On Lawns

TLDR : What a silly useless piece of grass !

him and I were talking about death. Our deaths.

He shared his wishes for post-death rituals.

I asked him to bury me someplace close to home and plant an oak tree on top. And to pay a service to water this oak tree for the first 4 years till it is established. Or cremate, scatter ashes and mulch an Oak tree of his choice in Oakland. Which ever is the least hassle.

{ In my understanding of the world, death is not the end of life but a part of it. If no one died, I wouldn’t be here. Cheating death is wanting to break the cycle. It’s the old eating the young. Certain Buddhist philosophies ask you to think about death several times a day : so that one may not be terrified of it and become cowardly in the face of it. I got my life from my ancestors and the land. When I die, I want to become a good ancestor. My carbon could nourish an Oak – a mother tree in my ecosystem. Oaks endemic to California can house unto 300 terrestrial vertebrate species, 1100 vascular plant species, 370 fungal species and 5000 arthropod species. They have a tap root as well a wide roots. This system helps draw water up from deep aquifers and moves the water horizontally in the habitat. This helps many plants survive the drought months in California until the winter rains arrive. Oak leaf litter improves soil structure and promotes healthy fungal growth. Plant an oak, and blue jays appear. Our local native American tribe believed that the creator exists in its leaves. I believe it too given how they support life. They are sacred. }

I shared my wishes. He listened.

He had a glint in his eye and an evil smile : “what if I plant lawn on top instead”

My heart sank. Words flew out of my mouth.

“when I can be an oak tree, but become an ecological dead space”

“when I cant support life, but choose to suck up resources that we dont have”

“when I can only exist in symbiosis with a master who has the extraordinary privilege of owning a piece of land but chooses to put some useless colonial status grass that he can mow and feel good about … “

” to have a master who confuses control over nature with gardening ….. to have such a master and to be this grass when I could have been an oak tree … “

” Not a lawn. That’s a horrible after life. Is hell the word for such a thing ? “

“If there is a hell, its landscaping would be all fluorescent green lawn that touches the horizons on all sides”

” I need to find an executor for my will.”

This stance on lawns has been brewing for a long time now. I didn’t know I had these many words for a dislike. Even in this imaginary scenario, my body felt violated. It made me sad that I have to die to be in close proximity to an Oak. Today, I can plant an Oak in my yard, but cant, because my partner desires a lawn as I desire a garden. Meanwhile, I drive to trails in the Bay to visit the trees like one goes on a pilgrimage. To walk in California’s forests but return home and want a lawn, is baffling. To pay a premium to live in California, admire it for its unique biodiversity, and to plant some silly European grass at home, is collective cultural cognitive dissonance.

Not a lawn. A Native Sedge Grass meadow, created by Terremoto Landscapers. Brilliant & Poetic !

Land stewardship is ecological knowledge work. Buying a house didn’t exactly automatically download this knowledge into our heads. (We aren’t allowed to drive cars without passing the drivers test. But with land, we trust with who ever can pay for her. ) We continue to make many mistakes with the land. Multiply this with every homeowner with some land attached to the house. What a tragedy to assume this responsibility but have no training ? Why do we want land attached to our houses if we don’t want to learn how to keep it alive ? Who has extra 100 hours to learn this knowledge ? Why are single family homes the aspiration ? Is lounging in a yard that important ? Why are large yards sold to folks who have no time or energy for any of this work ? Every yard is a car dependency amplifier. Larger my yard, more every neighbor has to drive to get home. Larger my plot, more impossible it is to build transit. Why cant we lounge in shared public scapes? Why cant lounging be done with a garden present ? As I ask these questions, I have learnt a thing or two :

A garden is not a collection of plants, but a functioning part of an eco-system. If it doesn’t resemble your local ecosystem, its not a garden. It’s vanity in the midst of a climate crisis and mass extinction of animals. It’s trash design that needs our help getting phased out.

The goal of creating a garden is to nurture an intelligent system that will function with minimal human input over time. Native gardens are precisely that and provide shelter/food/migratory support to our non-human neighbors. (We made them homeless to build housing for ourselves. We can show some compassion by inviting them back.) To create this living system and to make it beautiful, is the highest art form I can think of.

The reality remains : Who has the time and energy to learn ecology, philosophize about beauty, execute a plan, spend the money, upkeep the habitat & be a functioning adult ? So the ‘nothing of gardens’ – the lawn, has taken over lands that once used to be functioning thriving ecosystems. I am making a plan but the culture around me is fighting me at every step at executing a garden. The HOA, the natural gas pipeline in the middle of my yard, the husband, the real estate norms, the availability of native plants, time-energy , existence of invasive species, my lack of knowledge, my lack of training, my lack of physical strength, my lack of communication skills, my lack of patience, … Creating a native garden is restoration and conservation work. We dont have to fly to some rainforest far away to volunteer to save the animals. Every median on every street, every yard, every parking lot, every excessively paved surface, every monoculture working field/farm, … is land we can restore.

Conservation that is confined to parks will not preserve species in the long run, because these areas are too small and too separated from one another.

Although we must continue to protect good habitat wherever it still exists, we can no longer afford to ignore the ecological value of the land outside of our preserves – that is, the areas between isolation habitat fragments.

Restoring habitat where we live and work, and to a lesser extent where we farm and graze, will go a long way towards building biological corridors that connect preserved habitat fragments with one another.

Creating biological corridors will enlarge the population of plants and animals within protected habitat, enabling them to weather normal population fluctuations indefinitely.

Across the United States, millions of acres now covered in lawn can be quickly restored to viable habitat by untrained citizens with minimal expense and without any costly changes to infrastructure.

Natures Best Hope, Douglas Tallamy.

they are chock-full of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizer. The extra runs off–onto sidewalks, and into storm drains and waterways. There are no bees, no butterflies, few or no birds…you almost never see anyone playing on them. The only people on them are mowing, spraying or blowing them to make them “neat and clean.”

Reader comment, NYT.

Ecological function and the use of native plants to restore biodiversity is a top trend in gardening and landscaping across the country, and is here to stay because of all the environmental challenges we face. Too many of these associations are managed with outdated aesthetics, poor information and a lack of value for life itself. As more landscape architects, designers and landscapers embrace native plants, we’ll have better designed habitat landscapes and eventually overcome pushback about “weeds” from people that don’t even know what is growing around them or why it matters. Bring on the next generation, my own is wearing me out with ignorance.

Reader comment, NYT.

There seem to be many people in the US who are “plant blind.” All they see is something green. There is no understanding of how plants function, or how an ecosystem works, or how plants benefit humans. Do you like to eat? Plants, directly or indirectly, provide virtually all our food (salt is the only exception I can think of). Do you like to breathe? Plants release oxygen when they transpire. Then they take in the carbon dioxide we exhale, and turn it into food! I think this is the only actual miracle in the world, and it gets little notice or respect.

Reader comment, NYT.

I wonder how many people realise that in bagging their leaves they are throwing away next year’s fireflies, butterflies and other beneficial insects.

Reader comment, NYT.

there’s no place for a purely ornamental lawn. Those should be consigned as relics of 18th Century gentry and 20th Century suburbia. We owe small animals a bit of refuge. We owe native flora some extra habitat. We owe ourselves a parcel of nature. If you own a yard that isn’t used for anything in particular, rewild it.

Reader comment, NYT.

They are deserts for our environmental future.

Reader comment, NYT.

Grass contributes absolutely nothing to the world and uses an extraordinary amount of resources. The concept of a lawn for every house is an idea whose time has passed.

Reader comment, NYT.

Green expanse of shorn lawns are as out-of-date and out-of-step as fur coats, diamond engagement rings, “oriental” rugs, silver tea sets, and other things you’ll find in your grandparents’ or great-grandparents’ homes. Uninteresting, and made popular ages ago and no reason to continue.

Reader comment, NYT.

Our sense of what makes a yard “beautiful” needs to evolve. But nobody wins converts with a “messy” yard, however ecological it may be. Gardens need to be “culturally” sustainable, too. There are also strategies that ecologically-minded homeowners like the Crouches can use to lessen resistance to their approach and help integrate their yards into neighborhoods with out-dated HOA restrictions and conventional landscapes dominated by turf. In a paper called “Messy Ecosystems, Orderly Frames,” landscape architect Joan Nussbaum coined the phrase “cues to care” to describe ways of making ecological landscapes “legible,” so they look intentional and well cared for. This is especially important in front-facing, highly visible or heavily trafficked areas such as along entrances, sidewalks, and walkways. It is achieved by using plants with neat mounding habits and/or lower heights, long bloom times, strongly architectural forms, in bold patterns, and especially by maintaining neat, clearly defined edges to garden beds. Mulched or mown paths between beds offer a contrast to and contain the looser plantings within. Areas near the periphery of the yard (e.g., along the rear fence or side yards) can be more naturalistic.

It’s the choice between { knowledge-less + mind-less yard + less effort } and creating something of { ecological value + beauty + upfront investment}. Facts dont inspire us to become a gardener. Facts seldom change peoples minds. If they did, we would have solved all of our environmental problems eons ago. Stories do. Emotions do. Beauty does. My job now is to create something beautiful. I am slowly clawing little bits of land from our lawn and planting natives. We have the design world on our side. Architecture Digest 100 list came out. All the landscapers who made it in, do native naturalist design. I see lawns being replaced with low water landscaping in high-end house flips. There is a push for legislation to prevent sales of invasive species, to limit the percentage of the yard that can be a lawn, rebates for removing lawn, to encourage more native plants in nurseries, …. A new generation seems to be fighting the lawn culture of the suburbs. Every time I am discouraged, I have Terremoto Landscape Architects to lift my spirits. Their work is sublime. Allow me to present some of their photos :

Lawns give me a heartache for the life lost. It didnt start this way. My climate education got me here. Lawns are beloved by everyone around me. I see this conundrum as the clash between a way of life that is the normal in suburbs and the climate solutions. After many many conversations, he made some concessions and an agreement has been made to make space for the natives. The steps to remove my lawn :

1. Plow it out. ( Hello shoulder, arm and glute muscles ! )
2. Lay a plastic sheet during the warm weather for 6 week to solarize the seeds in the soil.
3. Flush it with water a couple of times till more grass comes out. Tear it out again.
4. Cover with cardboard and drench it. Top it with 5 inches of fine mulch.
5. Water the mulch for a few week to get it to start to break down and become soil.
6. Vola ! a blank slate to begin with.
7. 50 % natives for me, 50 % native sedge grass for him. This article for when I am ready to plant.
8. I am planting a baby leather Oak once the last chance of frost passes. Once the beauty of an Oak is explained, hearts melt. his did.
9. Draw plans to create a garden for wildlife habitat.