Lawns are terrible and ugly. Turf grasses are the most heavily irrigated crop in America. Not corn or wheat. Grass. We are so accustomed to the constant assault on the eyes that is suburban sprawl and the massive lawns that proliferate with it, that many of us barely even notice they are there. Just a thing that exists, like trees in the forest or clouds in the sky. But it didn’t have to be this way and we don’t need to continue this way.
We waste so much water and use so many chemicals to maintain these generic green seas of turf that destroy local biodiversity. Lawnmowers run on gasoline and pollute the air around them. Not to mention the 17 million gallons of gas spilled by people filling up their equipment and the tens of millions of pounds of chemical fertilizers we use on our lawns every year. All this chemical runoff seeps into the ground and into our water.
These areas with just one type of grass and little to no other flowering plants have almost no pollen and nectar for bees and other insects. While non-native weeds like dandelions and clovers do provide some pollination opportunities, they are not enough and it causes our spaces to look more like ecological deserts.
A total 2% of land in the continental United States is irrigated lawns. We can do better to craft our spaces in a way that benefits ourselves, our eyes, and our ecosystems. One easy tip is to just be a lazy lawnmower. Letting your lawn grow out a little bit instead of consistently cutting it back can help to increase the diversity and amount of insects. Another is to allocate less space to turf grasses and more spaces to native grasses and gardens. Native grasses attract native insects and promote biodiversity instead of destroying it.
Growing a garden allocates space for an ultimately useful endeavor: growing food. Growing a garden is also a great way to feel closer to the earth and space you inhabit. There is a beautiful thing about growing your own food from the ground. And the water and energy that goes into cultivating that isn’t wasted on a big ugly sea of green that looks like every other overdone lawn.
We live in a culture that idealizes and romanticizes the notion of the individualism inherent to owning your own house and your own space. But we build these hideous communities of generic houses with generic lawns that waste water, kill biodiversity, and serve no purpose other than to demonstrate the excess of a culture that thinks its aesthetics are more important than the health of its home.