[audio:http://wamcradio.org/EarthWise/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/EW-03-05-12-Lawns.mp3|titles=EW 03-05-12 Lawns]
Unless you are an avid fan of croquet, lawn tennis, or summer garden parties, it’s time to let your lawn go natural. A wild yard is not un-American – it’s what the pilgrims had when they first arrived in New England. For nearly all of us, today’s obsession with the perfect, park-like lawn is a waste of time and money and bad for the environment. Let it go natural.
By a recent count, 80% of American households have a lawn, which collectively cover an area about the size of the state of North Carolina. That represents a lot of Saturday afternoons with the lawn mower.
Anthropologists tell us that settlers in wilderness areas clear around their dwellings to reduce marauding varmints and vermin. Today, I suppose neighborly peer-pressure and side-glancing comparisons are motivations for excessive lawn care.
Here’s the scenario: in spring we must mow the lawn weekly; that uses fossil fuels. In summer, we must water and fertilize the lawn. In fall, we rake and sweep fallen leaves from the lawn and often remove them from the yard; that depletes the soil of nitrogen, phosphorus and other minerals, so we must use fertilizer again next spring.
Most lawns, indeed most yards, are maintained at an unnaturally low level of biological diversity. Pesticides further reduce soil microbes, earthworms, and other organisms that maintain natural fertility. And, of course, rain washes pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers to local streams, eventually leading to the pollution of major rivers that are our source of drinking water.
In a world where time is short and the price of fossil fuels is skyrocketing, I can’t really think of any good reason to maintain a park-like suburban lawn. Let it go: you’ll enjoy the return of nature to your yard.
Photo, taken on July 13, 2005 using an Olympus X-2,C-50Z, courtesy of Johannes Gilger via Flickr.