Is there anything uglier than a well cut lawn... ๐
23 days ago by Nick East (Indie Writer) to c/gardening
Is there anything uglier than a well cut lawn... ๐
@allotments @gardening@fedigroups.social @gardening@lemmy.world
#FuckLawns
#GrowYourOwn #FreeFood #Free #Food #Seed #Seeds #Seedlings #Precultivation #SelfSufficient #Urban #Garden #Gardening
#Bokashi #Compost
I live in a small town that's built like a suburb. My street is full of old men who obsess over their perfectly manicured lawn. That doesn't leave much room for the wildlife to safely hang out during the day. Plus all these lawns get cooked in the sun so it's a lot of patchy brown but perfectly manicured grass...
At least there is one spot for my bunny friend to hang out and safely enjoy the sun
I wish I could have more bunny gardens but I live with my elderly parents who need a lot of help so I can only push the boundaries so far. At least I've established one bunny garden which is good enough
I live in the suburbs and I actually donโt mind the grass lawns here all that much. But the lawns here arenโt as big and extensive like the image posted, thatโs just wasted space imo. They are smaller with patches of drought resistant plants. Folks who have vegetable gardens grow them in the backyard here because itโs the easiest way to prevent the canyon rats from eating everything.
Iโd love to have a bigger yard with a bunny garden like yours ๐
I wouldn't mind other people's sunburnt lawns so much if it weren't for the deafening and polluting gas mowers these people use
I live on a quiet street but the sounds of motors echos from streets away. I hate motors. Lifted pickup trucks, dirt bikes and lawn mowers all terrorizing my bunny friends...
Kill your lawn today!
@CorrectAlias I already did years ago! ๐
Nice, I'm about half way done with killing mine! I've been happily surprised to already see a drastic improvement in the amount of pollinators visiting.
@CorrectAlias Actually, it's not even mine, I've occupied part of the lawn by my appartment ๐
Even better! I love some guerrilla horticulture!
Back in the day, a lord having a lawn was a big 'fuck you!' status symbol.
"Look at me! I am so rich that I don't need to grow food on my land. I can just let it sit here, doing nothing!"
@DagwoodIII@piefed.social @NickEast_IndieWriter@mastodon.art [citation needed]
Seriously, we need to stop portraing socoeties that were in quite a few ways less dysfunctional than ours as these backwards places based on vibes informed by bullshit historical fiction.
The history is more complicated and in many climates lawns aren't hard to maintain at all (read: rain does the job of watering) and it is nice to lay on the grass or walk on it, which you can't do in an overgrown field. Both have their place!
(That it was used to attack black people in the US via HOAs, is a specifuc story, specifuc to one shitty country!)
Lush, manicured lawns are deeply rooted in the aristocratic traditions of Europe. Originating as a luxury of the European elite, the concept of the lawn as a landscape feature of manor houses was not merely an aesthetic choice, but a potent symbol of wealth and social standing.
In the grand landscapes of 17th and 18th-century European manor houses, expansive lawns served as the canvas on which the aristocracy could express their dominance over nature and display their economic might. These green expanses required an enormous amount of labor to maintain, far beyond what natural landscapes would demand. The aristocrats employed extensive staffs of gardeners or relied on grazing animals like sheep to keep their lawns at an aesthetically pleasing length. This reliance on manual labor or animal grazing underscored not only the lawnsโ beauty but also the wealth and social status of the landownerโonly those who could afford such exorbitant maintenance could possess a lawn.
https://blog.nwf.org/2024/04/why-we-have-lawns/
I searched 'why we have lawns.' It would have taken you much less time to search yourself.
@DagwoodIII@piefed.social @Fiona I have read that the tradition stems from much earlier, like 14th century, when owning land just for leisure and aesthetics was a substantial privilege. For the majority of people getting food on the table was a pressing concern, and the class divide in nutrition was brutal. Having land while giving zero fucks about producing food out of it, that was the real flex at the time.
@DagwoodIII@piefed.social I canโt help to severely doubt that piece: Maintaining the pure lawn is just not that labor intensive in Europe; maintaining the hedges and flowers-beds and things like that is what takes much more work, but those are not what we are talking about here, yet they are the things we actually tend to find as prestige part of those palaces.
Like, look at the following picture: This was nowhere near anything that could in any way be considered prestigious for anything but the nature there, and it clearly doesnโt get much maintenance, yet it is basically regular lawn without much human interference.
And if that is how nature looks like, how would it impress anyone if you had that around a manor? It just doesnโt check out as a prestige thing. The only loud complaints I hear about these kinds of lawns are from the US, where the climate is not really suitable for them and people waste tons of water to maintain them.
When I listen to specialists on medieval stuff talking (and to be fair, I am far less interested in the post-medival times and I know that that is when a lot of things really started turning to shit) and what was used back then for prestige, we are talking about the size of the Donjon in a castle, about festivities and things like that. Nobody ever mentioned the size of a grass lawn.
Go touch the grass.
My dude the โlawnโ as we know it is an extension of the aristocracy.
There were commons, but less so as time went on.
The manicured grass lawn is a holdover from the โmanicured / cut down forestโ allowing a castle to more easily defend its surrounding area, then the grand sweeping lawns became symbols of status.
The lawn as it is being discussed here is NOT the common area youโre referring to, everyone wants those โฆIโd prefer a native clover / grass mix to a monoculture grass that requires fertilizing and maintenance but hey.
Oh my god are you actually defending the monoculture grass lawn?
No, but pragmatics know that other โsolutionsโ are even worse. Itโs how you get concrete jungles because anything else is too much work or costly to maintain without larger plots of landscaping. Or watering systems that need to be overwintered in places with frost.
Natives donโt do well surrounded by hot concrete and reflected light all day either. Itโs not a one size fit all solution.
@prettybunnys@piefed.social I'm primarily taking issue with the notion of โeverything bad was invented by the evil medieval aristocracy to be the largest possible assholes against everyone elseโ, when the culture at the time was extremely reliant on mutual respect to the point where something like that was not commonly going to fly.
But I will also say that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with a grass-lawn, I like to be able to do things like this, as I have done in my parents backyard when I was still living there and as I still do from time to time when I visit.
And yes, nowadays there are extreme summers where they sometimes have a rough time, but the universally awful problems of the US are not really applicable here in central Europe (or at least not yet).
when the culture at the time was extremely reliant on mutual respect to the point where something like that was not commonly going to fly.
especially "mutual respect" between a peasant and their master, i gues...
If I ever can afford a house with a garden, it's going to consist of native plants. I want hedgehogs to live in my garden!
@RedFrank24 I live on the bottomflooor of an apartment buliding, but I've occupied the space near my balcony for growing, and yes I've had hedgehog visitors ๐
I hate my lawn so much. Itโs ugly because I do the bare minimum to not get fined by the HOA. And I donโt want to waste water and be dumping herbicides just to keep it perfectly manicured. So I just pull the weeds that tend to grow tall, and mow once a month because the grass doesnโt grow too much if I donโt water it.
Do you live in one of these states?
https://repurposeatlas.com/...
The HOA might not have the power to tell you that you have to have a turf lawn.
Yeah I believe the HOA laws allow a certain percentage of the yard to be xeriscaped. Iโm still setting aside the budget for it, not to mention you also have to pay the HOA just to approve the design.
@skribe The only one's stealing from me is the gang of youths living in the nearby forest A.K.A Deer ๐
That's not always true. My neighbour has a large passionfruit vine in his front yard, and any night that I sneak over there to nick some, there's always plenty of fruit! Never seen anyone over there stealing them
... oh no. Hungry people got the food they needed. The horror!
No one here understands the amount of work to grow food.
"Don't burn oil! Build your own EV"
You're in the sub "gardening" and think no one knows the labor it takes to grow food?
Look again at the size of the mowed lawn in the meme.
I am absolutely certain no one here has grown food by hand (no machines and chemicals) on a yard that size.
I can't manage 20'*30'.
My solution for my yard is to let several acres grow out for wildlife.
My solution for my yard is to let several acres grow out for wildlife.
Thank you for your service!
Sometimes just doing less can help your local wildlife as much or more than anything active. This has been a big part of the worldwide efforts to help restore barn owl populations.
Me too.
It's not a huge effort to plant a few dozen fruit trees and bushes. I'd argue it's easier to have that than a regular lawn that needs weekly mowing
Yes
One thats been replaced entirely by crushed stone and concrete pathways with a stupid giant lion statue in the middle. Yes its a specific home I pass sometimes.
Yes, its as awful as it sounds.
Yeah I am nowhere near a desert and neither are they.
Given what's visible from the road, I'm going to go with they more likely want to speed it up.
@NickEast_IndieWriter @allotments @gardening@fedigroups.social @gardening@lemmy.world Part of our lawn got dug up to plant potatoes when covid started. Non-perishables we already had in stock, in the #brexshit cupboard, but we weren't growing enough fresh food.
Por que no los dos?
You forgot !nolawns@slrpnk.net
@NickEast_IndieWriter Great idea,but HOAs are going to hate this concept.
@NickEast_IndieWriter @allotments @gardening@fedigroups.social @gardening@lemmy.world
Yea, nah.
Depends where you live
In the context of where I live I have two very good reasons for maintaining my lawn:
A fire break. I live in a rural area with plenty of trees. Every few decades fire sweeps through. Having a mowed lawn helps protect my house from those fires.
My grand children, my dogs, my friends and I play, frolic an romp all over the lawn.
I do love my lawn
@worik @NickEast_IndieWriter @allotments @gardening@fedigroups.social @gardening@lemmy.world
Lawn underfoot does feel wonderful, though the chemicals used to keep that unnatural monoculture cause cancer. In fact your risk of developing Parkinson's disease increases the closer you are to a golf course. That's one disease you really don't want to watch a loved one die from.
1/n
@robloblaw @worik @NickEast_IndieWriter @allotments @gardening@fedigroups.social @gardening@lemmy.world
a) There is *one* study that shows living close to golf courses *might* increase your risk for Parkinson. I know of no study that draws similar links between private lawns and Parkinson, and not even hypotheses that consider this thought worth studying.
b) You know absolutely nothing about the state of Worik's lawn, but impose it must be treated with "aggressive chemicals" to remain "pure".
1/3
@robloblaw @worik @NickEast_IndieWriter @allotments @gardening@fedigroups.social @gardening@lemmy.world
I know plenty lawns used similar to what Worik describes, and the most a aggressive chemical used on them is water. They are not particularly "pure" either: daysies, clover, moss and dandelion are commonly found, as those plants can survive mowing and trampling, and usually do not bother frolickers either.
c) Your supposed "solution" turns a multi-use area into a single-use area.
2/3
@belchion @robloblaw @NickEast_IndieWriter @allotments @gardening@fedigroups.social @gardening@lemmy.world
My lawn is, at most times of year, fill of flowers.
My advice: Do not plant a lawn
Clear the ground where you want your lawn
Mow it every time plants are over ankle height
You are imitating herbivores
Dig problematic weeds out (I am in a constant fight with hemlock on the borders, and positively genocidal towards stinging nettle)
@robloblaw @worik @NickEast_IndieWriter @allotments @gardening@fedigroups.social @gardening@lemmy.world Lawns are extremely useful for certain purposes. They can become problematic, and if there are areas in Worik's garden not used for frolicking it would be worth considering to transform those (a little variety makes a garden more pleasant, after all). But I see absolutely no reason to completely annihilate his lawn completely.
3/3
@belchion @worik @NickEast_IndieWriter @allotments @gardening@fedigroups.social @gardening@lemmy.world
I didn't tell anyone what to do with their garden. I am not anyone's supervisor. The lawn pictured in the OPs post is clearly a monoculture, which can only be created with dangerous chemicals.
Grass mixed with clover and other things is not a lawn (in my way of thinking), and can be lovely.
The other fire safe garden designs I listed are just to let others know there are many options.
1/n
@belchion @worik @NickEast_IndieWriter @allotments @gardening@fedigroups.social @gardening@lemmy.world
Glyphosate is commonly used on residential lawns (often at higher concentrations than proscribed, and without PPE). Glysophate, the surfactant, or a combination of the two cause cancer.
The golf course epidemiological study is compelling because the risk increases the closer your home is to the golf course.
2/n
@lemmy.world
Your Ultimate Gardening Guide.
Rules
go to feed...
@lemmy.world
Your Ultimate Gardening Guide.
Rules
go to feed...
I grew a bunny garden and I was both shocked and disappointed that there was protest to my bunny garden
The bunny garden stayed and the bunny crops were fruitful this year. This one bunny in particular has eaten a tunnel network and has also made a napping area. More than once I've seen it flopped over and sleeping in the sunny patch it made for itself
I also grew some beans and squash this year too https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/75200097
save