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Turf Wars
The arrival of spring means one thing for many homeowners: yard work. For some people, those precious rays of spring sunshine offer the opportunity to trim and tend ornamental plants just waking up from a long winter's nap, while others spend sunny days raking dirt and furiously sowing vegetable seeds. The big question is: what to do with the lawn? Do you grow (and mow) grass or something else? Many new homeowners who scrambled to purchase before the tax credit expires at the end of this month are facing these decisions for the first time, but the debate has been building for years.
One Oregon-based author advocates replacing the front (or back) lawn with a vegetable garden. But grass seed is the state's third largest crop and farmers are concerned about a recent decline in domestic sales.
Do you have a lawn? How do you decide what to do with it? Have you replaced your grass with mulch, rocks, perennials, ground cover or something else? Why did you do it? If you're a renter, what kind of say do you have in the landscaping where you live?
Lawns have long been seen as an indicator of a homeowner's aesthetic priorities. How do you feel about your neighbors' lawn care choices?
GUESTS:
- Tom Fischer: Editor in chief of Timber Press and author of Perennial Companions and The Gardener's Color Palette
- David Phipps: Superintendent at Stone Creek Golf Course and part-time instructor at Clackamas Community College
- Friday Richie: Farmer and founder of The Sellwood Garden Club
- Roger Beyer: Executive director of The Oregon Seed Council
Tagged as: gardening · real estate
Photo credit: UGArdener / Creative Commons
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A Conversation About Nature (Part II)
God: What nonsense! At least they kept some of the trees. That was a sheer stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. The trees grow leaves in the spring to provide beauty and shade in the summer. In the autumn they fall to the ground and form a natural blanket to keep the moisture in the soil and protect the trees and bushes. Plus, as they rot, the leaves become compost to enhance the soil. It’s a Natural circle of life.
St. Francis: You'd better sit down, Lord. As soon as the leaves fall, the Suburbanites rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled away.
God: No way! What do they do to protect the shrubs and tree roots in the winter to keep the soil moist and loose?
St. Francis: After throwing the leaves away, they go out and buy something called mulch. They haul it home and spread it around in place of the leaves.
God: And where do they get this mulch?
St. Francis: They cut down the trees and grind them up to make mulch.
God: Enough! I don't want to think about this anymore. Saint Catherine, you're in charge of the arts. What movie have you scheduled for us tonight?
St. Catherine: "Dumb and Dumber," Lord. It's a really stupid movie about....
God: Never mind--I think I just heard the whole story from Saint Francis!
I remembered reading this story on line, and thought it was so perfectly appropriate to the topic of this show.
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Good one! My sentiments, precisely....
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Very good. Thanks for posting.
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After a lot of thought I decided to keep my back lawn while slowly converting the front to fruit and vegetables that won't PO my home-owners association. The back lawn is too shady (test plots of vegetables failed), but the shade-tolerant grass manages to hang on and it gives my son and I somewhere to play ball without driving to a park or playing in the street.
That said, we have converted to more water-friendly management of the back... focusing on building the soil such that less fertilizer and water are required... so far, so good.
BTW, a good topic for a future show are the clashes that will occur with HOA's as early adopters of greener, self-sustaining solutions and energy self sufficiency begin putting functionality ahead of looks.
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I'd never been a green grass lawn fanatic, never thatching, aerating, fertilizing etc., letting nature take its course.... Several years ago, I went further, and let the front yard just go natural with shrubs and volunteer trees fortuitously including what seems to be a Red Pine, courtesy of some migrating bird, putting up bird feeders and a bird bath, and getting it certified as a NWF 'backyard habitat' site. Additionally, taking these steps has allowed me to cut the use of a mower (no pun intended) substantially.
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Homeowners Associations: group monuments to asinine regulations, IMHO.
While I generally respect anyone who dares, courageously, in this vicissitudinous group of microclimates in the Willamette Valley to farm, grass seed farming is a filthy business that is completely unfriendly to not only the environment but to anyone unwise enough to live around their operations. That latter would be me - in south Linn County and surrounded by grass seed production fields. It's not just the field burning or before that the harvest leaving everything within miles covered with dust but what comes before harvest which contaminates that dust with a lethal to some cocktail of pesticides, fungicides and plant hormones designed to encourage the grass to relinquish its seed uniformly to make harvest easier. And about those pesticides, fungicides, etc.? Not every crop duster is concerned about overspray whether that overspray contaminates water supply (livestock watering troughs, ponds and creeks), the neighbors' horse pastures, or even the neighbors themselves (having been deliberately doused with pesticide by a crop duster I complained was overspraying on my land, an episode which has left me for many years with what is known as "ocular migraine"). I SO do not care about the grass seed farmers.
And they have a LOT of alternatives including production of mint, meadowfoam, organic turf, or even biofuel. I am really, really tired of hearing the sounds of hands put forward open palm up followed by the smacking sound of check or cash hitting palm when OMG us poooorrrrr grass seed farmers need to be subsidized now - where's the entitlement, government and taxpayers, cough up NOW.
If they want to be farmers, they should choose something more environmentally appropriate than grass seed.
If you don't want a lawn to mow and can't manage a veggie garden of your own (most people who work a 40 plus hour week are too exhausted trying to hang onto their jobs to come home and weed) try planting in a hardy low-growth habit groundcover. There are a lot of those out there that LOVE our climate and look pretty and are encouraging for the other critters who share an environment that really, really needs to not have pesticides and herbicides.
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I'm with you, Sally, on the dislike of farmers who feel the 'need' to burn their fields annually. When I was a kid (about grade-school age), I would sometimes go with my grandmother in the afternoons when she would deliver her newspapers out north of Coburg. Well, long story short, this included during field-burning season, and I suspect that to be one of the contributing factors that led to me developing asthma as an adult.
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I am excited to hear the show tomorrow. While I am not a conistent listener of OPB or NPR I have listened enough over the years to know that most of the people who are going to listen to this show are relatively intelligent and/or educated. Therefore it will be interesting to hear how much of the unsubstaniated slander and anectdotal badmouthing of turfgrass occurs.
I am indeed passionate about turfgrass and have succesfully managed profesional stands from New York, to Wisconsin, to Colorado, and most recently here in the great State of Oregon. I encourage everyone to take the time to understand the vast, scientifically proven, social and environmental benefits of properly maintained turfgrass.
Yet I am not naive, I know most people do not understand the physiology of the turfgrass plant, however if all of the "anti-grassers" out there would take the time to educate themselves their opinions may be swayed. It is human nature to be intimidated or even "anti" anything we don't fully understand. By no means do I think we all should have turfed landscapes wall to wall, there is nothing wrong with having a mixed landscape with turf and trees and gardens. In fact, I absolutley encourage diversity in the landscape. But I also encourage those of you who despise your grass to take the time to understand the growth habits and requirements of the turfgrass plant and who knows you may just end up actually enjoying your grass.
Keep in mind there a number of benefits to the grass, when maintained how the grass wants to be maintained and it's not the grasses fault it is often mismanaged and therefore underperforms. Ask yourself what you want out of your grass and what your expectations are, it may be easier to go green than you think.
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During WWII lawns were sacrificed for vegetable gardens. We are involved in two wars, low in intensity, but both are proving longer in duration than fighting the Germans and Japanese.
Maybe we should all do small Victory Gardens in our front yards and Damn all Home Owner Association(HOA) Regulations.
This is the closest local produce you can get for all you Locavores.
You can't eat grass.
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My husband and I moved into our home in Ladd's Addition about 8 years ago. At that time, the front and back yards were given over entirely to grass. Since moving in, we have removed more and more lawn each year, replacing the grass with vegetable and flower gardens. We no longer have any grass in the back yard - instead we have raised beds, arbors and berms in which we grow beans, tomatoes, pumpkins, peas, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, onions, garlic, kale, collards, salad greens, peas, strawberries, blueberries, currants, and grapes. This year we removed all the grass on one side, and are planting potatoes, horseradish, and more strawberries. We are down to one small patch of grass in front, under a large shade tree. It is small enough to "mow" with an electric weedwhacker, and next year it will also disappear. We won't miss it at all.
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Here are some photos of last year's back yard garden:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4001/4486815997_4d2fb64b2f_b.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2712/4486816297_80fac94cd5_b.jpg
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Great Topic!
Okay, so I have both a lawn and "edibles" in my yard. The edibles include raised beds of berries and veggies, 5 different fruit trees, bulbs and flowers of many kinds, and native types of grass that require very little if any extra watering beside our liquid sunshine, and require no extra fertilizer due to the grass species, and require no chemicals to kill weeds because my whole yard has correct soil structure that is a vibrant eco-system teeming with worms, bugs, and many types of micro-organisms that would be otherwise killed by chemicals.
I laugh at how silly it is that most lawns in my neighborhood (newer homes being buildt especially) that utilize grass species like Kentucky Blue Grass, and Annual Ryegrass that require tons of extra fertilizer, tons of water, tons of mowing, and tons of chemicals to keep weeds suppressed. It's so reckless, when you could buy grass seeds that I buy, that are 100% Oregon grown, like Creeping Red Fescue, Chewings Fescue, and Buffalo Turf Grass.
Also, most of the plants that we refer to as weeds were living in our backyards long before we decided to build a house there, and by simply using chemicals you have to continue to use chemicals to keep them suppressed, or otherwise the weeds will simply pop back up once there is no other plant competing with them.
It really comes down to the same things that injure our national conscience: too much consumerism, too much vanity, and too much ignorance to learn how to make a better decision for both one's yard, and one's environment. Oh, you won't find any gas mower in my yard, I enjoy the workout and the better cut of a push mower!
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We originally had lawns in the front and backyard at our place, but after trying to get decent lawns, and instead watching the moss and weeds take over, we decided to rip it all out (both front and back) and plant a garden instead. There is a lot more annual maintenance involved, including moving a lot of soil around to rotate the various crop we have grown over the past few years (including sun gold tomato, Japanese eggplants, beans, daikon, various peppers, potato, cucumbers etc.)...and some flowers...although with the prices of fruits and veggies these days, we've decided that we can enjoy fresh grown stuff a lot more than mowing the lawn that never stays green over the summer anyway.
We believe that we get a better value from the yard now than when the grass was growing greener in the neighbor's yard down the street....
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I can definitely see the added value aspect of your yard vs. a lawn.
My partner and I would do that, too, if we had a yard of our own. Unfortunately, we live in the upstairs of an 'over-and-under' duplex.
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Penny - does the duplex have a shared yard at all? Perhaps you could convince the downstairs neighbors to join with you in creating a garden!
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There is this story on Sunday's Weekend Edition on NPR that talked about window farming:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125504307
There are links to different ideas there as well on hydroponics, for folks that do not have yards of their own....
I have nothing against lawns, but I just prefer growing something I can eat rather than for show. But that's just me.....
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Replacing lawns with a productive vegetable garden is a great idea. At the same time, don't forget about planting fruit trees, shrubs and vines. These perennial plants don't need annual cultivation and planting, require less water, and produce lots of food for many years. Jim Gilbert
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And to add on to Jim's comment, now there many varieties of dwarf fruit trees that people with smaller yards can plant; even some that you can grow in containers. Check out the columnar apple trees that are planted in front of Portland City Hall. They take up very little space. I have a couple in half-barrels in a corner of my yard.
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My front yard is mostly trees, shrubs and flowers, so the grass is slowly going away by itself. The back and side yards are mostly grass with sunny plots for vegetables and flowers. Perfect yard maintenance plan for me is to work an hour every two weeks during Spring, Summer and Fall. This is as much time as I want to devote. However, it's wonderful to have room to grow fruit, vegetables and flowers if the mood arises.
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Over half my property is in mixed woods and is a good showcase of Northwest plants and animals. I have a fruit orchard and a fenced vegatable garden (deer and rabbits eat anything with a price tag that is unprotected). I want a certain amount of landscaped lawn with water features, etc.
I am all for putting in a lawn that is low maintenance and environmentally friendly. I have not been able to find such a lawn. The Seattle site talks of mixtures containing yarrow and low growth grasses. I like yarrow but it is not a native plant and neither are the grasses listed.
Who is going to provide us with a lawn mixture formulation that is made up of native grasses and plants that meets our needs for low maintenance and low impact on our environment?
I'd sure appreciate any help you can provide.
Ron
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I grow a lawn to feed the compost pile, and feed the lawn with compost. I haven't put the garden debris canister on the curb in over 20 years. Everything in my yard gets chipped, chunked, cut, and composted. Grass is the rocket fuel the really boosts the process. I even scrounge every leaf in the neighborhood in the fall. While everyone else is sweeping them off their lawns, I'm mowing leaves in to feed the earthworms and other soil biota. The excess gets piled on the vegetable and flower beds. Our yard looks very conventional and quite suburban. That keeps the peace and the HOA happy. I haven't spent a penny on fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides in a very long time. Once you understand the living soil processes, it is very simple to maintain.
Bill in Wilsonville
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The compost pile at the moment - quite reduced and ready to be worked into the veggie bed.
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Before I married I cut once a year as late as legally allowed, after marriage about 40 gallons of fuel per year was wasted mowing grass regularly as well as noise and dust generated. Three years ago I found an electric robot mower, no more noise, dust, wasted time, and so little power used I did not notice a change in the power bill. I've been so pleased that I have purchased another robot mower to keep another area mowed regularly.
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As a landscape contractor who deals with the "turf war" on a daily basis I'm happy to see the topic being discussed here. There are many different perspectives from which to look at this issue including environmental, economic, functional and aesthetics. As with most issues the solution lies somewhere in the middle and depends on your context and site situation. Our time studies have shown that removing lawn and replacing with plant material (edible or otherwise) doesn't save much in the way of time, water or fertilizer. What does though is choosing the proper turf species, proper maintenance practices and working to build soil health and biology. On the other hand taking out lawn and replacing with plants can increase the biodiversity of your site to attract wildlife, prevent pests and disease, and also to provide food for your family. Lawn has its place. I like to play ball with my kids on a lawn, preferably without thistles in it (I don't mind the clover though). From a design perspective, put and keep lawn where it makes sense from a functionality standpoint and use other spaces in your landscape for flowers, color, fruit, shade, entertaining, etc. Looking forward to the conversation!
Dean DeSantis
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And I have an eco-lawn. If it is there, I mow it. From any distance it looks pretty normal, especially now. There is lots of grass, which tends to go dormant in the summer, but lots of other things as well, which don't. I also don't use pesticides or fertilizers. I weed by hand, if I don't like something. I don't water deliberately although, in the summer, I do wash things on the "lawn" area rather than on some impervious surface, or inside where the water just goes down the drain.
I like having some green open area.
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A good vegetable garden using raised beds and decorative boundaries can be an absorbing hobby. Over the years you get better and better at growing veggies, and home-grown produce tastes great. I wonder if our veggie gardens take more water than a grass lawn would. Once you get a composting area, the gardens, the gardening shed, and all the rest, the yard definitely becomes garden-centric and takes on a look of its own.
We have a front lawn shaded by big maple trees that we don not spend much time on. It is not the best looking front yard, but the shade is good for the summer and we do not use any chemicals on it.
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Replacing lawns with perennials and trees (both food-producing and non food-producing) would have the added benefit of water conservation. Last summer Portland reached 106 degrees. The added green cover of trees would cool homes for free and, by shading adjacent pavement, would contribute to cooling the streets as well.
That same summer I flew over the Cascades and noticed (sadly) how little snow cover remained on the Mountains in late summer. Clearly, our water resources are shrinking as the populations grows. We need to start talking about basic changes--large and small--to reduce our usage, now.
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Back when I mowed once a year, I had neighbors who complained to the city because it was "unsightly", I did not water either and still do not water but now the robots keep the length and appearance socially acceptable.
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The amount of heat and air pollution that a lawn absorbs plays a huge factor in keeping heat around the home down and acts as a very large filter for air pollution. You don't have to fertilize your lawn and only have to mow as frequently as you would like and returning the clippings to the yard will act as a nitrogen fertilizer and keep your grass green.
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I agree! So turfee, if I just leave the clippings on the lawn, I am good to go re: any fertilizing?
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Leaving your clippings replaces the nitrogen that you would use as fertilizer and can add up to a pound of nitrogen to your lawn a year
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I'll bet that a lawn doesn't offset the pollution created by the gas mover used to clip it. Now if you use an electric, or push mower...
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One of my biggest questions is can we plant a garden in the parking strip next to the street? I hate my lawn. I am no longer part of the gentry class who needs to show their wealth by planting grass as opposed to food like the surfs way back when. I am continually trying to find more places to grow my own food for my family.
David O'Connor
Portland
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Absolutely! i see people growing vegetables in the parking strip all the time. The only thing to take into consideration is that i think technically the parking strip belongs to the city, and if they ever need to get in there for maintenance (to dig I mean) then you can kiss your veggies goodbye, at least for that season. Also, plant more than you want for your family because people will probably graze there. Finally, just be aware that the neighborhood dogs may be watering those veggies for you. My friend had the biggest Swiss chard plants i have ever seen growing next to the sidewalk in front of her house and when I commented on it she said "yeah, but I won't eat them because i see the dogs peeing on them every day!"
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We have a small front yard and back yard lawn space, so we use a push mower. In addition, we rarely if ever water it during the dry months. I would consider that a sustainable lawn. I read somewhere that a lawn puts out more oxygen than a tree. Anyway, a lawn doesn't have to be a bad thing.
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No matter how nice your lawn, someone's gonna hate you for it. I just don't see putting the effort into that anymore.
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I am planning out perennial plantings for my yard, for many reasons. I want to save money on food, mowing un-needed extra space, and weed killers and fertilizers (which I wouldn't use anyway). Many of these fruit trees need hardly any care and will provide more food than I would know what to do with. No water is necessary--there are so many fruit, berry, and nuts trees that will not even notice the dry summer. I have lived in drought-stricken areas before and tended many perennial food plants growing with no extra water--we are in Oregon, and our dry summers still don't compare to regions of true dryness. I plan on having an area of lawn to play games, have picnics on, and hang laundry. I can easily keep this small patch trimmed with a hand reel mower. I will encourage dandelions, plantain, and other "weeds" because they are actually attractive, and edible--why buy dandelion greens in the supermarket when they are trying to grow for you?
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I think that grass is the best play surface for children. No splinters and fewer skinned knees.
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Whether or not people choose lawns or vegetable gardens in their front yards, the real issue is maintenance. Weeds will take over in either case if folks don't either give their grass the right nutrients to make it competitive, or weed the garden regularly to prevent weeds.
I say it is personal preference.
We have a large garden with lots of fruit trees and raised beds in the back yard, and a traditional grassy yard in the front. I mow with an electric mower, and water infrequently in the summer months. Not many inputs, really, but I have noticed a lot of dandelions this season.........and lots of off-types, but I'm tolerant...don't want to douse it with 2-4D or anything.
If you have the energy and motivation to plant vegetables in the front yard, and the ability to deal with all the produce when it's ripe, canning, drying, whatever......go for it!
Just don't let it go to weeds, please. Natural and healthy does not mean weedy.
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Is anyone thinking about the inputs in time and energy that it takes to grow a garden in their yard that is actually functional? I know for a fact that it takes more time to get a good product from your garden than it does to maintain an adequate turf yard.
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Ha! I just heard your question, am I a veggie gardener longing for a plush green lawn. I replaced my lawn with native plantings, and my back yard is now 75% year-long veggie garden and a random weed/grass patch that counts as my lawn.
I can admit a bit of jealousy - but what I long for is the lifestyle it seems to represent. A luxury to have the resources of time and money, the days off on the weekend to tend to it - and of course, the husband (or wife) I can pressure into taking care of it for me!
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I have always considered mowing the lawn and vacuuming as mental health therapy. As a single mother of boys, when they did something I wanted to hang them by the ankles for, I could mow or vacuum and work out in my head the best solution. Since the boys are grown and I have hardwood floors now, I am left with mowing. As life has gone on and changed, mowing is still a therapeutic, healthy thing for me to do that I can solve whatever dilemmas confront me and my life. No one talks to you, interrupts you or argues with you as you work out the best path forward.
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when we moved in 10 years ago we tore out all of our grass in favor of garden. we do have kids and dogs but they seem to like it fine. my worry is the use of round-up. I learned (from NPR actually) that dogs living in yards where Roud-up was used have a hugely high incidence of Leukemia. I think our kids are not much different than dogs. I have even offered to weed my neighbors yards by hand rather than have them use Round-up to try to reduce our exposure!
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The US output of lawn clippings is approx. 40M tons annually, with maybe 10M tons used as compost etc. with the rest being sent to the landfill. This is on the order of the US wood pulp use (56M tons in 2006, less today). Pulping our lawn clippings would be far better than using our nations trees for toilet paper. The problem of all the commonly used lawn poisons going into our TP is another issue entirely.
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Great idea. I don't know anything about how feasible it is.
Walking around our (largely unmowed) neighborhood the other day, I was struck by the sheer volume of biomass we waste. In other countries I've visited (Central America, Africa), wandering livestock keep the grass short everywhere. It causes problems (overgrazing, more need for fences, conflicts between neighbors), but there's no land unused.
How much of our food system could be improved by adding a few goats or chickens to our neighborhoods? Combine our need for healthy, local protein with our abundance of land and grass.
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The intro says, "But grass seed is the state's third largest crop and farmers are concerned about a recent decline in domestic sales." I don't feel responsible to help sustain big ag (God knows my taxes do enough of that). I do want to reduce mower emisions and enjoy using my little slice of land productively.
We tore out our front & side lawn (corner lot in Newberg), built raised beds & put in native trees & shrubs. We wanted fresh produce and less lawn to mow. It definitely requires maintenance, but not much weeding: we mulch everything but the beds with tree chippings we get local arborists to dump for us.
We still have lots of backyard for kids to play in, but the lawn doesn't take lots of attention (especially July-Sept. and Dec.-Feb.). We put in some of OSU's Fleur de Lawn, and that's growing & blooming beautifully.
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This issue is really not an "either, or" subject. We can all have our cake and eat it too! Most people have room for a bit of lawn and room for a lot of beautiful perennials and food. If you live near a park, this can also supplement your yard area for games requiring more room.
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We've been converting our Eugene 1/4 acre suburban lot into a permaculture living piece of land. from English Ivy and Laural to raised beds and living soils.
The lawns have stayed but the method of maintenance has switched to organic practices. Top dressing with compost, tall mowing and leaving the clippings in place. The lawn is a wonderful water storage area to slow the flow to the drains and streams. We collect rain water into goldfish ponds and use the pond water on our bamboo grove and on the lawns. City water is reserved for the garden beds on drip irrigation.
The key to the value of the lawn for us is two pairs of Ancona heritage breed Ducks. The girls give an egg a day for about 300 each or 600 eggs together per year. Their waste feeds the lawn, their feed comes from a small custom mill in Brownsville about 30 miles away from mainly Northwest grains.
I would guess about half their diet is lawn grass. Our back yard rarely needed watering (other than the ducks water) and virtually no mowing. www.donaldstreetducks.blogspot.com.
Best fishes
David
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My partner and I bought our 1940's ranch house in NE Portland surrounded by green lawn on all four sides with the specific intention of replacing the grass with edible plants, cover crops and "steppable" ground cover. I consider the grass in our yard to be a weed and my mission is to battle it to the end! We are using sheet mulching (layers of cardboard, compost and woodchips) on top of the grass to suppress it and turn it into healthy soil that will provide nutrients for annual and perennial plants. I'm sure some of my neighbors aren't crazy about it but no one has ever said anything, and I would say every week or so I notice another house in our neighborhood where people are taking out the grass either by cutting it out or sheet mulching, and beginning to grow edibles. In fact, it was one reason we were drawn to this neighborhood in the first place. We have met and gotten to know a lot of our neighbors because we are always out in front of the house working in the garden, and everyone comes by and chats with us about what we are growing. People even leave us notes in the mailbox about how tasty our peas/broccoli etc look! In one year we have added 32 perennial fruits and vegetables (trees, bushes, vines, etc) and we'll be growing a great number of annuals as well. I first became interested in growing my own food on more of a political level - concerned about agricultural production methods and the impacts on health and the environment, etc. But what I really feel passionate about now is the potential for building relationships and community through the "food-not-lawns" movement. A new community group in Portland I am very excited about is the Urban Farm Collective, which I intend to trade vegetables through this summer. Not only have I met many people in Portland through my interest in edible gardening, but it has given me a "safe" topic of conversation with my conservative relatives back in Texas - we all love to talk veggies! Finally, on the "ornamental" factor - I have never been a flower/ornamental gardener and I don't see a need for it now. The flowers that my vegetables produce when they go to seed are beautiful, and we grow lots of flowers and plants that are edible and/or attract beneficial insects to our garden. I got a kick out of showing my grandmother photos of our summer garden and surprising her by telling her "these are radish flowers, these are broccoli flowers".
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Lawn: An absolute indication of conservative sheep thinking.
He said laughing ;-)
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Converting your lawn to vegetable gardens is a great idea, but it's only workable for people who have the time and interest to grow a garden and process their own vegetables.
If you leave your lawn clippings on the lawn to replenish its nutrients, and let it go dry in the summer, it's really not bad for the environment. But a brown lawn is not terribly attractive and isn't acceptable in some neighborhoods. There are vast expanses of green lawn in urban and suburban communities that serve no purpose other than tradition and require a lot of maintenance, water, and chemicals.
Dean makes a good point -- think about what you want to use your yard for. If you need a place to play, lawn or an alternative groundcover are suitable. But you may be able to shrink your lawn and replace parts of it with something that is more environmentally friendly. In addition to growing food, here are a few other environmentally friendly alternatives to lawns:
-Grow a raingarden. Turn your landscape into something that helps the environment by treating rooftop runoff. Check out the Oregon Rain Garden Guide: http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/sgpubs/onlinepubs/h10001.pdf
-Naturescape. Replace your lawn with low-maintenance native plants that provide wildlife habitat. http://www.emswcd.org/naturescaping/
-Create a drought-tolerant garden that looks beautiful and needs little or no water in the summer. One of my favorite resources is called "Water-efficient Plants for the Willamette Valley." I used it to re-do my parking strip. http://www.clackamasproviders.org/water-efficient-plants/
If you need a professional landscaper to help you make the switch, or someone who can use more environmentally friendly practices to maintain your lawn, there is a third party certification program for environmentally friendly landscapers called Ecobiz. There's a list of certified landscapers at www.ecobiz.org.
Teresa Huntsinger
Oregon Environmental Council -
I think the primary benefit of a lawn is the sense of space it creates. We live such crowded lives, our homes are full of clutter, our cities are so conjested, so stepping out onto a beautiful green empty carpet , with ornamental plants around the perimeter to identify its boundaries is the perfect way to enjoy the immensity of nature. We need more space in our lives .
This comment is from mike in NE Portland
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we bought our house 8 years ago with the intention of fully remodeling the house and the yard, and doing almost all the work ourselves. we ripped up the front lawn, dug out 2 bioswales, added rain chains, and planted drought tolerant herbs and grasses, and many trees (there were none). we tore out the parking strip grass and planted that with sun loving herbs and trees. we dug up our back and side yards to make way for a full house reconstruction -- the yard was literally a mud pit in the winters and a dust bowl in the summers. we've almost completed the house and we just tilled the whole side and back yards, completed lovely hardscaping (a deck and pavers) and laid sod! we have a vegetable garden, plenty of border beds and a chicken coop, a greywater system, and another bioswale to come. i can't wait to play with our family in our new yard this summer and feel great about giving our little piece of property in close-in portland a complete makeover, much of it "green" and eco-socially responsible. rather than ditching a once little house with no landscaping and heading for the suburbs for more living space inside and out for our family (where it's all built new for you in almost wholly irresponsible ways), we reconstructed an existing structure in the city, adding monetary value and reviving personal and neighborhood spirit, with an eye to what needs to happen more in the very near future in both residential and commercial zones.
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Over the years I got tired of mowing my 3000 sq ft of lawn, and slowly converted all but about 150 sq. ft. of it to a garden, now mixed with perennials and vegetables. My favorite project though was the final conversion of my front lawn to a community garden, since I have a superb location for sun-loving vegetables, and the space (about 550 sq ft). There are 5 individuals and 1 family involved. Knowing there were others who didn't have the right spaces, environment, or time to manage their own veggie gardens, I wanted to share the space! All our excess produce is donated to local food banks in the area.
See www.erasinglawnraisingbounty.wordpress.com to track our progress and activities.
My residence is within an older HOA, but it hasn't presented a problem, since I've actually enhanced the curb appeal, and we keep the space tidy. Another neighbor has just planted some dwarf fruit trees in his front area, where he used to have ground cover. We hope others will consider doing the same.
My remaining lawn satisfies the need for a patch to lay down upon, or sink my feet into, and well as being a utilitarian walkway. I never watered my lawn to begin with, so I was concerned about raising the water bill with a veggies garden, but it increased only minorly, with judicious use of soaker hoses.
Some lawn may be desirable, but how much does one need? Both can coexist, depending on the needs.
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I think it is a great idea to be able to plant vegetable gardens instead of grass. There's a problem for a lot of people not being able to do this due to homeowner associations. There are lists of "approved" vegetaion for some subdivisions that totally exclude being able to grow vegies. We need to start xeriscaping and or be able to grow food. What a great idea for churches to grow gardens rather than lawns. There's a huge problem with the power of HOA's. I have been fined $1000.00 for hanging a clothesline against the rules. How about this for future discussion? HOA's and their impact on prohibiting sustainability practices....! Susan Taylor (aka the clothesline lady)
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Portland Yard Sharing (yardsharing.org) spends its time trying to encourage people to turn their lawns into gardens with the hopes of enabling the entire community to be able to access food whenever needed.
I think that its important to note that Portland is on the frontier with converting front lawns into gardens that produce food you for example do not see this type of landscaping in Orlando FL, there the neighborhood associations mandate that property owners maintain lush lawns of grass.
We are truly blessed to be in Portland.
-Joshua Patterson
Directorhttp://www.yardsharing.org
503-583-2420 -
My slacker point of view: I hate mowing. I've taken out virtually all of my grass (save a small 12x12 spot in the back), and I've added plants, trees, gravel paths, a rain garden, a covered potting area (that doubles as a play area for the kids when it's raining), a paved patio, herb garden, fruit garden, vegetable garden....and a mini-bocce ball court. So now instead of working to keep up with my lawn, I enjoy and interact with my small plot of turf.
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I recommend getting exercise by using a Brill 'Luxes 38' or other handpowered mower on an appropriately sized lawn. I could see a new exercise fad of lawnmowing exercise clubs going from lawn to lawn in their neighborhood. Or even from park to park.
New handpowered mowers are lightweight and easy to use.
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You know this conversation is revolving more around the prestige of having a lawn and what the stereotypical aspects of having vs not having a lawn are. The conversation should include the expanded impacts of lawn vs no lawn and how golfcourses negatively impact all of the natural resources.
We've got colony collapse with honey bees and the native bees badly need nectar to survive - this requires biodiversity, plants that bloom throughout a growing season - lawns do nothing for them.
The grass seed industry is a major MAJOR contributor to air pollution since they continue to burn their fields every year - what is that doing for people that think lawns are great - are they aware of how they're supporting a continued march toward global warming?
What is that doing for the water resources that have massive amounts of nitrates leaching into the water table as a result of managing hundreds of acres of grass seed.
Food security is a real issue for bees and for humans - people need to trace the entire path of their choice when it comes to lawns over biodiverse and agriculturally active ground.
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I thought Bocce was played on a bed of crushed oyster shells.
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hello, my name is larry.i am a certified arborist and own my own landscape co. i'm all for sustainable lawn practices and favor organic methods when it comes to growing a lawn.
the question i have is about turf companies use of netting to secure turf in rolls.this net is nonbiodegradable and is produced by the acre.it seems that it would be a hazard to wildlife(when discarded) and a general nusiance when it comes to landscaping. has anyone else found this to be true? are there any studies on this subject?
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Living in Bend in the forest urban interface zone and forest fire country, I am required to have defensible fire free space around my home. Lawn grass serves this purpose very well. I have to admit that I am not a fanatic when it comes to having a perfectly groomed green lawn, and over time I have removed my lawn in many areas that aren't directly around my house and replaced it with drought tolerant, native and perrenial landscaping. I use all organic practices on my entire 1/3 acre and compost all my clippings. However, my neighbors on all sides use copious amount of water, fertilizer and various herbicides and pestcides on their lawns in their attempts to have that smooth perfect green, which I find to be uninteresting and rather dull. As an aside, lawn grass around the house helps to mediate our hot summers.
Kathy
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I think it is important to note that homeowners CAN have their lawn AND conserve water resources by using catchment systems for the water they use to water their yards/gardens. The Pac NW is the perfect environment for the catchment of rainwater--we generally get quite a bit of it--for use in our yards and gardens. I personally make use of catchment from my roof into several rain barrels and a fish pond for use in my garden and for watering my lawn. It simply "makes sense," in that there is no reason to use any water from my municipal source when I receive "free" water from the heavens. Not to mention the fact that ANY water I use from my municipal source has gone through numerous treatments--cleaning and chlorination--in order to make it potable. There is simply NO reason to use potable water on my yard and in my garden. That cost ALL OF US a lot of money and is an absolute waste of one of our most precious resources. I hope to see in the future more homes and facilities that incorporate rainwater catchment into their engineering and landscaping designs.
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I have a horticulture degree and know a bit about turf grass. And I can understand the desire to have a bit of grassy area about ones living space. But the truth of the matter is with current, modern maintainance practices a lawn is a big water waster and puts large amounts of pesticides, fertalizers, and other toxins into the environment. It is also irresponsible to import a non native and water loving species into the drier regions of our climate where water is already scarce and increasingly polluted. How logical is it to manage a lush green lawn of Kentucky blue grass in say, the deserts of Arizona? Not to say that grass doesn't have its proper place in our landscapes but we need to become more accepting of the places we choose to live and the native species that grow there. Personally I find grass lawns tedious and boring and hope to see the shift continue away from large grass lawns. There are many fine alternatives away from continuing to invest in turf lawns as the basis of our landscapes.
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My thoughts:
- I have experimented with the eco-lawn mixes and have been fairly happy with them. Once established, I do not water or fertilize at all, and only mow it 3 times per year. The flowers are awesome, though they decrease over time. I pull thistles and other weeds by hand, though the grass is much thicker than my "standard" lawn so there are fewer weeds. I used the "Northern Ecology Lawn Mix" from Nichols Garden Nursery in Albany: http://www.nicholsgardennursery.com/store/product-info.php?pid1165.html Another local supplier is Hobbs & Hopkins, they call theirs Fleur de Lawn: http://www.protimelawnseed.com/products/fleur-de-lawn If you want to see this mix in action, drive through the parking lot of the Honda Training Facility in Gresham: 16800 Northeast Sandy Boulevard (a LEED Platinum facility).
- Use native plants wherever you can. Most of them provide food for native wildlife, and once established they require almost no care. Here is a fantastic resource from British Columbia: http://www.goert.ca/documents/GOERT_Gardeners_Handbook.pdf (most of the valleys west of the cascades used to be oak savanna)
- Learn more about permaculture. Watch this beautiful 48 minute film from the UK: A Farm for the Future - http://www.viddler.com/explore/PermaScience/videos/4/ Here is a good book on Home-Scale Permaculture, by Toby Hemenway: http://www.amazon.com/Gaias-Garden-Second-Home-Scale-Permaculture/dp/1603580298
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I wonder how long this comment board will remain up, because I would like to contribute some on the development of our front "yarden" and back "yarm".
I saw some pics were posted and I actually had some albums made up on picasa that I have since taken down, so I will try to reassemble a display of the way the back progressed over the past couple years.
I am not the gardening artiste, that is my partner's gig...I am the documentarian (watch out M. Moore!).
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Styve,
This comment board will be up until the end of time (or the end of the internet, whichever comes first). In terms of participation, though, it usually trails off as the day goes on, with another little burst during our re-broadcast.
I tried to look at your picasa album, but I think it's password-protected.
Dave
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Dave,
Please try again, because I just made it a public album probably 5 mins. after your post.
Thanks,
Styve
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Very nice! I see what you mean by "yarm."
Maybe this could be our next gardening show... parking strip gardens!
http://greenwalks.wordpress.com/
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I listened with great interest to the recent Turf Wars discussion. As a member of Lawnreform.org, a native plant grower and a massive fan of fine fescues I very much appreciated how well informed Tom Fischer and David Phipps are about turf issues and options.
If I may add - fine fescues have even MORE attributes than those they named. Combined properly they create a lush lawn that grows beautifully in full sun, part shade, deep shade and even under pine trees. For a manicured lawn look they require mowing just once a month. Or, because the blades are so fine - they can be left unmowed and reach a height of only 3.5" before they fall over!! Deeply drought tolerant, they reduce watering on average in Oregon - 75 - 100%! And, fine fescues as they mature - literally crowd out weeds. Cornell University recently completed a study proving that Fine Fescues produce their own preemergent (weed killer) that kills off competitive vegetation. Fine fescues completely rock. 15 years ago I developed a proprietary blend of fine fescues that grows beautifully in every single state.
Another great organization to contact is Safelawns.org - a lawn anti-pesticide education group. They produced "A Chemical Reaction." all about a municipality in Quebec, Canada that outlawed pesticides!
Thanks again for Turf Wars! Well done.
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Comments are now closed.
A Conversation about Nature (Part I)
God: Frank, you know all about gardens and nature; what in the world is going on down there in the U.S.? What happened to the dandelions, violets, thistles and the stuff I started eons ago? I had a perfect no-maintenance garden plan. Those plants grow in any type of soil, withstand drought, and multiply with abandon. The nectar from the long-lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honeybees, and flocks of songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of color by now. All I see are patches of green.
St. Francis: It's the tribes that settled there, Lord. They are called The Suburbanites. They started calling your flowers "weeds" and went to great lengths to kill them and replace them with grass.
God: Grass? But it is so boring, it's not colorful. It doesn't attract butterflies, bees or birds, only grubs and sod worms. It's temperamental with temperatures. Do these Suburbanites really want grass growing there?
St. Francis: Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it has grown a little, they cut it—sometimes two times a week.
God: They cut it? Do they bale it like hay?
St. Francis: Not exactly, Lord. Most of them rake it up and put it in bags.
God: They bag it? Why? Is it a cash crop? Do they sell it?
St. Francis: No sir, just the opposite. They pay to throw it away.
God: Now let me get this straight...they fertilize it to make it grow and when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?
St. Francis: Yes, sir.
God: These Suburbanites must be relieved in the summer when we cut back on the rain and turn up the heat. That surely slows the growth and saves them a lot of work.
St. Francis: You aren't going to believe this Lord, but when the grass stops growing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to water it so they can continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.