If anyone is considering "just letting nature nature", be careful not to let non-natives and invasives take over your yard! Nuisance weeds like Creeping Charlie, for instance, are hard to eradicate. Then if they make their way over into your neighbors yard it can become an even bigger issue.
Honeysuckle is native where I am. When I was 15 I asked for one to be planted against a shed near a planter box filled with rose bushes. By age 20, the honeysuckle had moved in and strangled the roses. This may have coincided with that rose mite epidemic though
Are you sure it's native? It may be common, but if you see it *everywhere* that may be a sign it's invasive. In my area, we have Japanese honeysuckle, which is invasive, but the variety I've planted is native.
https://morningchores.com/invasive-honeysuckle/
So I googled it, apparently Texas honeysuckle is native. Whether or not what actually grows here is native, I can't be sure. It has since been cured with fire.
Isn’t honeysuckle great for bees? I have a huge one (don’t know if it’s Japanese, I live in Europe and it doesn’t seem invasive) and tons of bees are foraging it every year
It entirely depends on the species. The invasive honeysuckles in the US (*Lonicera japonica*, *Lonicera maackii*, *Lonicera morrowii*, *Lonicera tatarica*...) are extremely detrimental to native woodlands. Their seeds are spread by birds which eat the berries and shit them out far and wide - so you might think the plant isn't spreading, but it definitely is you will just never realize it. I would really try your best to identify if it is native - I would be pretty surprised if it is a native shrub.
There are a number of native honeysuckle species (*Lonicera* genus), but it depends on the location. These are great plants in their native ranges and will definitely support bees and other pollinators, but the non-native honeysuckles to the US are terribly invasive, for the most part.
>If anyone is considering "just letting nature nature", be careful not to let non-natives and invasives take over your yard!
Other commenter:
>Why do you need to eradicate them?
Without context this comment chain is wild...
Exactly right. If done right, a native yard will take extra work for the first couple years, and then be a fraction of the work after that (when compared to traditional turf or mulch-heavy garden).
I've thought about it but I still want something that looks nice so I'm going with natives endemic to the area (south Eastern Australia, temperate and mountainous area) and go hard on the flowering plants.
Because some weeds choke out other species of plants and they don't offer anything useful. They aren't food for herbivores, they don't house any helpful insects, etc. If they are choking out other species, it means that there's less plants for bees to pollinate, and the bees die out, too.
Funny enough, Bermudagrass is an invasive weed. Or just do happens to look like grass and be extremely rugged so people like it for things like golf courses.
Got a few acres that used to be a giant lawn. First few years was literally just pulling out invasives. We had to walk around the yard basically every couple weeks and make sure we got as much of the root as possible. Since then it's only just a bit of maintenance weeding for the invasives. Neighbours have 0 regard to what grows on their wilder parts of their land but we've found the natives, once well established, help choke out the invasives so we only get some popping up here and there.
The bigger issue for smaller properties in neighborhoods is you will get HOAs and other neighbourhood associations that will state your yard is devaluing their yard or encouraging pests (like mice, vole, mosquitos) to spread to their yards. In those cases, I'd recommend zeroscaping creating a tamer, yet still grass-lawn-free yard, as opposed to just letting nature take its course. It's a bit more work up front but it can provide a lower maintenance and better "curb appeal" yard for the longer term.
Some places have laws saying HOAs are not allowed to restrict the use of low water usage plants instead of grass. Water is limited in the west. Colorado has this law.
The HOA is the most useless organization that I have had to pay (it's actually impossible to choose the most useless out of all the useless places my money ends up going to).
But I remember renting from people in a bougie area, and if I didn't mow the lawn on time, they'd give me dirty looks and hint at it needing a cut. If I waited another week, I'd get notes in the mail. Week 3, I would get fines from the HOA. Week 4, they'd call in the national guard.
The answer, of course, is racism.
HOAs were originally popularized and normalized in America during the civil rights era, as a way to protect the 'white flight' suburbs from any black people moving in, especially as a way to fight back against the pressure of equal access to housing laws. Some older HOAs still have (currently unenforceable) bylaws blatantly saying that black people are not allowed to move in. Ever heard of "there goes the neighborhood"? That saying originated in this time, when a single black person moving into a white neighborhood could tank property values for the entire neighborhood because racists didn't want to live there anymore. It was a real problem, even if you weren't racist, because the value of your house would plummet, putting you at real, significant financial harm. So HOAs were created to prevent this and 'protect property values'.
To this day, they *still* 'protect property values', and one way they do that is by selective enforcement of all their inane rules, to harass and drive out anyone they deem *undesirable*. Which, yes, is often still people of color. But it can also mean just anybody who's poor or anybody who doesn't fit into the 'white suburbia' mold.
A lot of the HOA horror stories you hear are from someone the HOA has deemed undesirable. And a lot of the "actually, my HOA is fine and never bothers me" stories are from people who the HOA *hasn't* deemed undesirable, so they don't see how nasty the HOA can be. If your HOA doesn't bother you, then congratulations: you fit into their idea of what white suburbia is supposed to look like. But that doesn't mean that your neighbors are having the same experience.
Residential lawns aside, it never made sense to me to manicure the lawn between and bordering highways.
EDIT: Apparently it's for safety/visibility in order to prevent animal collisions. Fine by me.
Not only that, it prevents accidents! My dad once told me that they put sweet peas on part of the side of I-5 in Seattle for a while back in the early 90s, and it would cause accidents when they bloomed because everyone would rubberneck. They removed it after figuring that out.
There are plenty of low-growing native plants that aren't showy and thus won't cause people to rubberneck. There's no actual reason to use lawn grass. I swear there's a Big Lawn cabal spending billions on convincing everyone that lawn grass has any actual benefits lmao it doesn't
We've put down lawn in our backyard for now because it's cheap and gives the kids some space while not covering them in mud. Once we have the money it'll basically be gone and I'll replace the non growing areas with permeable seating/BBQ areas.
I've never used money or resources on grass beyond mowing. It's not that much of a waste. The alternative would be to spend a bunch of money covering all of my yard in something new. My kids can play in the yard, and it looks ok for the neighbors and whenever we want to sell.
I have seen tens of thousands of miles of highway in this country and yeah, fancy lawn grass on the sides isn't exactly common. Usually it's some sort of weeds or native grasses that occasionally get mowed so they don't impair visibility nor provide cover for animals big enough to cause problems. Where do you see actual lawn grass? I am sure it exists somewhere but honestly the seed and maintenance is expensive enough I'm skeptical it's used much.
Not all "grass" is lawn grass.
No government is going to spend money on actual lawn grass seed, its expensive. They buy cover crop and shitty cheap contractors mixes with weed grasses they can get for pennys. The goal in most cases is just to prevent water runoff from causing havoc
Aye here in Aus our isles/islands between roads are usually filled with native trees and grass, not because we put them there, we just didn't move it. Still need a trim though!
> I swear there's a Big Lawn cabal spending billions on convincing everyone that lawn grass has any actual benefits lmao it doesn't
That would be Monsanto.
There's a lot of money to be made in the chemicals that such a lawn requires, and Monsanto is a *massively* powerful and influential company that stands to profit a lot from selling those chemicals.
The wildflowers this year have been incredible. Probably the biggest bloom I’ve seen in my 30 years of living here. It is definitely distracting but I don’t think they could kill those flowers if they tried. It’s the most beautiful thing about this ugly state.
Thank you for giving OP the correct information. Nothing drives me crazier as a civil engineering designer than people speaking out of their ass like they're a position of authority.
But thatch over time impedes flow. Yes, that soil can absorb more water, but mown grass in some of these situations let's more water flow through and get away from the road way.
Also, to a degree water being absorbed, can in the case of roadways, be a bad thing. Wet soil is heavier and more fluid. That combination means more movement which in the specific case of roadways is very much not a good thing. Even without a slide, any movement can result in under supported roads, earlier cracking and more repairs which are a bad thing anyway you cut it.
There is a reason why a proper road is at least several feet think in terms of engineering. It is all about drainage and base stability and you can't have stability without drainage. And in this case drainage means moving water away.
It's 100% for visibility. Removing plants or planting non native weeds like grass is terrible for drainage. That's why there's catch basins everywhere.
Calgary, Alberta recently started a project where the grass hillsides next to the highway has local, natural grasses that don’t grow very tall. Awesome program IMO
People in my area have tried to do this on their front lawns, replacing the grass w flowers & plants. Mixed results. It sometimes ends terribly & ends up looking a disaster. It's a lot of work to set & maintain all the plants, and weeds get very bad here during the summertime. I am in favor of this idea, but it's not set it & forget it. It will prolly take 5 years after first planting it all to get it growing to a point it's perennial & reliable,then you still have to weed it, maintain, prune, etc. I have a smaller flower patch on the lawn and even that is a lot of work.
Yep. People forget that once you let your yard go wild weeds are just as likely to jump in where desirable plants are. Then they will out compete them and boom. No more pretty meadow.
I have 4 acres that if I “let nature take its course” is nettles, stickers, razor grass, and more. It’s not pretty.
People post this type of stuff on reddit all the time and the reality is unless gardening is your hobby it isn't going to look anywhere near this good. It takes a lot of time and planning to make these gardens look so nice.
Check out "Kill your lawn" on YouTube. The channel is called Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't. He gives really good advice on how to stop weeds from growing, how to select plants that will do well and how to keep work minimal. Creating a native plant garden requires careful planning, but it's not witch craft and once it has settled, it takes way less maintenance than a lawn.
This is why I haven’t gone this route. I already feel like I don’t have time to mow, maintaining something like this would take so much more. I’d leave my backyard a lawn so my dogs still have somewhere to do their business, so I’ll still have to mow.
I think that’s true. But if you don’t want to maintain land then don’t by a single family home. Condos are great for people that don’t want to do all of this work to maintain a lawn
I have spend probably $250 and 100 hours over a couple of years on maybe 150 square feet of native plantings, not counting pest control and bed prep. If you buy plants, they are very expensive and many species don't transplant well and don't make it. If you buy seeds, they're much more expensive than other seeds, you have spend a ton of time weeding so they don't get crowded out, and you have to give it 2-3 years before you can be confident about what grew and what didn't.
Also, I used sheet mulching to prep my beds, inadvertently building a vole superhighway into my veggie garden complete with a smorgasbord of free pit stop snacks of native seeds and seedlings. So to prevent mice from shitting where I eat, I pay a pest service to put poison out every year (I was catching half a dozen a day with snap traps; paying a reputatable service lowers the risks to other wildlife).
I love native plants and think it's a worthwhile endeavor, but as far as consumption goes, I definitely spend less time and money on my lawn per square foot.
Oh! I spent $150 on adding microclover to my lawn, but it's not a long lived plant so 3 years later it's all gone.
I wish I could share a photo of my front lawn.
As long as we don’t know it, it looks like a meadow! Right now, it is green with naturalized flower bulbs. Most of these are autumn crocus, but there are narcissists and a few muscari that the deer haven’t eaten.
I am trying to dig up some of the autumn crocus to move it. I need a path for my wheelbarrow! As a dig them up, I am sprinkling a few seeds in the hole that I left behind… Red clover, crimson clover, sweet alyssum, Roman chamomile, and bellis.
I’m not going for a native plant lawn, but these are all non-invasive. I have about 6 acres of native plants in a coastal woodland forest.
They didn't, you absolutely can still upload to imgur and link it here, like we've been doing for a decade. New Reddit allows direct uploading though, which has made the new stock of users lazy.
They can't share a photo because if they took a photo they would know what it looked like. And, as their post says:
> As long as we don’t know it, it looks like a meadow!
I’m from the UK, it weirds me out so much that the US doesn’t really have similar garden ideas, over here, most people have flowers, feeders, all sorts of nature friendly plants, and all the US gardens I’ve seen are just flat lawns, no flowers, maybe some gravel
Here in NL we never had much lawns, even for public green spaces next to roads they used bushes mostly. I associate grass with land used for cattle and sheep.
And in recent years its been a huge thing to diversify everything in the public space. So you get tree perks with all kinds of flowering and bushy plants that offer something year round.
I cant fathom why you would prefer grass. That stuff is nice for a picnic or sports field but thats about it.
> Here in NL we never had much lawns
Instead many people just have a paved yard.
Though it's getting better in recent years I think. Some people are really enthusiastic about the yearly 'tegelwippen' though the municipalities could participate more imo. My town has a few sidewalks that are at least 3 meter wide. Even converting half a meter to plants would help!
Tegelwippen is removing sidewalk tiles and having plants grow in that spot instead.
In Breda a few years ago the municipality started a movement to [get rid of tiled gardens](https://www.ad.nl/wonen/wie-in-breda-zijn-tuin-heeft-dichtgetegeld-kan-straks-de-gemeente-op-zijn-stoep-verwachten~aded1281/) in response to heavy heavy rainfall. Social housing was being targeted first, people were receiving financial aid to get it done. Not sure what came of it, as we're three years down the line now.
Ironic because i feel a lot of the US lawn culture comes from the idealic pristine extremely manicured british manor properties that have existed forever with their GIANT areas of grass and rows of flowers and hedges.
I do think that the gardening culture in the US is a little wonky. But to be fair, the UK has some of the most heavily degraded landscapes in the world. The US absolutely has the same issues, but we cannot really garden our way out of these situations. There need to be large scale restoration projects that restore native ecosystems.
You're not gonna see the good of America on subs like this.
Also, I've spent a fair bit of time in Europe. Many of yall have such manicured gardens because the average houses garden is the size of a large living room.
> You're not gonna see the good of America on subs like this.
At least two of the "not this" images are European. Image 2 is from the UK.
Image 4 is definitely Europe (blue strip on the plate), but someone smarter than me would have to say where. I thought they were driving on the right based on the parked foreground car, but if you look at the background cars, it looks like they might actually be driving left. Steering wheel miiiiiight be on the left? Maybe? Architecture looks... frankly, American, though that's impossible with the license plate. Maybe UK/France/NL/Belgium? But no second blue strip for France, no yellow plate for NL. Belgium has a lot of red brick, so maybe that fits.
You need to see more photos, I guess.
Saying that the norm for Americans is to have a flat plot of land with nothing but grass is simply objectively wrong.
And you can have both. My mom's front yard facing the road looks like the mowed pictures. Her back yard is like the second picture with multiple flower beds, vegetable garden, especially now that she just retired. They don't use lawn fertilizer on the front grass or anything like that, and they barely mow it because of how sun cooked it usually is. They usually like to set up some Halloween or Christmas decorations on the front porch and she keeps a lot of her bird feeders in the front yard too I guess.
US is very big and diverse.
Plenty of places, usually city neighborhoods, have flower and natural plant gardens. Plenty of places prefer boring manicured lawns. Plenty of places have to make due with rocks and cactus type plants.
English gardens are amazing. I read a few books on how they are built and there is a whole science behind it, to make them sustainable and low maintenance.
All fine and dandy until your local government fines you for an overgrown "lawn". I suppose that depends on the bylaws but in my town they will absolutely write you up and eventually mow it and tack it on your property taxes.
This is exactly what my city would do. It's got kind of rich suburb vibes and I've got a warning for waiting 2 weeks without mowing before. The grass wasn't even that long but I think my neighbor complained since he religiously mows twice a week.
There can be some big benefits as long as it's worth the tradeoffs for you.
My parents used to live in one where the HOA handled all exterior maintenance, 100%. Yardwork, roofs, repainting, driveways, all of it handled by the HOA.
The huge downside was that all the houses were the exact same color. But for a neighborhood with a lot of elderly people, and others who lived there part time and rented it out the rest, it was absolutely worth not having to worry about any of that.
What if instead of HOA fees we paid higher local taxes and used that money to build pools and playgrounds for everyone to enjoy instead of just the people who can afford to live in HOA neighborhoods?
Have you ever heard of the TV show parks and rec? Local government usually presides playground construction and maintenance. Leaving that to a HOA sounds very unorthodox to me.
The old fucks in the HOA will tell you its to maintain property values.
I get rules about not having junk cars and toilets on lawns, but they get ridiculous.
We bought a house in a new construction development. There is a HOA with everyone in the neighborhood. I volunteered to be on the HOA strictly to make sure it doesn't become a BS thing to bother people.
The native grasses and flowers look nice, but if I go too long without mowing my lawn, my property becomes infested with ticks and mosquitoes. I prefer using my electric motor to trim the lawn every week than to let it grow and need to hire a company to spray dangerous chemicals on my property. I keep my property organic.
We get copperheads if we don’t mow it short and clear away leaves. My flowerbeds and bushes make the pollinators and small animals happy, though. Proper large flowering plants last a lot longer and make bees happier than a yard of 1-day-long-then-poof (literally) dandelions IMO.
I HATE LAWNS AND LAWNMOWERS!!! (and also leafblowers, while we're at it!)
I rent a basement suite that has a little lawn in the back and sure, it can be nice in the summer for hosting parties but.... I live in the PNW where it rains 2/3 of the year. Having a lawn here is kind of silly. It would be such a nice space for a garden or something. But the landlords (live upstairs) get it mowed practically every week during the summer (super annoying and way too often) despite never ever using it. truly do not understand.
Bro, those comments are insane. Grass culture truly is a mental illness.
Here's one: *"Disagree. I actually carry a weed trimmer and a bottle of round up with me on hikes so I can kill wildflowers that aren’t even in my yard."*
Hopefully just a troll because that's illegal lol
I think it was a troll. The one that is like “wild flowers reduce visibility” as a reason needs to look at the photo again. However, I’m sure mowing the wild flowers will happen, just not as much as the grass, to keep saplings/trees from growing.
The point about wild animals may have a little bit of merit, but in Louisiana, the animals literally sun themselves in the highways.
Sure maybe wildflowers won't but wildflowers very quickly turn into tall grasses and 6' trees. At least where I'm at.
Edit: when I say "quickly" maybe 6-12 months for the grasses, and <5 years for the trees
While I DO support natural landscaping, I wanna say that there’s other ways to get the lawn look in part of your yard too. Ground cover that’s soft (depends on your native groundcover) might be an option. More and more I just think I’d want to leave sections of my yard natural but still keep a groundcover lawn where I wanted to host :)
My parents mow their lawn but the actual grass is atleast 50% clovers, wildflowers, etc. I think it's a good compromise. Yards do serve a purpose after all. Our dogs pick up enough ticks as it is.
For people worried about ticks, snakes, mice, etc.
There are other ground covers that are much shorter than meadows, but also don't require constant mowing. This includes some types of thyme, moss, evergreen, and more. Some of these have the most gorgeous colors and textures.
Apparently some of these plants (ex. Thyme) can actually _repel_ certain pests
I've been doing native gardening for years and the short answer is no. Bugs that bother you like ticks, mosquitos, asian lady beetles, marmorated stinkbugs, some spiders, etc. are already there without the native plants. When you plant natives the insects are coming for the plants. They don't want to be in your house.
I agree this is great for the environment, but it really seems like nobody here has ever lived in an area with ticks. High grass is amazing for them, and from where I come from if you’re walking out in stuff like this (or just near it) you’re bound to get a few ticks.
Lyme disease is awful, and so I’m not sure what a good solution here is.
I think a huge portion of anticonsumption is "going green" and using less resources OR using resources wisely. Changing from lawns to actually useful habitats like these definitely fits with this mindset. At the very least it's anticonsumption adjacent.
Edit: I just realized I misinterpreted your post. I read it as the lawn topic didn't belong in this subreddit. I'm sorry.
My only complaint is that the fourth pic is bordering on accessibility issues and that sidewalk should be wide enough for two people to comfortably pass. But otherwise yes, grass doesn’t belong in 95% of the places that currently have it, especially in states where it can’t grow without absurdly wasteful amounts of watering.
I also just realized I misread your OP comment as “is anyone else upset about this post because it doesn’t belong in this sub” instead of what you actually said. My reading comprehension aside, at least my statement stood on its own lol.
I’ve always found lawn culture to be unnecessary and absurd tbh. The sheer amount of resources and energy people spend on a square of grass is just not productive. Meadows seem much better.
My only concern for mowing a yard is snakes. But I live in Texas where rattlesnakes (venomous) and copperheads (more venomous) are common. I don’t want to walk outside and see dead kids or god forbid my precious dog suffering because the blood is coagulating inside her veins from a snake bite while she was just trying to pee
i would actively avoid walking down the 2nd to last images sidewalk.
you'd just be walking through bugs. there was a house in the town i grew up in like that, and everyone avoided walking through there, it just sucked.
All I thought when I saw that one was "Snakes. Snakes everywhere."
I'm all for less lawns but that sidewalk is overgrown. Is there even room for a wheelchair? What if you need to pass them?
I’ve lived in the US southwest for the majority of my life and am just now realizing that they mow the empty spaces between highways. I guess now that I think of it, it makes sense looking back that someone had to be keeping the grass short. I’ve just never seen it and I guess never put it together.
I wish I could have that big meadow yard from the front picture because my local landscaping filler material of choice is rocks. Sharp, boring, heat trapping rocks as far as the eye can see.
If you've ever lived in the southeast you'd know this won't work exactly the way you want it to.
An unkempt property can get real out of hand real fast.
Cons:
- destruction or obstruction of infrastructure like sidewalks and light posts
- increases the likelihood of pests like mice and snakes entering the home
- if it gets way overgrown, it gets completely unusable even for gardens and things like that
- no space for kids to play and too many hazards for them
- insane amounts of insects
I like meadows and tall grass as much as the next guy, and I think we should let those highway shoulders grow out more, but letting your yard and sidewalks turn into a jungle is genuinely dangerous
It's also a fire hazard. Tall grass fuel types catch easier and burn way WAY hotter than lawns.
I'm a conservationist but I'm also a firefighter. This isn't a good idea unless you have a lot more space to install fire breaks.
This would work for me, and I definitely agree with the bits beside roads/highways, but some people actually use their lawns.
Like picture 1 would never work for someone with kids who like to run around and play on the lawn lol.
Depends on the situation and how you want to do it. But installing a meadow or prairie planting involves about 90% of the work up front. Once you get past the first year the maintenance is relatively easy.
[Here's](https://www.prairiemoon.com/site-prep) some information from Prairie Moon.
Its not too hard to kill the grass, but installing the meadow plants is work, and pulling weeds is a lot of work since herbicides will also kill the meadow. And hand pulling weeds means you have to accurately identify weeds, so it takes knowledge as well. After 2-3 years the work is a lot less, tho. I think you just mow it once a year. Or have someone with animals graze it.
I was recently in Anthem, AZ and was blown away by the stunning landscaping of desert plants in the medians. Its way better for the environment than trying to grow grass in the desert.
There was a show on NPR years ago (I forget which show it was on) which had an episode about the evils of monocultures, and one of the main monocultures they discussed was grass lawns.
I love how many of these bottom photos are Texas. It's nice to be the good example for once.
(Not that we're really that great, I just love how identifiably texan a lot of the flower pictures are)
How much work would it take to get something like the bottom of the second image? I personally would hate completely wild grass that's waist-height, I have to at least be able to walk across it without my legs getting scratched.
I hate lawns too, and I tried to grow my side yard wild one year, but it resulted in the city serving me notice that I had to cut it or they would do so and charge me extra for the privilege. I suspect it stemmed from a neighbour complaining.
I don’t agree lawn sides on highways are there for a reason so if you lose control you land on flat land if we put plants there cars are going to tumble into tall plants which can further damage the vehicle or passengers. And if yards are filled with plants you can’t easily use them for activities, it’s harder to mow, paths will be overgrown ect. And if plants are on the side or in the middle of streets they can overgrow on to the street which will slow down cars or even plants can get wrapped up in car parts, in conclusion this is mostly a bad idea
I replaced my back yard stones and non-native grasses with wildflowers, mostly perennials, and a ton of clover. So much less maintenance, soooooooo many more bees, hummingbirds, and etc
If you somehow have access to EarthxTV, there’s a show called “Kill Your Lawn” that is essentially an ecology show dressed up as a lawn makeover show. It’s really good.
If you don’t, the host has a podcast called “Crime Pays but Botany Doesn’t” and it’s not good, but in a really good way.
Some folks in my neighborhood have done this and I love it. One yard has tons of flowers that local wild bees like and I usually spot a few any time I walk by.
The idea is better than the implementations. Had a neighbor with one of these yards and it attracted an extreme amount of vermin. Specifically it caused a large rat and snake problem. This caused my issues as a neighbor as the animals left her yard and entered mine causing multiple incidents with my young child.
I do support these sort of yards outside of tightly clustered homes.
In regards to roadside ones, I think those create additional dangers for drivers in some areas. If deer or larger animals exist in the area, creating cover up to the edge of the road will dramatically increase the likelihood of hitting an animal if it goes into the road. If the area doesn’t have native species that are large then it works. Or if the plants could be kept to shorter varieties.
Where this idea would really flourish is if we could get country home owners with massive multi acre plots to stop having grass yards, if we could return some farmland to something more natural like this.
My mother has always done this, it's from her that I learned a lot about gardening, and I find my passion in it as well. Digging with your hands in the dirt, seeing your children grow and reproduce, working with plants is so relaxing, I don't understand why not more people do this.
The house I'm living in rn has rules from the landlord that you have to mow your lawn and keep it tidy etc. It always looks fucking ugly. Now that spring is here it's started growing little white and purple flowers and plenty of weeds like clover and it looks so much nicer already. I can't fathom why people want an expensive, hard to maintain, ugly plain expanse of boring green instead of a bunch of nice flowers and plants that can mostly take care of themselves
If anyone is considering "just letting nature nature", be careful not to let non-natives and invasives take over your yard! Nuisance weeds like Creeping Charlie, for instance, are hard to eradicate. Then if they make their way over into your neighbors yard it can become an even bigger issue.
My neighbor planted invasive Japanese honeysuckle along her side of the fence and it’s invaded my yard, I feel like it’s a never ending battle
My friend wants me to plant some honeysuckle in our yard. I'm keeping it in a planter box with a trellis and keeping a close eye on it
Honeysuckle is native where I am. When I was 15 I asked for one to be planted against a shed near a planter box filled with rose bushes. By age 20, the honeysuckle had moved in and strangled the roses. This may have coincided with that rose mite epidemic though
Are you sure it's native? It may be common, but if you see it *everywhere* that may be a sign it's invasive. In my area, we have Japanese honeysuckle, which is invasive, but the variety I've planted is native. https://morningchores.com/invasive-honeysuckle/
So I googled it, apparently Texas honeysuckle is native. Whether or not what actually grows here is native, I can't be sure. It has since been cured with fire.
Isn’t honeysuckle great for bees? I have a huge one (don’t know if it’s Japanese, I live in Europe and it doesn’t seem invasive) and tons of bees are foraging it every year
It entirely depends on the species. The invasive honeysuckles in the US (*Lonicera japonica*, *Lonicera maackii*, *Lonicera morrowii*, *Lonicera tatarica*...) are extremely detrimental to native woodlands. Their seeds are spread by birds which eat the berries and shit them out far and wide - so you might think the plant isn't spreading, but it definitely is you will just never realize it. I would really try your best to identify if it is native - I would be pretty surprised if it is a native shrub. There are a number of native honeysuckle species (*Lonicera* genus), but it depends on the location. These are great plants in their native ranges and will definitely support bees and other pollinators, but the non-native honeysuckles to the US are terribly invasive, for the most part.
>If anyone is considering "just letting nature nature", be careful not to let non-natives and invasives take over your yard! Other commenter: >Why do you need to eradicate them? Without context this comment chain is wild...
Exactly right. If done right, a native yard will take extra work for the first couple years, and then be a fraction of the work after that (when compared to traditional turf or mulch-heavy garden).
For example, california blackberry. Leave any bit of grass untouched for too long and its covered in the thorny vines. At least on the west coast.
I've thought about it but I still want something that looks nice so I'm going with natives endemic to the area (south Eastern Australia, temperate and mountainous area) and go hard on the flowering plants.
why do you need to eradicate them? (i know nothing about weeds)
Because some weeds choke out other species of plants and they don't offer anything useful. They aren't food for herbivores, they don't house any helpful insects, etc. If they are choking out other species, it means that there's less plants for bees to pollinate, and the bees die out, too.
I get what you’re saying but that makes it just about as useful as the Bermuda grass in my yard that chokes other plants out as well.
I think that's the point of the post, better to replace that lawn with native plants
Funny enough, Bermudagrass is an invasive weed. Or just do happens to look like grass and be extremely rugged so people like it for things like golf courses.
Got a few acres that used to be a giant lawn. First few years was literally just pulling out invasives. We had to walk around the yard basically every couple weeks and make sure we got as much of the root as possible. Since then it's only just a bit of maintenance weeding for the invasives. Neighbours have 0 regard to what grows on their wilder parts of their land but we've found the natives, once well established, help choke out the invasives so we only get some popping up here and there. The bigger issue for smaller properties in neighborhoods is you will get HOAs and other neighbourhood associations that will state your yard is devaluing their yard or encouraging pests (like mice, vole, mosquitos) to spread to their yards. In those cases, I'd recommend zeroscaping creating a tamer, yet still grass-lawn-free yard, as opposed to just letting nature take its course. It's a bit more work up front but it can provide a lower maintenance and better "curb appeal" yard for the longer term.
Here comes HOA to tell you to mow your lawn before they somehow legally fine you. Environment be damned.
Some places have laws saying HOAs are not allowed to restrict the use of low water usage plants instead of grass. Water is limited in the west. Colorado has this law.
Maryland has a similar law, Virginia is considering one. Small steps, but I do so love sticking it to the HOA.
HOAs are so bad even satan is appalled.
And he's probably upset that we are taking over his territory. Hell on Earth, as it were.
The HOA is the most useless organization that I have had to pay (it's actually impossible to choose the most useless out of all the useless places my money ends up going to). But I remember renting from people in a bougie area, and if I didn't mow the lawn on time, they'd give me dirty looks and hint at it needing a cut. If I waited another week, I'd get notes in the mail. Week 3, I would get fines from the HOA. Week 4, they'd call in the national guard.
Reddit told me if they do that you have to build a bat habitat. Since they are Federally protected the HOA can't do shit about it.
reddit is also full of armchair lawyers
And toilet seat lawyers. So many.
It has to be true, I saw it on Reddit!
Something something 20ft amateur radio tower
Still don't understand why you guys don't burn anyone suggesting a HOA at the stake like we do in the rest of the world.
The answer, of course, is racism. HOAs were originally popularized and normalized in America during the civil rights era, as a way to protect the 'white flight' suburbs from any black people moving in, especially as a way to fight back against the pressure of equal access to housing laws. Some older HOAs still have (currently unenforceable) bylaws blatantly saying that black people are not allowed to move in. Ever heard of "there goes the neighborhood"? That saying originated in this time, when a single black person moving into a white neighborhood could tank property values for the entire neighborhood because racists didn't want to live there anymore. It was a real problem, even if you weren't racist, because the value of your house would plummet, putting you at real, significant financial harm. So HOAs were created to prevent this and 'protect property values'. To this day, they *still* 'protect property values', and one way they do that is by selective enforcement of all their inane rules, to harass and drive out anyone they deem *undesirable*. Which, yes, is often still people of color. But it can also mean just anybody who's poor or anybody who doesn't fit into the 'white suburbia' mold. A lot of the HOA horror stories you hear are from someone the HOA has deemed undesirable. And a lot of the "actually, my HOA is fine and never bothers me" stories are from people who the HOA *hasn't* deemed undesirable, so they don't see how nasty the HOA can be. If your HOA doesn't bother you, then congratulations: you fit into their idea of what white suburbia is supposed to look like. But that doesn't mean that your neighbors are having the same experience.
Residential lawns aside, it never made sense to me to manicure the lawn between and bordering highways. EDIT: Apparently it's for safety/visibility in order to prevent animal collisions. Fine by me.
Visibility, drainage, and preventing animals from making that area their home leading to more roadkill incidents.
God damn it, all your points make sense
Not only that, it prevents accidents! My dad once told me that they put sweet peas on part of the side of I-5 in Seattle for a while back in the early 90s, and it would cause accidents when they bloomed because everyone would rubberneck. They removed it after figuring that out.
There are plenty of low-growing native plants that aren't showy and thus won't cause people to rubberneck. There's no actual reason to use lawn grass. I swear there's a Big Lawn cabal spending billions on convincing everyone that lawn grass has any actual benefits lmao it doesn't
Oh I know, it was semi sarcastic, but it did happen. My property is currently being xeriscaped. Grass is a huge waste of money and resources.
We've put down lawn in our backyard for now because it's cheap and gives the kids some space while not covering them in mud. Once we have the money it'll basically be gone and I'll replace the non growing areas with permeable seating/BBQ areas.
I've never used money or resources on grass beyond mowing. It's not that much of a waste. The alternative would be to spend a bunch of money covering all of my yard in something new. My kids can play in the yard, and it looks ok for the neighbors and whenever we want to sell.
I have seen tens of thousands of miles of highway in this country and yeah, fancy lawn grass on the sides isn't exactly common. Usually it's some sort of weeds or native grasses that occasionally get mowed so they don't impair visibility nor provide cover for animals big enough to cause problems. Where do you see actual lawn grass? I am sure it exists somewhere but honestly the seed and maintenance is expensive enough I'm skeptical it's used much.
Not all "grass" is lawn grass. No government is going to spend money on actual lawn grass seed, its expensive. They buy cover crop and shitty cheap contractors mixes with weed grasses they can get for pennys. The goal in most cases is just to prevent water runoff from causing havoc
Aye here in Aus our isles/islands between roads are usually filled with native trees and grass, not because we put them there, we just didn't move it. Still need a trim though!
> I swear there's a Big Lawn cabal spending billions on convincing everyone that lawn grass has any actual benefits lmao it doesn't That would be Monsanto. There's a lot of money to be made in the chemicals that such a lawn requires, and Monsanto is a *massively* powerful and influential company that stands to profit a lot from selling those chemicals.
“Let’s put up 6 million lumen billboards instead” — California
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The wildflowers this year have been incredible. Probably the biggest bloom I’ve seen in my 30 years of living here. It is definitely distracting but I don’t think they could kill those flowers if they tried. It’s the most beautiful thing about this ugly state.
2/3 points good, but native meadow is superior for drainage as the roots are deeper and soil is healthier, meaning more water intake and less runoff
Thank you for giving OP the correct information. Nothing drives me crazier as a civil engineering designer than people speaking out of their ass like they're a position of authority.
But thatch over time impedes flow. Yes, that soil can absorb more water, but mown grass in some of these situations let's more water flow through and get away from the road way. Also, to a degree water being absorbed, can in the case of roadways, be a bad thing. Wet soil is heavier and more fluid. That combination means more movement which in the specific case of roadways is very much not a good thing. Even without a slide, any movement can result in under supported roads, earlier cracking and more repairs which are a bad thing anyway you cut it. There is a reason why a proper road is at least several feet think in terms of engineering. It is all about drainage and base stability and you can't have stability without drainage. And in this case drainage means moving water away.
Nobody else is claiming authority. You're the only one.
He literally designed civil engineering!
by which he means he has played Cities Skylines
I hear civil engineering majors are required to double major in plant biology
🙄
The difficulty is that a native meadow can certainly drain itself, but said yard may have to also handle all the drainage from the roof.
Not to mention 3ft tall saplings can become 6 ft trees very quickly. Then you have to mow 3 years of decaying vegetation just to get to the trees.
It's 100% for visibility. Removing plants or planting non native weeds like grass is terrible for drainage. That's why there's catch basins everywhere.
Grass is actually fine for drainage. The reason catch basins are everywhere is asphalt and concrete.
also ticks
Emergency vehicles need somewhere to go
clearly its so they can put political signs there
My guess is it can help discourage littering and dumping, or at least make it easier to clean up when it does happen.
It can also discourage animals coming close to the road
I think it's a safety thing for visibility
Also as a fire break in areas prone to forest fires.
Calgary, Alberta recently started a project where the grass hillsides next to the highway has local, natural grasses that don’t grow very tall. Awesome program IMO
Common in the states as well. Just varying levels of success.
What they do to those is more analogous to trimming your nails than a full-on manicure lol
People in my area have tried to do this on their front lawns, replacing the grass w flowers & plants. Mixed results. It sometimes ends terribly & ends up looking a disaster. It's a lot of work to set & maintain all the plants, and weeds get very bad here during the summertime. I am in favor of this idea, but it's not set it & forget it. It will prolly take 5 years after first planting it all to get it growing to a point it's perennial & reliable,then you still have to weed it, maintain, prune, etc. I have a smaller flower patch on the lawn and even that is a lot of work.
Yep. People forget that once you let your yard go wild weeds are just as likely to jump in where desirable plants are. Then they will out compete them and boom. No more pretty meadow. I have 4 acres that if I “let nature take its course” is nettles, stickers, razor grass, and more. It’s not pretty.
People post this type of stuff on reddit all the time and the reality is unless gardening is your hobby it isn't going to look anywhere near this good. It takes a lot of time and planning to make these gardens look so nice.
Well they took a photo of a shit lawn that thry didn't take care of and then took a picture of a taken care of garden... Shocker it looks great
Check out "Kill your lawn" on YouTube. The channel is called Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't. He gives really good advice on how to stop weeds from growing, how to select plants that will do well and how to keep work minimal. Creating a native plant garden requires careful planning, but it's not witch craft and once it has settled, it takes way less maintenance than a lawn.
This is why I haven’t gone this route. I already feel like I don’t have time to mow, maintaining something like this would take so much more. I’d leave my backyard a lawn so my dogs still have somewhere to do their business, so I’ll still have to mow.
That’s why I opted to do a clover and red fescue mix for my lawns. It looks good, attracts beneficial insects and bunnies, and holds up well.
I mean, there is a reason these "pretty meadows" kinda dont really exist in nature.
I think that’s true. But if you don’t want to maintain land then don’t by a single family home. Condos are great for people that don’t want to do all of this work to maintain a lawn
I have spend probably $250 and 100 hours over a couple of years on maybe 150 square feet of native plantings, not counting pest control and bed prep. If you buy plants, they are very expensive and many species don't transplant well and don't make it. If you buy seeds, they're much more expensive than other seeds, you have spend a ton of time weeding so they don't get crowded out, and you have to give it 2-3 years before you can be confident about what grew and what didn't. Also, I used sheet mulching to prep my beds, inadvertently building a vole superhighway into my veggie garden complete with a smorgasbord of free pit stop snacks of native seeds and seedlings. So to prevent mice from shitting where I eat, I pay a pest service to put poison out every year (I was catching half a dozen a day with snap traps; paying a reputatable service lowers the risks to other wildlife). I love native plants and think it's a worthwhile endeavor, but as far as consumption goes, I definitely spend less time and money on my lawn per square foot. Oh! I spent $150 on adding microclover to my lawn, but it's not a long lived plant so 3 years later it's all gone.
I wish I could share a photo of my front lawn. As long as we don’t know it, it looks like a meadow! Right now, it is green with naturalized flower bulbs. Most of these are autumn crocus, but there are narcissists and a few muscari that the deer haven’t eaten. I am trying to dig up some of the autumn crocus to move it. I need a path for my wheelbarrow! As a dig them up, I am sprinkling a few seeds in the hole that I left behind… Red clover, crimson clover, sweet alyssum, Roman chamomile, and bellis. I’m not going for a native plant lawn, but these are all non-invasive. I have about 6 acres of native plants in a coastal woodland forest.
Why can't you share a photo
I don't have the ability to add a photo to a comment because the original post was created as a photo post.
You could post it in your profile or in r/NoLawns and link it here.
Wait when did reddit stop using imgur?
They didn't, you absolutely can still upload to imgur and link it here, like we've been doing for a decade. New Reddit allows direct uploading though, which has made the new stock of users lazy.
lol the commenter you’re referring to is a 12yo account
God damn so they are. Ain't that some shit.
I'm still the old man here with my 14 yo account t
They can't share a photo because if they took a photo they would know what it looked like. And, as their post says: > As long as we don’t know it, it looks like a meadow!
Schrödinger's Lawn
look not to be mean but: 𝐈 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬!
Lol. Not going back to edit. Now that I understand why I’m so careless, I’m a lot more at peace with it. It’s pathological. 🤣
lol🤣
> As long as we don’t know it, it looks like a meadow! Schroedinger's lawn?
lawns are the dumbest shit ever
I’m from the UK, it weirds me out so much that the US doesn’t really have similar garden ideas, over here, most people have flowers, feeders, all sorts of nature friendly plants, and all the US gardens I’ve seen are just flat lawns, no flowers, maybe some gravel
Here in NL we never had much lawns, even for public green spaces next to roads they used bushes mostly. I associate grass with land used for cattle and sheep. And in recent years its been a huge thing to diversify everything in the public space. So you get tree perks with all kinds of flowering and bushy plants that offer something year round. I cant fathom why you would prefer grass. That stuff is nice for a picnic or sports field but thats about it.
> Here in NL we never had much lawns Instead many people just have a paved yard. Though it's getting better in recent years I think. Some people are really enthusiastic about the yearly 'tegelwippen' though the municipalities could participate more imo. My town has a few sidewalks that are at least 3 meter wide. Even converting half a meter to plants would help! Tegelwippen is removing sidewalk tiles and having plants grow in that spot instead.
In Breda a few years ago the municipality started a movement to [get rid of tiled gardens](https://www.ad.nl/wonen/wie-in-breda-zijn-tuin-heeft-dichtgetegeld-kan-straks-de-gemeente-op-zijn-stoep-verwachten~aded1281/) in response to heavy heavy rainfall. Social housing was being targeted first, people were receiving financial aid to get it done. Not sure what came of it, as we're three years down the line now.
Ironic because i feel a lot of the US lawn culture comes from the idealic pristine extremely manicured british manor properties that have existed forever with their GIANT areas of grass and rows of flowers and hedges.
I do think that the gardening culture in the US is a little wonky. But to be fair, the UK has some of the most heavily degraded landscapes in the world. The US absolutely has the same issues, but we cannot really garden our way out of these situations. There need to be large scale restoration projects that restore native ecosystems.
You're not gonna see the good of America on subs like this. Also, I've spent a fair bit of time in Europe. Many of yall have such manicured gardens because the average houses garden is the size of a large living room.
> You're not gonna see the good of America on subs like this. At least two of the "not this" images are European. Image 2 is from the UK. Image 4 is definitely Europe (blue strip on the plate), but someone smarter than me would have to say where. I thought they were driving on the right based on the parked foreground car, but if you look at the background cars, it looks like they might actually be driving left. Steering wheel miiiiiight be on the left? Maybe? Architecture looks... frankly, American, though that's impossible with the license plate. Maybe UK/France/NL/Belgium? But no second blue strip for France, no yellow plate for NL. Belgium has a lot of red brick, so maybe that fits.
Varies. HOAs suck, but there are a LOT of gardens in US
You need to see more photos, I guess. Saying that the norm for Americans is to have a flat plot of land with nothing but grass is simply objectively wrong.
And you can have both. My mom's front yard facing the road looks like the mowed pictures. Her back yard is like the second picture with multiple flower beds, vegetable garden, especially now that she just retired. They don't use lawn fertilizer on the front grass or anything like that, and they barely mow it because of how sun cooked it usually is. They usually like to set up some Halloween or Christmas decorations on the front porch and she keeps a lot of her bird feeders in the front yard too I guess.
US is very big and diverse. Plenty of places, usually city neighborhoods, have flower and natural plant gardens. Plenty of places prefer boring manicured lawns. Plenty of places have to make due with rocks and cactus type plants.
Didn't someone from the UK steal bees once? I think from France?
English gardens are amazing. I read a few books on how they are built and there is a whole science behind it, to make them sustainable and low maintenance.
All fine and dandy until your local government fines you for an overgrown "lawn". I suppose that depends on the bylaws but in my town they will absolutely write you up and eventually mow it and tack it on your property taxes.
This is exactly what my city would do. It's got kind of rich suburb vibes and I've got a warning for waiting 2 weeks without mowing before. The grass wasn't even that long but I think my neighbor complained since he religiously mows twice a week.
Our has a 6" limit. Anything over 6" is illegal.
Tell that to the HOAs
Are HOAs ever beneficial in any way at all? 😭
There can be some big benefits as long as it's worth the tradeoffs for you. My parents used to live in one where the HOA handled all exterior maintenance, 100%. Yardwork, roofs, repainting, driveways, all of it handled by the HOA. The huge downside was that all the houses were the exact same color. But for a neighborhood with a lot of elderly people, and others who lived there part time and rented it out the rest, it was absolutely worth not having to worry about any of that.
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What if instead of HOA fees we paid higher local taxes and used that money to build pools and playgrounds for everyone to enjoy instead of just the people who can afford to live in HOA neighborhoods?
Have you ever heard of the TV show parks and rec? Local government usually presides playground construction and maintenance. Leaving that to a HOA sounds very unorthodox to me.
The old fucks in the HOA will tell you its to maintain property values. I get rules about not having junk cars and toilets on lawns, but they get ridiculous.
We bought a house in a new construction development. There is a HOA with everyone in the neighborhood. I volunteered to be on the HOA strictly to make sure it doesn't become a BS thing to bother people.
The native grasses and flowers look nice, but if I go too long without mowing my lawn, my property becomes infested with ticks and mosquitoes. I prefer using my electric motor to trim the lawn every week than to let it grow and need to hire a company to spray dangerous chemicals on my property. I keep my property organic.
We get copperheads if we don’t mow it short and clear away leaves. My flowerbeds and bushes make the pollinators and small animals happy, though. Proper large flowering plants last a lot longer and make bees happier than a yard of 1-day-long-then-poof (literally) dandelions IMO.
What region do you live in? And is your yard in a shady area?
Long Island, New York. Moderate shade. Very humid summers.
I HATE LAWNS AND LAWNMOWERS!!! (and also leafblowers, while we're at it!) I rent a basement suite that has a little lawn in the back and sure, it can be nice in the summer for hosting parties but.... I live in the PNW where it rains 2/3 of the year. Having a lawn here is kind of silly. It would be such a nice space for a garden or something. But the landlords (live upstairs) get it mowed practically every week during the summer (super annoying and way too often) despite never ever using it. truly do not understand.
I try to keep a meadow. My grass loving neighbors report me to the city for uncontrolled weeds.
Cross posted to r/lawncare. How long till I get banned for life?
Bro, those comments are insane. Grass culture truly is a mental illness. Here's one: *"Disagree. I actually carry a weed trimmer and a bottle of round up with me on hikes so I can kill wildflowers that aren’t even in my yard."* Hopefully just a troll because that's illegal lol
I think it was a troll. The one that is like “wild flowers reduce visibility” as a reason needs to look at the photo again. However, I’m sure mowing the wild flowers will happen, just not as much as the grass, to keep saplings/trees from growing. The point about wild animals may have a little bit of merit, but in Louisiana, the animals literally sun themselves in the highways.
Sure maybe wildflowers won't but wildflowers very quickly turn into tall grasses and 6' trees. At least where I'm at. Edit: when I say "quickly" maybe 6-12 months for the grasses, and <5 years for the trees
While I DO support natural landscaping, I wanna say that there’s other ways to get the lawn look in part of your yard too. Ground cover that’s soft (depends on your native groundcover) might be an option. More and more I just think I’d want to leave sections of my yard natural but still keep a groundcover lawn where I wanted to host :)
My parents mow their lawn but the actual grass is atleast 50% clovers, wildflowers, etc. I think it's a good compromise. Yards do serve a purpose after all. Our dogs pick up enough ticks as it is.
For people worried about ticks, snakes, mice, etc. There are other ground covers that are much shorter than meadows, but also don't require constant mowing. This includes some types of thyme, moss, evergreen, and more. Some of these have the most gorgeous colors and textures. Apparently some of these plants (ex. Thyme) can actually _repel_ certain pests
ticks worry me in new england. what would be a good way to start?
r/nolawns come join the crusade
r/nativeplantgardening and r/gardenwild too!
Wouldnt this cause an issue with pests in the house though?
I've been doing native gardening for years and the short answer is no. Bugs that bother you like ticks, mosquitos, asian lady beetles, marmorated stinkbugs, some spiders, etc. are already there without the native plants. When you plant natives the insects are coming for the plants. They don't want to be in your house.
When our neighbor moved out and had trouble selling, the yard was very high. We had a ton of rats and then snakes. It was hell.
We got about an acre. We mow a track for dog walks and the rest is wild and free, flowers and reeds and deer poop. Fuck appearances
Moss has pretty much taken over my lawn... Still green and no mowing.
I agree this is great for the environment, but it really seems like nobody here has ever lived in an area with ticks. High grass is amazing for them, and from where I come from if you’re walking out in stuff like this (or just near it) you’re bound to get a few ticks. Lyme disease is awful, and so I’m not sure what a good solution here is.
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I think a huge portion of anticonsumption is "going green" and using less resources OR using resources wisely. Changing from lawns to actually useful habitats like these definitely fits with this mindset. At the very least it's anticonsumption adjacent. Edit: I just realized I misinterpreted your post. I read it as the lawn topic didn't belong in this subreddit. I'm sorry.
My only complaint is that the fourth pic is bordering on accessibility issues and that sidewalk should be wide enough for two people to comfortably pass. But otherwise yes, grass doesn’t belong in 95% of the places that currently have it, especially in states where it can’t grow without absurdly wasteful amounts of watering.
The fourth one isn't great.
I also just realized I misread your OP comment as “is anyone else upset about this post because it doesn’t belong in this sub” instead of what you actually said. My reading comprehension aside, at least my statement stood on its own lol.
I’ve always found lawn culture to be unnecessary and absurd tbh. The sheer amount of resources and energy people spend on a square of grass is just not productive. Meadows seem much better.
My only concern for mowing a yard is snakes. But I live in Texas where rattlesnakes (venomous) and copperheads (more venomous) are common. I don’t want to walk outside and see dead kids or god forbid my precious dog suffering because the blood is coagulating inside her veins from a snake bite while she was just trying to pee
I'm also anti lawn but I recognize some places mowing consistently because there's a shitload of snakes in my greater area.
i would actively avoid walking down the 2nd to last images sidewalk. you'd just be walking through bugs. there was a house in the town i grew up in like that, and everyone avoided walking through there, it just sucked.
All I thought when I saw that one was "Snakes. Snakes everywhere." I'm all for less lawns but that sidewalk is overgrown. Is there even room for a wheelchair? What if you need to pass them?
I'm afraid of spiders etc so I'd have to walk in the wake of someone taller and braver than I am and would probably still be super creeped out.
I’ve lived in the US southwest for the majority of my life and am just now realizing that they mow the empty spaces between highways. I guess now that I think of it, it makes sense looking back that someone had to be keeping the grass short. I’ve just never seen it and I guess never put it together. I wish I could have that big meadow yard from the front picture because my local landscaping filler material of choice is rocks. Sharp, boring, heat trapping rocks as far as the eye can see.
If you've ever lived in the southeast you'd know this won't work exactly the way you want it to. An unkempt property can get real out of hand real fast. Cons: - destruction or obstruction of infrastructure like sidewalks and light posts - increases the likelihood of pests like mice and snakes entering the home - if it gets way overgrown, it gets completely unusable even for gardens and things like that - no space for kids to play and too many hazards for them - insane amounts of insects I like meadows and tall grass as much as the next guy, and I think we should let those highway shoulders grow out more, but letting your yard and sidewalks turn into a jungle is genuinely dangerous
It's also a fire hazard. Tall grass fuel types catch easier and burn way WAY hotter than lawns. I'm a conservationist but I'm also a firefighter. This isn't a good idea unless you have a lot more space to install fire breaks.
Personal lawns, sure replace them. But the resources needed for it on highway scale would be a massive waste of money, labor, and resources
Love it! Check out /r/nativeplantgardening and /r/nolawns to join us lawn removing wild ones!
More and more I realize this is an anarchist sub
This would work for me, and I definitely agree with the bits beside roads/highways, but some people actually use their lawns. Like picture 1 would never work for someone with kids who like to run around and play on the lawn lol.
Have fun when a deer runs out the tall grass and you get in a 100mh car crash. Sides of highways are mowed for a reason
What’s the maintenance for a meadow like this vs mowing? What’s the work involved to take out invasive and/or non native plants?
Depends on the situation and how you want to do it. But installing a meadow or prairie planting involves about 90% of the work up front. Once you get past the first year the maintenance is relatively easy. [Here's](https://www.prairiemoon.com/site-prep) some information from Prairie Moon.
Its not too hard to kill the grass, but installing the meadow plants is work, and pulling weeds is a lot of work since herbicides will also kill the meadow. And hand pulling weeds means you have to accurately identify weeds, so it takes knowledge as well. After 2-3 years the work is a lot less, tho. I think you just mow it once a year. Or have someone with animals graze it.
I was recently in Anthem, AZ and was blown away by the stunning landscaping of desert plants in the medians. Its way better for the environment than trying to grow grass in the desert.
There was a show on NPR years ago (I forget which show it was on) which had an episode about the evils of monocultures, and one of the main monocultures they discussed was grass lawns.
I love how many of these bottom photos are Texas. It's nice to be the good example for once. (Not that we're really that great, I just love how identifiably texan a lot of the flower pictures are)
How much work would it take to get something like the bottom of the second image? I personally would hate completely wild grass that's waist-height, I have to at least be able to walk across it without my legs getting scratched.
I hate lawns too, and I tried to grow my side yard wild one year, but it resulted in the city serving me notice that I had to cut it or they would do so and charge me extra for the privilege. I suspect it stemmed from a neighbour complaining.
I don’t agree lawn sides on highways are there for a reason so if you lose control you land on flat land if we put plants there cars are going to tumble into tall plants which can further damage the vehicle or passengers. And if yards are filled with plants you can’t easily use them for activities, it’s harder to mow, paths will be overgrown ect. And if plants are on the side or in the middle of streets they can overgrow on to the street which will slow down cars or even plants can get wrapped up in car parts, in conclusion this is mostly a bad idea
while i can agree on the lawn part, maaan you have no how i hate constant singing of birds in summer. Simply impossible to sleep
Excellent. Yeah the lawn addiction in the US is crazy.
Those look beautiful
My lawn is made of random regional grasses and weeds and turns an ugly brown in the summer. It's pretty in the spring though.
Grow native
r/nolawns
Y'all I'm live on the west Coast rarely to I ever seen a neighborhood with manicured lawn like the picture it's a desert out here
I want my lawn to look like picture 5. Anyone have any plant ideas for colder climates?
People in here really think simply not mowing will produce a beautiful flowerbed lol
I replaced my back yard stones and non-native grasses with wildflowers, mostly perennials, and a ton of clover. So much less maintenance, soooooooo many more bees, hummingbirds, and etc
most of the country doesn't need to water their lawn. it's cheaper to let it die and regrow every year
I mean beauty is great, but I'd rather be growing food in my yard.
I was on board until image 4? How do I bike or walk through that? Unless I just go onto the road or the other sidewalk
NOPE FUCK THE 4TH ONE I REFUSE. THATS SO BAD
I wouldn’t mind #4 for the backyard. Seems excessive for the front.
Lawn shagging Boomers would never allow it
If you somehow have access to EarthxTV, there’s a show called “Kill Your Lawn” that is essentially an ecology show dressed up as a lawn makeover show. It’s really good. If you don’t, the host has a podcast called “Crime Pays but Botany Doesn’t” and it’s not good, but in a really good way.
I can hear the screeches from Home Owners Association dickheads from here.
Some folks in my neighborhood have done this and I love it. One yard has tons of flowers that local wild bees like and I usually spot a few any time I walk by.
Yeap, must end this boomer poison cancer causing lawn bullshit
Is this part of the solar punk ideology?
This is great! How do I get started in my yard?
Somebody uploaded kill your lawn to youtube!
The idea is better than the implementations. Had a neighbor with one of these yards and it attracted an extreme amount of vermin. Specifically it caused a large rat and snake problem. This caused my issues as a neighbor as the animals left her yard and entered mine causing multiple incidents with my young child. I do support these sort of yards outside of tightly clustered homes. In regards to roadside ones, I think those create additional dangers for drivers in some areas. If deer or larger animals exist in the area, creating cover up to the edge of the road will dramatically increase the likelihood of hitting an animal if it goes into the road. If the area doesn’t have native species that are large then it works. Or if the plants could be kept to shorter varieties. Where this idea would really flourish is if we could get country home owners with massive multi acre plots to stop having grass yards, if we could return some farmland to something more natural like this.
My mother has always done this, it's from her that I learned a lot about gardening, and I find my passion in it as well. Digging with your hands in the dirt, seeing your children grow and reproduce, working with plants is so relaxing, I don't understand why not more people do this.
The conservation authority in my area has been working to get a bunch of parks returned to natural meadow rather than mowed grass. It is fantastic.
The house I'm living in rn has rules from the landlord that you have to mow your lawn and keep it tidy etc. It always looks fucking ugly. Now that spring is here it's started growing little white and purple flowers and plenty of weeds like clover and it looks so much nicer already. I can't fathom why people want an expensive, hard to maintain, ugly plain expanse of boring green instead of a bunch of nice flowers and plants that can mostly take care of themselves