People put so much energy into growing grass. Seeding, liming, fertilising, watering… so they can create endless, mindless busywork and destroy biodiversity.
Lawns were originally a status symbol. A “hey lol look at me I have enough land I don’t have to grow food.” Shameful that it took off as a defacto standard.
This. I am SO sick of lawn mowers!
My neighbor does the lawns once every single week. She will spend all day mowing it and using weed whackers etc. I am so sick of the noise! I don’t want to always be forced to wear my noise canceling earbuds. I want to hear the birds and the wind for god sake…
Also, people driving slowly down the street with their car music so damn loud that you can hear/feel them coming 2 streets away because of the subwoofer…
Until about a year ago I had neighbors on 2 sides of me who’d mow 1-2 times a week. Elderly retired neighbors who seemed to mow as their hobby. I subscribe to the No Mow May philosophy. I don’t mow until May because that’s about as long as I can get away with before my grass start’s getting too excited. I also mow every 2-3 weeks depending on the rate of regrowth to keep it reasonable but also not over-mow. Its a balancing act of what I can do for the environment without having to fight my neighbors, in-laws or city
People put so much energy into growing grass. Seeding, liming, fertilising, watering… so they can create endless, mindless busywork and destroy biodiversity.
Lawns were originally a status symbol. A “hey lol look at me I have enough land I don’t have to grow food.” Shameful that it took off as a defacto standard.
Good point. As a matter of fact a friend of mine living in another country in Europe told me that in his country it is forbidden for people to have a garden and put only stones and tiles (sp?) in it so it cannot breath. In my country there has been a trend for many years that people turned from a garden with plants and flowers to a garden with just stones and zero green. This week I saw in an on-line newspaper that lots of people in my country are now getting rid of the stones and buying plants. The “help-the-bees” cry of help which some people have been talking about seems to finally take off with larger numbers! Fingers crossed.
I’m in the process of overseeding my yard with clover so I have an excuse to not mow nearly as often. Literally the first mow of the season was just to chop it down to give the clover room to grow.
I have a lot of clover covering my yard. I really love it when it blooms. My whole yard looks magnificent and I don’t mow for about 2 weeks as I enjoy the carpet of color.
Thanks! I’ve been itching to get this done for a couple months (because I fucking love clover), but weather and waiting to see pollinators prior to mowing were keeping me from getting it done. Can’t wait for it to start growing!
I take advantage of not having an HOA and have curtailed lawn mowing to 3-4 “harvests” a year in order to comply with county ordinances. Clearly this is helping the local ecology as we have a robust population of lighting bugs every summer, unlike the neighbor’s yards.
That’s actually amazing. For real, thanks for sharing that. I love hearing about these decisions can have such a positive impact in our small corners of the world.
Mowing lawns is killing pollinators.
People put so much energy into growing grass. Seeding, liming, fertilising, watering… so they can create endless, mindless busywork and destroy biodiversity.
Lawns were originally a status symbol. A “hey lol look at me I have enough land I don’t have to grow food.” Shameful that it took off as a defacto standard.
This. I am SO sick of lawn mowers! My neighbor does the lawns once every single week. She will spend all day mowing it and using weed whackers etc. I am so sick of the noise! I don’t want to always be forced to wear my noise canceling earbuds. I want to hear the birds and the wind for god sake…
Also, people driving slowly down the street with their car music so damn loud that you can hear/feel them coming 2 streets away because of the subwoofer…
But how else will you know how rad their taste in music is?
It’s so rad. The listener is so cool.
Until about a year ago I had neighbors on 2 sides of me who’d mow 1-2 times a week. Elderly retired neighbors who seemed to mow as their hobby. I subscribe to the No Mow May philosophy. I don’t mow until May because that’s about as long as I can get away with before my grass start’s getting too excited. I also mow every 2-3 weeks depending on the rate of regrowth to keep it reasonable but also not over-mow. Its a balancing act of what I can do for the environment without having to fight my neighbors, in-laws or city
Good point. As a matter of fact a friend of mine living in another country in Europe told me that in his country it is forbidden for people to have a garden and put only stones and tiles (sp?) in it so it cannot breath. In my country there has been a trend for many years that people turned from a garden with plants and flowers to a garden with just stones and zero green. This week I saw in an on-line newspaper that lots of people in my country are now getting rid of the stones and buying plants. The “help-the-bees” cry of help which some people have been talking about seems to finally take off with larger numbers! Fingers crossed.
I hate seeing gravelled gardens, it’s so ugly. There’s loads of low maintenence plants you can choose from.
Exactly. Soulless. Graveyards look far more inviting and fun than a tiled garden.
I’m in the process of overseeding my yard with clover so I have an excuse to not mow nearly as often. Literally the first mow of the season was just to chop it down to give the clover room to grow.
I have a lot of clover covering my yard. I really love it when it blooms. My whole yard looks magnificent and I don’t mow for about 2 weeks as I enjoy the carpet of color.
Hell yeah. I love to hear that.
Thanks! I’ve been itching to get this done for a couple months (because I fucking love clover), but weather and waiting to see pollinators prior to mowing were keeping me from getting it done. Can’t wait for it to start growing!
I take advantage of not having an HOA and have curtailed lawn mowing to 3-4 “harvests” a year in order to comply with county ordinances. Clearly this is helping the local ecology as we have a robust population of lighting bugs every summer, unlike the neighbor’s yards.
That’s actually amazing. For real, thanks for sharing that. I love hearing about these decisions can have such a positive impact in our small corners of the world.
Yep. The years of hoarding greenspace as a private citizen is coming to an end.