Yes, in the arid west, especially the Colorado River watershed. Frankly I’m shocked those cities aren’t doing more, considering their Day Zero is fast approaching…
6 Likes
“Like I’m literally looking out the window now and watching a guy leaf-blow nothing. There is nothing to blow and he is still blowing. I want to grab the man and shake him and yell at him and ask him what is wrong with him…”
One thing that has changed since the 80’s and 90’s is a general switch to a subscription economy. People want what they perceive as “clean” and “attractive” green space in front of their house but often have vague, unclear notions of the time and expertise to maintain green space - the phrase I often hear is I would love to garden but I just don’t have the time or a green thumb, not realizing or appreciating the value of an unkempt wild yard. On top of this, marketing has convinced everyone that the only way to maintain/control green space is through lots of expensive specialized equipment. Enter the subscription economy. The thought process goes: You already have subscriptions for streaming services, and dog toys, why not for lawn care too? The lawn care team will have the right tools and do a better job than me anyway.
An aspect of the subscription service model is that many times, nothing actually needs to be done, but landscapers still need to show up at the house and make some noise so that homeowners feel that they are getting their money’s worth. Hence the leafblowers blowing at nothing. This is something I encountered frequently as a house painter in well-to-do Midwestern suburbs.
9 Likes
I feel like we would be remiss if we didn’t mention the class element here as well.
A “groomed” lawn or landscape carries with it the societal implications that the homeowner is a responsible, upstanding citizen. Unkempt yards are often perceived (consciously or not) as belonging to lazy, lower class, or even unscrupulous individuals. People who grew up in that cloud of stigma often are proud that in adulthood they are able to maintain this marker of “having made it”. My mother was always so concerned that our yard not look “trashy” - it was a thing she worried about. I once worked as a landscaper at a Midwestern casino (we actually had great green spaces using mostly native plants that we grew ourselves, but oh man the mulch was out of control) and one of my favorite co-workers, a middle-aged blue-collar Native guy, told me that he just wanted to own his own house with a nice clean lawn for his daughter to play on. That has always stuck with me. It reminded me, that for a large section of society, it feels like the goal-posts of “having made it” are always moving. I consider this somewhat analogous to the organic/natural food movement, which has good intentions and reasoning but ends up being affordable mostly to wealthy educated people and just becomes another class signifier.
I guess I’m just saying, the reasons some people might covet these manicured landscapes are complex.
11 Likes
Similar observations … my theory is that that sort of leaf blower use is busy-busy make work so the guy can claim and be paid for more hours on the job
1 Like
Around Cincinnati many of the lots have a small treated lawn in front with woods in the back. This is because many of the lots exist on hillsides. The builders typically put a lawn in front and a walkout basement in back that leads out to the wooded hillside. These wooded hillsides are increasingly being invaded by lesser celandine. The owners generally let the Celandine go because it’s really hard to control and also because most view the wooded hillsides as little more than a privacy screen. At the same time, the owners treat the front lawn to control, among other things, blue violets. The irony is that the behavior of the owners is allowing the celandine to out-compete the violets in back, while also chemically preventing the violets from growing in front. In my view, their reasoning is based on societal pressure. If enough people allow things like violets in front while working to prevent things like Celandine in back (while also keeping their space really beautiful), the societal pressure may begin to reverse itself.
BTW… I am guilty here too. I treat my small lawn in front here at home. The picture is from a rural property we also own that isn’t in a residential neighborhood. I’m thinking of applying what I’ve observed on the rural lawn to my manicured lawn at home. But I need to be confident that I can make it look beautiful enough to be appealing to the traditionalists.
1 Like
I have two theories. One is on a much larger-broader scale. The other relates to what you said about large corporations that sell lawn ‘care’/equipment/labor. First, the broad scale theory is that humans, in general, like to dominate land. Even hundreds of years ago, but it was in a much healthier way. Not only did they depend on their land to provide for them, but they also did not have the tools nor time to ‘tame’ the other wildlife. However, today, with ample resources and leisure time, people can invest a lot more time. They seen large, bare, and perfectly-cut lawns as clean, neat, and tidy; a tamed space as compared to the wildlands. People like control, they like controlling the color of their grass, the weeds, the shrubbery. People walk into the woods and see the ground cover, the fallen trees, the decomposition, and they see a mess. But they should really see how the forest and wildlands are replenishing and sustaining themselves through these processes.
Second, regarding big chains, I think that they get more profit but encouraging people to ‘dominate’ their land. They don’t make as much money selling handheld weeders, shears, shovels, and small amounts of mulch, etc… They make money off of selling high-powered machines, getting newer and better. They make money off of selling all sorts of weed killers and plant enhancers and insect repellents and so forth. I saw an ad recently for a John Deer lawnmower, in which they boasted that it could go 55mph. 55MPH. I see why that might be enticing if you have acres and acres of lawn, but there should not be that much bare land in the first place! I completely understand taming your yards a bit for visibility, especially if you have animals and children, but this idea of vast, bare space is really just instigated by these companies that want to sell you a car basically, for thousands of dollars.
These are just some of the ideas I have. I do not know where you live, but I am happy to say that in my area, people have small yards, but they use their land very well. Many people let their yards grow (while still tending to it) and plant native species. Their yards are truly beautiful.
2 Likes
Societal pressure to maintain an immaculate lawn consisting of only turf-grass might be partially the result of our perception of other people. Wild lawns are associated with rural areas. Urban and suburban professionals seem to want to be held apart from rural people. If rural people were judged less harshly is it possible that rural lawns would become more desirable?
1 Like
Who doesn’t find violets in a lawn beautiful?
But, again thanks to iNat, I discovered we have our own violet! Give me a moment, I see 3 escapees on the distribution map in USA ;~)
If, I had a lawn, mine would bloom with Oxalis and tiny Moraea
2 Likes
Who doesn’t find violets beautiful? A conservative suburban landowner whose only way of distancing himself from the most undesirable segment of society is maintaining immaculate turf. It’s the only way for urban and suburban conservatives to self-identify as apart from the most harshly judged group. If we want wild suburban lawns, we should judge rural conservatives less harshly.
Just my opinion. And may only be some percentage of the problem. If you want to fit in with the urban professionals who is it most important to say that you aren’t? Suburban leftists have other ways to signify who they aren’t and more freedom to embrace rural lawns.
1 Like
It was a rhetorical question. I don’t live in Must Have A Pristine Lawn society.
1 Like
A lot of possible reasons have already been given. Probably some are right, to an extent. But may I now suggest that discussing how to make lawns more flower-plentiful, etc., may be more productive than speculating on others’ reasons for how they manage their lawns? Not to say that all this has been speculation, or that none of it is worthwhile, but I would suggest not stereotyping everyone who manages lawns differently.
3 Likes
Military bases. Guys have a lot to do with yard maintenance as a stereotyped family chore, and many of those guys spent time on hyper-cleared bases. They come home and match what they know, and that’s my opinion as to why our yards are expected to look like officers’ quarters.
3 Likes
I agree with you on the bit about control. It’d be interesting to try to create a violet mono-culture lawn. To see how people would react to it. A violet mono-culture would be incrementally better than sod (since violets are native here and would support more wildlife). It would arguably be prettier. The fact that it’s a mono-culture would indicate that it was intentional. Violets are also low growing and really durable such that they would stand up to dogs and children.
4 Likes
I can’t provide an origin for modern landscaping practices, but this discussion has made me think a lot about my grandparents’ backyard in Hawaii.
My grandpa was a second generation Japanese American (my grandma was Puerto Rican) and the first generation of his family to have his own property in the US. I believe he bought the house in the early 1950s. He had a large backyard and it was mostly grass (which he kept very well trimmed), along with some fruit trees, bonsai trees, clotheslines, and some flowers. He worked for a concrete company and thus had access to free concrete, so he and his kids made a pathway (with sculpted concrete “sticks” of wood adorning it - took hours, according to my dad) and a koi pond. I think for him, having a clean, neat, yard was part of showing that he had risen above his lower class roots, and especially among people with Asian ancestry, it’s a way of showing you have pride for yourself, your family, and your community. He also gave away bags of mangos, lychee, and oranges to friends, neighbors, and coworkers every year. And of course it allowed him to pursue hobbies like bonsai and growing flowers.
Having the yard was also a practical thing in that it gave his children and grandchildren a big, safe, area in which to play. I have many memories of playing tag, football, baseball, and other games there, without having to pause our games for passing cars.
Their yard was a very non-wild place, but it was also where I first started catching anoles, watching pollinators, and dug for worms - where I caught the “nature bug”.
I agree we should be getting away from large monoculture lawns and encourage planting native plants, but I also wanted to give a more human perspective on one lawn because I think it’s easy to get caught up in painted things with a broad brush when in fact we’re so much more complex than that.
14 Likes
Whatever happened to hippie communes? I see no inherent reason why rural has to equal conservative.
4 Likes
Slightly off topic but:
In Britain many of the army training areas are protected wildlife sites called Sites of Special Scientific Interest. When I worked for the government conservation agency in the 80s we once got a request from an army base to spray their training area with earthworm killer because “the soldiers are tripping over the worm casts”. First, it would be difficult to trip over a worm cast, and second, I don’t think NATO can assume a future battlefield will be free of earthworms so the soldiers do need to be able to cope with them. We suspected the request was really because they wanted to set up a golf course on the base.
6 Likes
I have a friend that is that exact description. Watering and mowing weekly, to the detriment of his lawn.
He was amazed at the results when I suggested that he try raising the mower deck to three inches and waiting a few days longer before recutting.
In most of the United States (Here in Vermont being somewhat an exception), rural areas and older people tend conservative, the specific type of conservative the USA has, whereas cities and college towns and younger people tend liberal. I don’t think that trend holds true everywhere, and there are huge exceptions all around. I do think right wing people are more likely to want strongly ‘controlled’ yards, at least in the US
5 Likes
I blame the rise in HOAs. The uptight people who always only wanted grass are often the people policing lawns. I, too, live in Delaware. The other day I was at White Clay Creek, and there was a flowering tree (Redbud). It was filled with bees of all kinds. My workplace has one on its property as well. Not a bee to be found. It took me moment to think about why–the trees are sprayed, I’m sure. In general, it’s a “look”–people associate wealth, power, order with over-regulated lawns. I also think it’s a way of excluding people from neighborhoods who don’t share similar views. I, too, hate mulch–it smells; it’s bad for plants; it looks ugly. Perhaps, as younger generations step up to fight climate change, they will see the stupidity of these lawns, but I think it’s easier to hire someone to mow a yard and chemically treat it within an inch of its life than to be imaginative and create a freer, more natural space and potentially do battle with the neighbors because it’s different.
3 Likes
A lot of it really is just HOAs and people’s desire to not deal with plants. Plus shitty house flippers that strip the flowerbeds bare and put in nothing but hostas and boxwoods because to them, it looks good on zillow. (not that I mind hostas but when its the only flowering plant in any of the beds in the neighborhood, it makes me grind my teeth.)
I bought my house three years ago and I’m still working on getting the gardens in good shape. What wasn’t lazy big-box-store landscaping plants is just a mess of invasives that have been an absolute slog to get rid of. So its basically been me ripping out masses of ground ivy, mugwort, bittersweet nightshade, and poison hemlock, and trying to replace them with things that are pollinator friendly and either native or native-adjacent and non invasive.
It doesn’t help that a lot of garden centers just… don’t stock native flowers, or even knows what grows wild in the area. Or if they do, they have a few but they sell out quickly. I was over the moon the other day when I managed to find a nice specimans of Aquilegia canadensis, Mertensia virginica, and Asclepias incarnata - but I asked after a few of our spring ephemeral natives, like, Erythronium americanum or Claytonia virginica and they looked extremely confused and mused over whether they would be good for our zone.
Like???
I can walk out into the woods and find some in five minutes right now. I shouldn’t have to go to a specialty native garden center to find these. (I’m not going to go pull them from the woods though because poaching isn’t a thing I’m a fan of, so instead my ass is going to drive two hours to the native nursery to get them XD)
7 Likes