes, I mow dandelions too, but mowed dandelions look much worse than just a regular lawn. I pick most bugs with my hands too, and use water to wash them away sometimes. But how to deal wit ants... They seem to be living under every piece of rock now...

 

[Motokid]

I usually equate moss with moisture and shade. As in damp.

I'll take my grass. You all can have the dandylions and clover. I'm gald that others don't mind. Where I live the fact that anybodies doing anything to preserve any kind of green is a good thing. If there's no lawn it's probably because there's either a building there, asphault road, concrete sidewalk or driveway. Man has really run out of room to built where I live. Flooding on some streams has become a real problem due to excessive building and the destruction of natural areas that would cut down on water run-off. What used to take the proverbial 100 year type rain to flood, now floods once or twice a year. The state has had to start condemming a few areas and offering government buy-outs to people because the area they live in is now a flood plain, but only because of what man has created and destroyed all around that area.

 

[Sergo]

Ouch...
You made me think that it's good Moscow doesn't have big rivers...
Our 12 million couldn't have succeeded into shitting our nature yet.

I spent two days mowing... Wow... Good for my hands and legs.

 

[Motokid]

These are not big rivers, or rivers at all. They are creeks. In many cases you could easily wade across them and not get your shorts wet on regular days. But drop heavy rain across the entire region and the water has no where to go but these small creeks so they flood.

 

[Sergo]

I see.
So I'm glad our country is not too rainy. I cannot remember when our drainage system was overflowed. And I installed it four years ago... And in Moscow we have floods sometimes - but only for several hours, and enough for not more than to stop a metro station or two and road traffic on several streets...

 

[Motokid]

Sergo...how's the green?

We've had a very hot, pretty dry summer. Things here are browning in the dry heat. Many have resorted to watering, but I will not waste water on grass. Hard to believe in about 3 more months we'll be putting the mowers away for the winter.

 

[SFG75]

What about you? What about the traditions of lawn manicuring in your country? Are you obsessed with having the perfect golf coarse type lawn?

My way of "taking care" of the lawn is to allow the summer sun to burn up as much of it as possible. That way, I spend less time mowing, and more time reading or messing around on the net. I have a neighbor who is a total lawn-nazi. The guy is just amazing. When it snows, he sprays the snow off of his garage driveway. I've always wanted to wake up at 1 a.m. and shovel the snow back onto his drive way and see if it would give him a coronary.

 

[Robert]

I don't know about obsessions, but I do know that I like to keep the grass alive to prevent erosion. I can also verify that the grass is indeed greener over the septic tank.