Lawns & Lawn Alternatives

I have put off writing this article for a few reasons; firstly, because I have limited hands-on experience with this subject, so I have very few photos (I only use my own photos unless otherwise specified) and secondly because I know that people in my local community traditionally care a lot about their normal stereotypical grass lawns.

This is a subject I’ve ruffled some feathers over in past years, but I’ll just say it: straight up I hate lawns (traditional ones anyway).

They are outdated, often ugly, unproductive, more effort than they’re worth, and end up causing more harm than good to the environment. The few excuses I hear in defense of lawns are almost never actually valid and we really need to rethink this massive waste of energy, time, resources, and money.

History

The history surrounding what we think of as lawns is pretty interesting.

Originally the term referred to pasture that was grazed by horses, rabbits, or other common grazing animals in England. These large, semi-natural areas were fairly common (and still are in some places) throughout parts of Europe where animals would graze close to the ground. This was the common idea of a lawn in Europe during the 1100s before sod was introduced as a turf grass.

Eventually during the Middle Ages, lawns became a status symbol with the aristocrats of Northern Europe since they could be used for leisure and sport. At this point lawns were typically still made up of many different meadow plants including chamomile (a popular favorite) and not just turf grass.

By the 1700s, English lawns were starting to gain popularity in North America. Around this time, turf nurseries and the Shaker community started promoting grass seed and sod. At this point, lawns were entirely sod and turf grass rather than mixed meadows, and because most lawns were maintained by hired gardeners or workers, it was still seen almost exclusively as a symbol of wealth and luxury.

That changed in 1830 when the first mechanical mower was patented. Now, the average person could affordably take care of their own residential lawn without having to hire workers. This meant that lawns now started to lose their status as a symbol of luxury and transitioned into being a purely aesthetic expectation in residential areas.

After the world wars, there was a surplus of chemical nitrogen which needed a good market to sell off. What does grass need to stay nice and green? Nitrogen! Residential suburbs were the perfect customers to sell off these extra war chemicals to.

By the early 2000s homeowners were using over 10x more pesticides than farmers were per acre. Think about that for a second! The place where children played barefoot, where picnics and cookouts were hosted were loaded with more poisons than a corn field in Iowa.

Today Americans spend over $100 Billion in lawn care every year, and half (HALF) of household water usage in America goes towards lawn care.

Ironically, the percentage of households growing food gardens has declined from about 55% of the population in 1944, to less than 19% today taking into account the recent gardening renaissance.

If anyone is able to find more accurate figures, please let me know, that’s the best I could dig up

This is extremely fitting with one of the few truly American philosophies of the past century: Overconsumption and excess.

Considerations

So, what do we do?

Well, the main issues I see are:

• Lack of biodiversity (Lawns are essentially cornfield monocultures)

• Economics (Lawns are expensive to maintain)

• Less productive space (Lawns take up otherwise useful land)

• Resource Drain (Lawns take up outrageous amounts of resources)

• Introduction of invasive and non-native grasses (some grasses are incredibly invasive, and non-natives often turn green at the wrong times of year and require more inputs)

I totally get that some people love the look of the classic lawn, so I’ll have some solutions for you below, but I think there are some clear ways to address all of these issues.

Firstly, encourage biodiversity. Allow things like violets, chickweed, clover, chamomile, and dandelions to grow in your yard! Not only do they provide food for pollinators, they also provide food and medicine for you and others.

Second, we need to stop spending so much on our yards. If we want unproductive lawns, then they should at least be giving us some kind of benefit for the cost they incur but as it is, they’re a liability. They only lose us money.

Third, we need spaces that provide us with a net positive benefit (wildlife support, food, medicine, beauty, recreation etc). As they exist, they give no actual benefit beyond looking green.

Fourthly, if we move to low-maintenance yards, all of the above can be fixed and they will use less inputs like water, fertilizer, and herbicides. This can be achieved by switching out what kinds of plants we grow in the landscape for ones better suited to our climate or that have lower resource demands.

How do we do this? Thankfully there are several options:

Lawn alternatives

At the very least I’m hoping to meet the criteria of a less wasteful, and more environmentally friendly space. I realize not everyone wants a garden or a wild meadow, but there are still options:

Native Grass Lawns

Planting native sedges and grasses will not only require far less water, but it will also not require an ounce of fertilizer or herbicide. Sedges tend to grow lower and can mean less mowing while still looking like grass while actual grasses will grow much taller if you let them.

Many native sedges not only look lush and pretty but are also fairly soft underfoot.

This website allows you to look up native grasses/sedges in your area: Keystone Plants by Ecoregion

And here’s a site that sells many native grasses and sedges: Native Sedges | Prairie Nursery

Flower Lawns

It’s becoming a bit of a trend to replace all of the grass in your front yard with wildflowers and to make paths through it and honestly it looks amazing.

This is a great option for someone who wants something ethereally beautiful and who has a whimsical style. These are also SO MUCH FUN for children to play in!

Tapestry & Mixed Lawns

A tapestry lawn is a small meadow made up of several patches of different species of plant. I absolutely love tapestry lawns.

This gives you a fun place for kids to still run around and do normal recreational activities while still giving that biodiversity and low maintenance.

Mixed lawns are simply lawns that are made up of two or more different plant species.

When I had the privilege of visiting Western Michigan University’s Gibbs House, a student showed me her mixed lawn experiment. In a few plots she experimented with different mixes of clovers and other plants in lawns and determined that even just mixing clover into your lawn could make a massive difference since clover is a nitrogen fixer and has wider leaves that shade the soil more than grass.

This keeps water in the soil longer while also providing the necessary fertilizer for the grass to grow which reduces your overall inputs and still looks like a normal classic lawn.

Gardens

I’m sure I don’t have to explain what a garden is.

Replacing your landscape with an edible garden is one of the most productive things you can do and society as a whole would benefit from more people doing this.

Not only are you maximizing your yard space, but you are also getting one of the biggest returns for the maintenance and input cost if you do it right (See my article on low-maintenance gardens).

The classic excuse of “Oh well where will the kids play?” is making a few assumptions:

1. That kids even play on lawns (spoiler alert, most kids are playing video games inside or playing in the woods when outside)

2. That gardens aren’t spaces for kids to play.

Gardens are perhaps one of the best teaching tools for the development of a child, and one of the most therapeutic activities for stressed out youth that exists.

Have we considered that perhaps telling children to go play outside on an all-grass lawn on a hot day isn’t actually appealing because it’s boring?

Speaking from experience, I was far more likely to want to play outside if I knew I had access to woods and wetland than if I was told to stay in our completely uninteresting grass yard.

Meadowscaping

Along similar lines to a tapestry lawn, some people will intentionally plant native grasses, herbs, and sedges to mimic a natural prairie or meadow.

I’ve heard of some cool things being done with this concept such as making a “tea meadow” (planting mostly tea herbs) a “bread meadow” (Planting mostly grains), or a “Medicinal meadow” (mostly medicinal herbs).

I think these are fun ways to make the space functional for a specific purpose that allows you to gather people together for a unique harvest event.

Imagine designing a meadow that has all of the ingredients for a small batch of baked goods, harvesting and processing at the end of the year, then sharing with neighbors or friends!

While I’m more of a food forest kind of guy, this concept is a close second in my book!

While this doesn’t mean you have to transform every inch of your yard into a fully productive space, mixing it up and making the yard a more diverse and beautiful space that is productive and healthy while also reducing the effort, time, money, and resources it takes to maintain is a worthwhile pursuit in my humble opinion.

What do you think, are you going to tear it all up for flowers? Will you convert your yard to a tapestry lawn? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

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