The irony is that people think a lawn is easier to maintain because it looks simpler

Weekly maintenance is similar - just mow it (though let it grow long when it's flowering - cut off the flowers and you lose the pollinators).

Not really, but I hate the stuff. I finally managed to get most of it plucked out of my front yard. Hopefully the additional clover will displace it fully next season.

It's particularly difficult with the mild Winters we have had of late because it's almost as if spring goes from December to May now. Sods like Bermuda or St Augustine still go dormant in fall but the weeds don't stop growing.

Grass types are a reflection of the climate and vary dramatically due to factors such as sun, growing season, and soil composition. In Florida the soil composition is mostly sand, and they receive a lot of year round sun so the predominant grass is St. Augustine because it thrives and produces thick turf that chokes out weeds.

St. Augustine is also very similar to Crab Grass, which is considered a weed in many places, like Georgia. And it is easily killed by all but a few herbicides (e.g. MSM). So while St. Augustine is great in Florida, doesn't work well in Georgia where the soil composition promotes more aggressive weeds, and the tree canopy inhibits St. Augustine's growth.

In other words, Florida grass is Georgia weeds.

> Up here it's mostly weeding, adding soil where needed and reseeding every spring, mowing it every couple of weeks, and watering once in a while. Maybe 2-3 rounds of chemicals a year if you want that healthy deep green lawn look.

In the south your yard can grow 4-6 inches a week and during the growing season you sometimes have to mow as frequently as every 5 days. The mowing season in Georgia is from March to November for grasses that go dormant, it's year round for those that don't.

Weeding is a year-round chore and many people opt for year round weed services that spray for weeds on a monthly basis if not more frequently. Pre-emergent weed control is put down in February or March, and other herbicides are used through out the spring and summer.

Fertilizer is only done a couple times a year and varies depending on the type of grass.

It's OK to kill plants so just get a small variety and see which ones take over. They sort themselves out or they don't and you try again next year.

Source: friends and I installed native lawns.

I'm personally a huge fan of native lawns, but this is always in the back of my mind and I haven't seen it addressed.

Just mowing less isn't perhaps simpler by the definition of it but is way better for biodiversity. You could try it in just a small piece of your current lawn and see what happens. Mow once near the end of spring and again once 3 to 4 months later. Shouldn't take long before native flowering plants will pop up.

We on the other hand make hay. Meaning depending on the year, we spend several hours once or twice a year to cut the meadow (by scythe, but that's just because I like that). And then some more time to turn the hay and bale it to produce something which is then worth some money. And yields vivid fauna&flora (we also never cut everything every year, some random parts can stay till the next year). Still I get neighbours telling me 'wow that's a lot of work you put in there'. At first I thought they were joking but theye are not: I really have to do the math for them to make them realize several hours every month is way more work than what I do (and that's not even talking about the money spent). I'm not sure why that is. Maybe they perceive running behind a mower or sitting on one not as work. Or not as lost time. Or they see a scythe and think it's extremely hard work.

> you might just as well have concrete and paint it green

No, you would miss out on the feel of soft grass under your bare feet, and your kids and dogs would be having a whole lot less fun playing in the yard.

> Maybe they perceive running behind a mower or sitting on one not as work. Or not as lost time.

A lot of people find lawn-mowing relaxing. It's light physical labor, it has an immediate payoff, it involves motors and/or engines and/or tools depending on your preference, and the smell of fresh-cut grass is amazing.

Should have made this more clear perhaps, but I only put in that farmer's concrete quote (which I don't agree with for the reasons you mention) for the biodiversity aspect not everything else grass-related :)

A lot of people find lawn-mowing relaxing.

Yes but that is true for me as well so doesn't really explain why more than one neighbour made a similar comment about me spending more time mowing than they do while in reality it's the opposite, by far. Maybe it's just coincidence (N=3) and/or maybe they were just making conversation or so.

probably better

Considering the biological side, it's way beyond 'probably'. For example [1] gives a rather high-level overview and [2] goes into (one of) the more specific aspects. [3] also talks about the history/future bits.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/nature19092 [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000632071... [3] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6411/148.full

The mowing is the easiest part, at least for my relatively small lawn.

  * Aerate/seed (realistically not necessary to do every year). 
  * Fertilize.
  * Pull weeds (mostly dandelions).

Compared to a well established bed of flowers, which every season at the very least needs:

  * Fertilize
  * Trim plants that begin taking over.

For a vegetable garden there is significantly more work involved.

  * Germinate
  * Ready the soil
  * Work in manure
  * Plant / transplant
  * Keep weeds down.
  * Some plants need a trellis.
  * Mulch.
    * Keep weeds down where the mulch failed.
  * Continuously maintain the vegetables health to ensure good harvest.
  * Harvest
  * Clean up the beds
  * Plant green manure
  * Plan next year, rotate crops ect.

If you live a place where it rains enough for the grass to make it on it's own, it's the path of least resistance only bested by a concrete slab, or perhaps tiled that you spray to kill weeds.

A woodchip mulched strawberry patch uses requires zero human labor except from harvest and the occasional propagation of runner plants which 4x each year. All you have to do is cover with leaves, straw, or evergreen branches to help the crowns over winter and they will be back each year.

Raspberry canes will literally walk all over your property and only need to be mulched (with leaves, grass clippings, or woodchips) to keep them looking tidy)

The gas used to power mowers is a huge subsidy. A vegetable garden bed uses a lot less energy and time. Remember to cover vegetable garden beds in fall and winter.

All of the bullets on your list are optional in a veg garden and perennial garden. I don't rotate my crops unless I have a compelling reason to do so (like a pest eating all my potatoes)

For perennial crops, you still need to do more work. Manure (and you have to source it too), mulch and pruning is a bare minimum. If you care about the harvest, you have to continuously keep an eye on it and treat various problems. For apples in particular it's imperative to remove monilia infected fruit continuously, and especially after harvest. You also have to prune the crop to ensure a larger harvest.

A garden is as much or as little work as you make it, but a lawn is probably the lowest bar of minimum work if you get enough rain to water it. It didn't become popular because it's more useful that everything else, but because you really don't have to do much work to keep it.

If you have a grass that matches where you live and don’t mind your lawn occasionally being brown, none of that is needed.

When Roomba came out everyone flipped like it was an amazing invention that nobody had thought of. All I could think of was that little yellow lawn mower diligently mowing its grass. Cute little guy is still running today.

Why don't more people have these? I'm gonna buy one when I have a yard.

edit: I see they are decently expensive. If they work still totally worth it.

With a kid, I’m suddenly super grateful for my little lawn.

I loved playing in that yard. It had great places to hide. Ample trees to climb. Wildlife to look for and learn about. A variety of fun tasks to perform, from picking fruit and berries to making jam and juice.

When my younger brother turned 10, our parents decided that he had to play football. Almost all of the trees were felled. Everything I loved about that place was destroyed, and replaced by one, big, boring, lifeless lawn.

Instead of fun tasks, I was thenceforth assigned the task of mowing the lawn. Which I resented and continue to detest to this day.

A garden is always going to be better than a lawn. A garden of plants that grow faster than trees may be higher-maintenance, though.

Playing in his yard was way more fun.

I have a kid and I'm grateful we gave up our lawn. She plants in the spring, harvests, cooks, and preserves with us. She's excited to make pickles, jam, squash, pumpkins, corn, etc from things she's grown and tended to. She even got to pick out some of the flowers and make her own little square.

Watching her step out to grab some blueberries, raspberries, or strawberries is one of the best feelings in the world.

We read seed catalogs together in the winters and plan what we could grow (Ooh, what if we grew purple cauliflower? Or rhubarb for pie!)

I'd agree if you have a house big enough to have a playroom, and have open space close by, it's probably easy enough.

Our lawn is kinda a tiny, tiny, wildflower meadow, ie it's not cut much. The bees love the Clover.

There's also a substantial difference between a "natural" lawn, where clover and other plants are allowed vs the stereotypical "perfect" lawn (in the US) with a single grass species (and heavy application of herbicides and fertilizers).

It's almost like sweeping statements such as "no one should have a lawn" need modifiers. ;o)

I'd guess grass is still better environmentally than gravel; so long as you don't over tend it (and our mower was rescued from the dump).

Have fun.

You have to mow it. You have to mow it every week. You have to mow it every week even if you're tired, or sick, or it's hot, or it's cold, or it's rainy, or your friends are playing a game, or you had a sleepover. No excuses, no exceptions. You can't mow it too early in the morning, or too late in the evening. You can't stop halfway through and do the rest later (back yard/front yard perhaps, but not half of the front yard). The grass does not care what your reasons are. It just cares that you didn't mow it. If you don't, it punishes you. Sometimes the neighbors do, too.

In theory they understand this, in practice there are plenty of other activities that result in a litany of renegotiations. Grass. Doesn't. Care.

You know, lawns were simply not a major factor in that, outside of perhaps once-in-a-year water gun fights with some neighbor kids, the wilderness held far more appeal. Back-lot tracks, untilled fields, marginal scrubland running along stream beds. That was where the majority of my 'green time' took place.

I do remember a few families around the village that had completely unkept, wilderness yards. They provided far more entertainment than any with manicured lawns.

Edit: To add a bit of context here a lot of people are talking about pesticides and fertilizer and stuff like that but we don't do anything like that, we just mow it when it gets a bit long. Does that mean our lawn is technically a meadow?

A meadow, or natural lawn, or whatever you want to call it would be a mix of grass, clover, and other "weeds". It wouldn't require anywhere near as much chemical treatment (if any) and could be mowed and watered far less often. To me, it would also be allowed to grow long enough to flower, to promote pollinating insects.

I tend not to let the clover or dandelions flower though, as it attracts bees to the lawn, and barefoot children (very common in my country, and not looked down on like in the US) and bees on a lawn aren't a happy mix.

My garden is filled with heaps of flowering annuals and perennials though.

We do set rules, it's just that we don't always maintain them very strictly, and he loves to bend them. And when he does play outside to get more Minecraft time, he thinks 15 minutes outside it enough.

It seems he just has no idea what to do outside. As a kid, I regularly played outside, probably because I had to, and so did the other kids in the neighbourhood, so we played outside. But none of his friends plays outside, so there's nothing to do for him outside.

What doesn't help is that we live in a city: no backyard, no fields or forests behind the house, and watch when you cross the street. Plenty of playgrounds fortunately, but the youngest, who loves to play outside, is just 5, which is a bit young to be outside on his own, so he's learning to adapt to indoor play. Maybe playing outside is getting trained out of kids because of the environment we live in.

Regarding setting rules: Kids are very bright when it comes to getting their way. If there's any loopholes they'll exploit them. If they detect weakness in resolve then they'll push and push using negotiation, guilt, deception, etc... The question they're trying to figure out is, is my parent in charge or can I be? The hardest but best thing you can do as a parent to instill disciple is to be clear, consistent, and follow-through. It's really hard. I'm in the midst of it too!

In my limited experience (ex cub leader [mixed sex groups], church kids helper, worked with children for 15 years; kids and nieces/nephews of my own) most boys behaviour declines rapidly if you don't "run them", but most girls aren't affected in the same way.

On our scout camps (mixed sex, mixed age, for the last 20 years at least) in free time the girls _tend_ to retreat to their tents and chat and the boys _tend_ to hit the field and run around like idiots. There's obviously a lot of selection bias in these groups too, they do outdoor pursuits, rough camping, etc. -- these girls are fit and hardy and as capable at kayaking/hiking/climbing/backwoodsmanship as the boys (indeed at the top end, 14yo, the girls are often fitter and stronger as they tend to grow a little earlier than the boys do). There's probably some observer bias too, of course, and this is anecdotal (but longitudinal).

My observations of toddlers at "mums & toddlers" groups suggests the ones who run around with a pram are usually boys (though that's far from exclusive; and the mothers [it's about 1:30 men] have very strong gender bias, which might be the origin of that effect).

YMMV.

Interested in other observations, FWIW I'm in the UK.

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/physical-activity-guid...

I always just took them as fun time and some kids took them as annoying burden that should be avoided. I not once thought about that they are necessary to develop my body and motor skills.

I always took Judo training as a near perfect way to improve my movement skills though.

If you have an HOA - there might be a bit of problem...

We've replaced our lawn with wild savanna, and it's zero work. We just let it go. It looks totally wild, and I'm happy with that. (Getting it in place - removing the invasives, improving the soil, planting trees, and spreading native wildflower and grass seeds was a lot of work - but since its established its very little work. Just occasionally walking through it and pulling out the invasives that are trying to move back in.)

Part of the change that needs to happen is a change in our aesthetics.

Community reputation means a lot more than some people realize. Source: I've been on both sides of this one.

Personally, I've never experienced a neighborhood with a strict HOA that I could stand to stick around in. There always seems to be a minority with too much time on their hands playing neighborhood CIA operative and acting like they've just received power for the first time in their lives. I know that might be a little harsh but there always seems to be some variant of this around.

I live in a condo now where those people still exist, but it is so much better. They have much less power and visibility.

There's nothing wrong with a yard full of native plants. You should stop trying to keep up with the neighbors and start letting people live their lives without your input.

The reality is that the community around you can and _does_ produce effects material to your life, even if you aren't aware of them. Maybe you weren't invited to that BBQ? Maybe you then missed the opportunity to connect with someone in your field of work? Who knows...

That's a 1946 ideal. In the same way that it was a 1946 ideal to build a residential-only neighborhood away from the big city, with racist covenants and redlines to keep the black people out. It was designed to evoke the manicured lawns of English and French castles, especially the "green carpet" at Versailles. Mount Vernon and Monticello and the White House featured grass lawns. And the mechanical lawnmower opened that aristocratic status symbol up to those without herds of grazing animals or scything slaves to keep it close-cropped. That, and lawn bowling and golf courses, made everyone crazy for grass lawns.

Abraham Levitt (of Levittown) and Frederick Law Olmstead then installed a whole complex of unreasonability into generations of Americans.

It is reasonable to surround yourself with people, each of whom arranges their affairs such that they need not have similar opinions on the disposition and upkeep of each other's properties. It is reasonable to mind your own business when someone else rips out their useless bermudagrass and replaces it with edible flowering herbs. It is very unreasonable to march up to their door to wave HOA covenants and city landscaping ordinances in their face in an effort to make them replant the grass. Yet that is what neighborhood busybodies do on a regular basis. We can't get rid of them, because they have the 1946 racists on their side, and they got there first, and they built entrenchments--legally, of course, as actual entrenchments would ruin the neighborhood aesthetic.

If you want a lawn, buy yourself a nice, square mile of property in the country, build a castle on it, and cut down everything that could hide approaching infantry. Rotate your herds around so that the grazing fodder is kept short. Then you can also have the formal gardens in the back, and maybe also a hedge maze. If you want a lawn in the suburbs, fine, but keep it on your own property and don't try to grow it over your neighbors' properties with some sick legal scheme.

The irony here is that your response violates the very same principals for which you seem to be advocating. "If you want _____, follow my instructions exactly". Hmmm....

- I am fully aware that the kinds of rules, in particular, that spurned this conversation have been (and likely continue to be) abused as a facade to hide bigoted motivations. I absolutely DO NOT condone the tactic of using "personal freedom" as a means to promote these kinds of views. That IS NOT the point I was trying to make, rather, that people often _do want_ to surround themselves with like-minded people. The social science on this is crystal clear.

The fact that land covenants were overwhelmingly used for racist purposes is just the largest strike against them, not the only one.

Nobody is forced to purchase HOA property, but everybody has to live somewhere, and pay for that out of their income. If you pin a map wherever some member of the household has to be at some time every weekday, and draw 30-minute isochronic lines for the commute time from each pin, and then sum all the household incomes and multiply by 25%, you can find the intersection of the isochronics, filter out housing that exceeds the rent/mortgage budget, and possibly find that everything that remains is HOA controlled, or that there is nothing left. You can draw new isochronics for longer commute times, or you can choose a property that is not perfect, by virtue of being encumbered by covenants. That "live somewhere else" mantra favors the rich over the poor, simply by virtue of having options available that are more expensive than some people can afford.

I don't believe that community standards should be codified and given the force of law. The standards should be voluntarily upheld by the community. And that requires actually building a community first. Of real people. And that is not a profitable activity for suburban cookie-cutter subdivision home-builders. So the HOA is set up beforehand by the developer, to resemble the sort of community that they imagine people with plenty of house-buying cash might like. Oh la, this vision somehow always includes grass monoculture lawns. And a few of those people can move in during phase I and set themselves up as the HOA overlords. The developer continues to advertise and sell, and then automatically bails when the lots sold cross the percentage threshold, leaving everyone to the mercy of the busybodies, whom they have invested with contractual authority.

Some of us just want to live at a location, and generally be left to our own devices, without being subjected to intrusive assholes all the time.

It's easy to say "just live somewhere else". It's not so easy to live anywhere that isn't spoiled in some way by a negative externality in one form or another. Don't like coal plant exhaust? Live somewhere else! Don't like noise pollution? Live somewhere else! Don't like the smell of rancid livestock manure? Live somewhere else! Don't like a jerk threatening you with foreclosure because you didn't pay the HOA tax and your grass is 10" high? Live somewhere else! Don't like it when people erect TV or radio antennas and paint their front doors purple against the standards of the architectural committee? Live somewhere else!

It is better (in my opinion) to prevent those negative externalities from spoiling people's enjoyment of their own property. Barring some legislated community standard that does so, the only truly effective way to keep your neighbors from screwing up your lifestyle is by effectively not having any. Move to the center of your own square mile.

> Barring some legislated community standard that does so, the only truly effective way to keep your neighbors from screwing up your lifestyle is by effectively not having any. Move to the center of your own square mile.

Can you not see that the above is essentially saying, "Either create community standards where you live, or (wait for it...) live somewhere else!"? Your argument boils down to "YOU live somewhere else!"

Living on the square mile is the hyperbole non-option. Most people can't live on their own square mile with effectively no neighbors, so they have to find some way to get along with the neighbors they will always have. They either can't afford it in money, or they can't afford it in travel time.

Should I have said "go live on the Moon", or "go live on a libertarian seastead", instead? It's supposed to be an unreasonable alternative to being reasonable to all your diverse neighbors.

Go grow your wildflowers on your nice, square mile of property in the country instead.

There’s nothing admirable about petty rebels who’ll cry “racism” at the first sign of something they disagree with.

Chickens are another option.

This is about learning how to fit ourselves comfortably in to nature - because pretending we can be above, outside, or removed from it is sending us careening towards disaster.

It's gonna be a hard sell to get people to enjoy something their grandparents overwhelmingly knew to be inferior.

The mosquites were here before the transformation - they come from the scrapyard up the road - and the changes we've made have actually reduced them in the local area. We've increased the number of frogs, bats, and dragonflies to keep them under control. We don't have ticks to speak of, the possums take care of them.

As for hay fever, you get that in suburbia just as bad or worse. You realize that the Yew bushes that everyone loves planting are among the worst producers of allergenic pollen, right?

Again, this is part of the aesthetic change we need to make. Realizing that we are a part of and depend upon the natural environment. And figuring out how to fit ourselves into it comfortably, instead of trying to remove ourselves from it or pretend we are somehow above it or separate from it.

We have the benefit of better science and a bit of hindsight and can see how the move to lawns has caused pollution on a massive scale and reduced native insect populations. I think at the very least stopping the use of fertilizers and adding wildflower gardens at the borders of your yard is a good plan.

Focus on how sustainability is good for people and how it will improve their lives. If they prefer orderly, manicured lawns, don't look down at them saying they need to change their aesthetics.

I'm sure the landlord went with it because it drops their groundskeeping costs to something approaching zero. But it's been great for everyone else involved, too.

1) grow things like wildflowers that don't get eaten (but do get pollinated) 2) grow things that produce more than you need (tomatoes in our case, but summer squash is another good example) 3) grow things that produce more than can be eaten by the critters (pumpkins) 4) grow things that most critters don't want (chili peppers, basil) 5) enjoy the fact that some critters got something to eat, instead of treating it like a problem. We don't try to keep anybody out of anything.

#5 is easier for us than it is for a lot of people, I'm sure, but it's easier if you get #1-4 right. If I were growing things that took lots of effort I might be annoyed but where we live (southeastern Pennsylvania), most things just grow.

Other things I tried that did not work:

Repellents, both natural and synthetic including but not limited to deer blood, other animal blood, predator urines (tried multiple types and brands), soaps and bitter and/or spicy repent sprays and gels.

Fake snakes, fake predator models and even real predators (not uncommon for foxes and coyotes are to be seen in our neighborhood).

Noisemakers and motion activated lights.

Lots more.

I wasted a ton of time and money trying the above, not to mention all the time spent gardening only to have it eaten by our woodland friends. A fence just works and does not harm animals. It can look very attractive too and can be relatively inexpensive if you keep an open mind w/r/t materials and look out for good deals/craigslist.

Probably works better in a square lot than a rectangular one.

If there's a local butcher they're a ready supply of the stuff, and it helps your local markets so win-win. Or if you already hunt for meat (or have friends that do), it's just making sure you're using even more of the animal, so again, win-win. If you don't think that locally sourced meats are ethically/environmentally sustainable then... ummm... /shrug; there's other methods, but none that have been as effective for our plot size.

Most other yardwork activities can be done in the damp, or even in the rain (hello REI/Patagonia). Gardeners will tell you never to dig in wet soil, but the clay content in coastal soils is so low in many areas that it's a non-issue.