EGARDENING INDEX                  Last modified December 12, 2006

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On the White House lawn, sheep served as "grass cutters" 1917 (Library of Congress)

Lawns
by Catherine Kavassalis for the Oakville Horticultural Society

I want to get the grass cut,” he said.

We both looked at the grass—there was a
sharp line where my ragged lawn ended
and the darker, well-kept expanse of his
began. I suspected that he meant my grass.
[excerpt from F. Scott Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby (1925) Ch 5]

About a quarter of the Earth's land is naturally grassland. From the tropical savannas of Africa to the temperate prairies of North America, an enormous array of grass species grow around the globe. Over the course of the last century, however, a limited selection of grasses are coming to dominate our urbanized centers. These are the turf grasses used to create lush green lawns. Recently, Dr. Christina Milesi of NASA’s Ames Research Center in California used Landsat satellite data to estimate that there were now at least 32 million acres of lawns across the United States, making it the largest irrigated American crop. About 23% of urbanized land is devoted to turf grass and if behaviors remain the same, this figure will continue to increase. Practical and beautiful, the lawn has spread from a few ornate Elizabethan gardens to the vastness of modern suburbia. 

The word laune has been located in Tudor texts dating to1548 and was first used to describe a glade or open space between woods. Some two hundred years later the meaning of the word had changed. Carefully tended swatches of grass had begun appearing in the formal gardens of France and broad expanses of sheared grounds had begun to grace the estates of England. The word lawn evolved to describe these mowed grounds. Mowing, of course, was not done by machine, but rather by grazing animals and laborers with sickles and scythes. With colonization, lawns spread. They were first confined to estate properties and were a symbol of wealth and status. According to Virginia Scott Jenkins, in her book The Lawn: A History of an American Obsession (1994), "front lawns did not catch the popular imagination and were not copied by middle class Americans until the development of suburban housing after the Civil War." Organizations like the American Garden Club encouraged and celebrated the use of turf grasses in garden design. They prescribed "a plot with a single type of grass with no intruding weeds, kept mown at a height of an inch and a half, uniformly green, and neatly edged." Soon lawns were the aesthetic standard for home owners and are now thoroughly part of our cultural identity.

Although I doubt that evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker is entirely correct in surmising that our desire for lawns harks back to some evolutionary memory of the African steppe, people do display a strong desire to establish lawns. In his recent book, American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn, historian Ted Steinberg attributes this behavior to the need for conformity. While not to down play the significance of genetics and social imitation, lawns would not continue as a social statement if they did not serve us well as play and work areas, if they did not reduce unwanted wildlife in the proximity of dwellings, and if they did not provide an aesthetic function in landscape design.  That said, lawns are overused and as such are ecologically unsound.

Lawn grasses require significant inputs of water and energy. Our mowers, blowers and sundry powered lawn maintenance equipment pollute. Large plantings of limited species of grasses are contributing to a shift in soil ecology and animal populations. They are certainly increasing lawn loving pests. Excessive use of chemicals (fertilizers and pesticides) used to keep lawns green and lush are affecting water systems, animal (including human) health, and climate.  It is time to work at lawn reduction and environmentally sound lawn maintenance.

Although lawn alternatives are becoming more fashionable, proponents are often looked upon as social dissidents or at least as 'left-leaning.' This according to York University sociologist, Allen Greenbaum, in his 2001 thesis titled The Lawn as a Site for Environmental Conflict. Yet, lawn reduction and the use of alternative ground covers should to be acceptable and desirable practice. I put it to members of the Horticultural Society to work on developing alternative landscaping schemes that do not rely heavily on turf grasses. What is needed are ground covers that are diverse, functional, fashionable and environmentally sustainable. There are already some lovely examples in the community and hopefully as you plan your garden designs for next year, you to can contribute to the change. I would love to collect examples of your lawn reductions. Please share them with me and I will post them online (contact me). Pictured is a lovely Oakville backyard without any lawn.

To begin your lawn reduction, try and follow the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's recommendations: create or expand beds of native flowers and shrubs, plant a wildflower meadow or another form of native groundcover, allow the lawn to revert to woods. If you keep some area in lawn, lessen environmental problems. Reduce or eliminate pesticides. Use a mulching mower and where possible a non-powered reel mower. Keep powered mowers in efficient operating condition and raise the cutting height to at least 3 inches (7.5cm) during hot summer months. Learn to tolerate, or better still add, a variety of plant species in the lawn.  Do not over-fertilize. A slow-release organic fertilizer applied but once, in the fall, is usually sufficient. Also check out the Garden Club of American's brochure entitled The New American Lawn http://www.gcamerica.org/pamphlets/lawnbrochure.html. See further references below.

May toads nestle in your flower beds and help you tend your beauties in this spring.

 

References Links and Information

Articles on Lawns - Facts, History and Sociology

Articles on Environmentally Sound Lawn Care

Alternative Lawns

Misc. Info

  • Elaine Ingham, The soil foodweb: its role in ecosystem health, in Overstory #81, Agroforest Industry, http://www.agroforestry.net/overstory/overstory81.html
  • Berkeley, The Grassland Biome http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/glossary/gloss5/biome/grassland.html
  • USDA Kentucky Bluegrass http://plants.usda.gov/plantguide/pdf/pg_popr.pdf#search=%22poa%20pratensis%20origin%22  Kentucky bluegrass is native to portions of North America, including areas within the United States.  Exact delineation of native status has not been determined, but data seems to indicate that it is native in parts of the southeast, northeast, and upper Midwest regions and introduced or naturalized elsewhere.  It occurs throughout the United States although it is most prevalent in the northern half.  It is not common in the Gulf States or in the desert regions of the southwest.  For current distribution, please consult the Plant Profile page for this species on the PLANTS Web site (http://plants.usda.gov). 
  • EPA Ecosystems Research, Impervious Land Cover http://www.epa.gov/ATHENS/research/impervious/ Urban/suburban land uses are the most rapidly growing land use class generating non-point source loadings likely to seriously impair streams.  Impervious cover is the amount of land cover in roads, buildings and parking lots, and turf grass cover in a watershed and can seriously impact biotic integrity in associated streams. 
  • Lawn & Garden Consumables forecasts to 2010 & 2015  http://www.bharatbook.com/detail.asp?id=8136
  • EPA: Professional Lawn Care Association of America's 2004 Strategy http://www.epa.gov/oppbppd1/PESP/strategies/2004/plcaa04.htm "The U.S. lawn and landscapes industry is already a $70 billion annual business that provides hundreds of thousands of jobs and promises even more in the future. The industry is one of the fastest growing segments of the green industry and small business. The lawn and landscapes industry is important to nearly every local economy in every region of the United States."
  • Biocontrol Files - Ecological Pest Management http://www.biocontrol.ca/  see Oct. 2005 on turf disease http://www.biocontrol.ca/pdf/Bio4.pdf#search=%22nematodes%20pmra%22

    • Lawn insects
     

    Interesting Factoids