God on Lawns

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I read the following joke a number of years ago about a conversation between God and Saint Francis.  It has recently popped back up in some emails and a recent podcast I was listening to.  While humorous, it is really a sad statement that should make us question the status quo of lawns.  


God: Frank, you know all about gardens and nature. What in the world is going on down there on the planet? What happened to the dandelions, violets, milkweeds and stuff I started eons ago? I had a perfect no-maintenance garden plan. Those plants grow in any type of soil, withstand drought and multiply with abandon. The nectar from the long-lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honey bees and flocks of songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of colors by now. But, all I see are these green rectangles.


St. Francis: It’s the tribes that settled there, Lord. The Suburbanites. They started calling your flowers ‘weeds’ and went to great lengths to kill them and replace them with grass.


God: Grass? But, it’s so boring. It’s not colorful. It doesn’t attract butterflies, birds and bees; only grubs and sod worms. It’s sensitive to temperatures. Do these Suburbanites really want all that grass growing there?


St. Francis: Apparently so, Lord. They go to great pains to grow it and keep it green. They begin each spring by fertilizing grass and poisoning any other plant that crops up in the lawn.


God: The spring rains and warm weather probably make grass grow really fast. That must make the Suburbanites happy.


St. Francis: Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it grows a little, they cut it-sometimes twice a week.


God: They cut it? Do they then bale it like hay?


St. Francis: Not exactly, Lord. Most of them rake it up and put it in bags.


God: They bag it? Why? Is it a cash crop? Do they sell it?


St. Francis: No, Sir, just the opposite. They pay to throw it away.


God: Now, let me get this straight. They fertilize grass so it will grow. And, when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?


St. Francis: Yes Sir.


God: These Suburbanites must be relieved in the summer when we cut back on the rain and turn up the heat. That surely slows the growth and saves them a lot of work.


St. Francis: You aren’t going to believe this, Lord. When the grass stops growing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to water it, so they can continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.


God: What nonsense. At least they kept some of the trees. That was a sheer stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. The trees grow leaves in the spring to provide beauty and shade in the summer. In the autumn, they fall to the ground and form a natural blanket to keep moisture in the soil and protect the trees and bushes. It’s a natural cycle of life.


St. Francis: You better sit down, Lord. The Suburbanites have drawn a new circle. As soon as the leaves fall, they rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled away.


God: No!? What do they do to protect the shrub and tree roots in the winter to keep the soil moist and loose?


St. Francis: After throwing away the leaves, they go out and buy something which they call mulch. They haul it home and spread it around in place of the leaves.


God: And where do they get this mulch?


St. Francis: They cut down trees and grind them up to make the mulch.


God: Enough! I don’t want to think about this anymore. St. Catherine, you’re in charge of the arts. What movie have you scheduled for us tonight?


St. Catherine: "Dumb and Dumber", Lord. It’s a story about….


God: Never mind, I think I just heard the whole story from St. Francis.

I have written a few other posts about lawns here: 
Get Rid of Your Lawn!
Lawn Care the Makes Sense

Permaculture Projects: Lawn Care that Makes Sense

Organic Lawn Care: Lawn Care that Makes Sense

http://www.theamericanlawnandtreearborist.com/images/grass_globe.jpg

If you read my previous post on getting rid of your lawn, then you know I am not a big fan of lawns in general.  I am really not a fan of using tons of chemicals and spending hours of time on something that produces nothing.

With that said, I know that I am not going to convince everyone to replace their lawn with gardens and trees.  I also know that a patch of grass in the middle of a garden is pretty.  It is peaceful.  It can be nice.

But how do you grow a lawn without all the poisons and without spending all your free time maintaining it?  The following article explains how to do it.  It is written by Paul Wheaton.  He is a permaculturist who started the Rich Soil website and the Permies website (which has the largest Permaculture forum on the web).

Here is Paul Wheaton's great article on Organic Lawn Care for the Cheap and Lazy:
The key to the lawn care game is competition. You want to make things favorable for the grass and unfavorable for the weeds so the grass will choke out the weeds. Naturally...

Click Here to Keep Reading:  http://www.richsoil.com/lawn-care.jsp

Get Rid of Your Lawn!

Typical American Landscape

http://www.worldchanging.com/suburbs_flickr%20Scorpians%20and%20Centaurs.jpg

Get Rid of Your Lawn!

My thoughts about the typical sprawl of turf around American homes.

Why do we spend so much time and money and space on our yards?

Depending on who you reference, Americans spend $17-$25 Billion Spent on Lawns Annually.  These numbers come from a number of pro-lawn websites as a way of showing how important lawns are to Americans.  

Americans spend an average of 30 minutes per week working in their yard...  If you have ever been the one in charge of the yard, then you know you spend more than 30 minutes a week taking care of it.  As Twain said, "There are kinds types of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."  This is an American average - spread between over 300 million people.  Now, how many Americans actually have a yard?  There a millions living in urban cities with no yards.  This should increases the 30 minutes per week to at least 45 minutes (and I am being conservative).  Now, how many people are not the one acutally taking care of the yard (kids, spouses)?  There are roughly 110 million households in America.  Since, there are three times that many Americans, we can triple the time that one peson per household works in the yard... this makes the average closer to over two hours per week spent in the yard.  That is the same as 8 hours per month or 104 hours per year.  If the average work week is 40 hrs, then we are spending 2.5 work weeks per year working on our yard that produces nothing for us... wasting our time!

But why do we do it? 

The brilliant, lush green lawn was not always the Holy Grail it is today.  Pilgrims and Pioneers to the West were not wasting their time on non-productive patches of grass.  So what changed?  There are a lot of history that could be told about this, but I'll summarize here.  At the turn of the last century when wealthy Americans started travelling to Europe more and more, they saw and admired the green lawns of the large estates and castles.  Like this:

Now, where did we get our idea of lawns?

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They came back and, along with some vey influential city planners and government officials, started making changes to their own large homes.  Initially, they used animals to create the close cut plots of grass.   Here is a great photo from the White House Archive showing what the "lawnmower" of the day was:

Even the White House could intelligently manage their lawn... in 1919!

http://www.whitehousemuseum.org/grounds/south-lawn/south-lawn-sheep-c1919.jpg

The issue soon became that many Americans wanted to "look" wealthy, but they didn't have the money to afford the servants to keep the lawn (as the wealthy Americans and Europeans did).  So Americans became their own servants to give the appearance of wealth.  Over time, this became the norm.  It is now expected to keep a lawn.  But few even question why we do it anymore.  This is our goal:

An American "Dream Home" and Yard

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In the U.S., there are about 23 Million Acres of Grass in yards throughout the country.  Conservative numbers say that one acre could feed between 3-5 people.  With intensive practices, many more people could be fed, but we will stay with this number.  69-115 million people could be fed if we converted all our yard grass to food producing land. 

Here is a great article written by Michael Pollan (back in 1989!) on getting rid of your lawn.  He is one of my favorite authors.  If you have the time, you will probably enjoy it.
Here are some images of yards that have been converted away from turf.  Seeing the cost (time, water, fuel) it takes on upkeep, many homeowners are converting to turf-free yards.  Not so many are planting food or useful plants, but that is what I would love to see.

A lower maintenance front yard... no turf, but not as useful as it could be.

http://img2.timeinc.net/toh/i/g/1007_turfwar/turf-war-x.jpg

A good looking, yet still very useful (full of food plants), front yard.

http://cdn1.gardenhomeandparty.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Front-yard-no-grass-450x448.jpg

In reality, I am not saying we should get rid of all our turf.  There is something aesthetic about a nice clean-cut yard, but I really do think we need to question why we are doing it and why we are spending so much time and money that gives us almost nothing in return.  Just my thoughts.