@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)

@absGeekNZ

> The regulatory environment is both more complicated than you realise and not that bad. Neighbourhood scale batteries, could be totally managed by lines company, without involving much in the way of regulatory hurdles. The question is what incentive do they have to install them.

Yes.

Communities do.

A local trust would probably be pushing up hill to service local solar systems and consumers.

We looked at something similar in Waitati, and there was no way. A big, serious, NO!!

@belchion @robloblaw @NickEast_IndieWriter @allotments @gardening@fedigroups.social @gardening@lemmy.world

I have experimented a lot with mowing. If you do not mow it is much easier but one or another of the non flowering plants will dominate, and that does not please the bees

Other gardeners disagree, but I am confident I am correct -- as I say I have experimented

It is such a pleasure watching the bees in my lawn

@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:

1. 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.

2. My grand children, my dogs, my friends and I play, frolic an romp all over the lawn.

I do love my lawn

@absGeekNZ

....

My prior (before asking you about this) was "flow batteries" (technically fuel cells I am told). Primarily for their long life and low cost. Except I cannot go out and buy them, I looked. There are some people building them but I have found none available that can compete with the lower capital cost of Li batteries.

I really like the idea of neighbour hood batteries, very hard to do in New Zealand because of the bureaucracy, am I off base?

@absGeekNZ Fascinating thank you

We are talking stationary batteries, so energy density is not so much of an issue, aye?

"sodium ion batteries" are not something I am familiar with. I looked them up on Wikipedia they say nothing I could understand about how often they can cycle. From my (limited) understanding that is the Achilles heel of Li batteries we use in cars, computers and phones. I have a lot of varied experience with them form computers.

....

@absGeekNZ @rimu Do you have an opinion on grid scale batteries?

I do, but I am not any sort of expert

@rimu https://5rightsfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Joint-Statement-on-the-expert-panel-report/_5R/_September-2026.pdf

@Ilovethebomb @Dave The Guardian had their journalists doing this for a while.

The idea that not including every sing tiny edge case (like pregnant men) is "exclusionary" is IMO a fallacy

It is OK to assume that a person who is pregnant is a woman. Yes, there are exceptions (I know one) but sometimes the sky is not blue, not all leaves are green and some politicians are honest.

Still Ok to say "blue sky thinking", "green leaves" and "lies like a politician"