6 ms·

I'm always amazed at people with HUGE backyards and acreage...everything is so manicured. Why? To me it makes no sense, a real forest is very relaxing (Granted

I'm always amazed at people with HUGE backyards and acreage...everything is so manicured. Why? To me it makes no sense, a real forest is very relaxing (Granted they may have a real forest 500yards away)

watwut 7y ago
For the same reason why people spend hours and hours in minecraft or drawing or ... .
- JadeNB 7y ago
  Hours and hours in Minecraft and drawing don't reduce biodiversity (except, perhaps, indirectly via energy consumption for Minecraft).
noelwelsh 7y ago
Lawns originated as a display of wealth, showing that you were so wealthy you could afford to have land that wasn't devoted to growing food. This attitude persists, even though the origin is forgotten; the majority of people hanker after displays of status even if they don't consciously understand what they are doing. I don't agree with it (I think lawns are stupid and forests are great) but that's the way it is. To change it would take concerted public education. I believe some US states (Colorado?) have efforts to encourage people to plant native species, for example. When I lived in Australia there were some fairly half-hearted efforts to do the same (though the majority of people still had stupidly wasteful lawns; Australia is mostly desert, it shouldn't look like the UK y'all.)
- luckylion 7y ago
  Shouldn't it shift back now that lawn is the default, similar to fat/thin, pale/tan or oysters as food? It's easy and cheap to have a your yard covered in lawn and use a mower to keep it reasonably groomed, it's expensive to have trees put in.
- pjc50 7y ago
  > Australia is mostly desert, it shouldn't look like the UK y'all. This is the big problem - lawns kind of make sense if you're trying to be a tiny Capability Brown emulating the English countryside, but outside of the temperate maritime climate they're highly unnatural and have to be kept on life support.
  - Gravityloss 7y ago
    The things they have to do to maintain golf courses in other climates is sad as well.
  - pvaldes 7y ago
    Is a desert now, but that shouldn't prevent us to restore a bit of the old australian forests here and there. Some places in Australia have much more water and are typically forested.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  Lawns are also great for kids to play on.
  - Jedd 7y ago
    People say this, but I think there's plenty of shared lawns (parks, ovals, etc) for kids to mindlessly play on ... and ... I think that kids possibly get more use out of playing (working) in a productive home garden, with planting, weeding, harvesting, eating etc.
    - watwut 7y ago
      For 10 minutes approximately. The rest is a lot of work for adults.
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      "don't walk on the grass". "no soccer" "this is not a playing field" Public space tends to be for people to look at, rarely to interact with. My kids get endless hours of fun out of the garden. If it looked pretty and was nicely planted then they wouldn't.
      - watwut 7y ago
        Not where I live. Grass in public parks is used by kids to play, the parts with decorative flowers are quite small. And people who have garden with vegetables and fruits really dont want kids to randomly play there - they want the vegetables and fruits to grow and be eaten. But, people with kids and productive garden have part of garden dedicated to kids play - it typically has only low maintenance grass on it.
danielg6 7y ago
Trees are also a liability depending on their proximity to valuable things. They also block light.
- fangorn 7y ago
  In, or rather around, passive houses they are meant to block light during summer. That's why it's recommended to plant trees that will shelter your house from the sun thus lowering temperature inside (and your cooling energy requirements, if you've got air-con, etc.). During winter they shed their leaves and let the sun in, providing the opposite effect. Of course that's in climate zones that actually have summers and winters. Granted, you don't need entire forest for that. Naturally, that works for most kinds of houses, not just passive ones. It's just especially important for those, if you want to achieve their stated (very low) energy requirements levels.
  - sethammons 7y ago
    When I lived in southern California, shade trees on my house was imperative. When they were trimmed and the shade lost, the inside house temp went up about ten degrees.
- nkrisc 7y ago
  > They also block light. The lack of old trees that block like is why all those new developments you see are so miserable. You'll be blasting your A/C to keep the house comfortable if you live in a warm climate precisely because there's no big enough trees blocking the light. Being outside around your house without shade is also miserable in the summer. Those developments will be livable in 15-20 years when the trees mature. That's why I bought a house in a 25 year old neighborhood with mature trees. Any added maintenance of the trees is worth the shade they provide.
CalRobert 7y ago
I have a few acres, and tried leaving it all to its own devices, and then decided against that after picking several ticks off my toddler and spouse. Now we have the area immediately around the house mowed, then a sort of intermediate area with vegetable gardens, a further area where we let the grass grow tall so the farmer down the road can mow it for silage, and finally a bunch of saplings beyond that to encourage wildlife and coppice for heating fuel down the road. I generally agree with your sentiment. Without those ticks we'd just have tall grass even close to the house. This is the general idea behind permaculture zones, incidentally https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ad/Permaculture_Zones.svg/1024px-Permaculture_Zones.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ad/Pe...
- tomohawk 7y ago
  check out tick tubes. you can make your own.
  - jhauris 7y ago
    Tick tubes may help with deer ticks, but when we tried them they had minimal effect on other species (which also carry disease). Nothing we've tried (poultry, tick tubes) controls ticks as well as mowing the areas people will be.
    - nkrisc 7y ago
      Doing some quick research, it seems tick tubes just contain permethrin treated cotton balls that mice (a tick vector) use for their nests? I've already got some permethrin we used for our outer layers and boots for hiking, seems easy enough to make on my own. Is that what you meant by tick tubes?
      - jhauris 7y ago
        Yes, that's correct. Again though, it's not a panacea.
- sethammons 7y ago
blaser-waffle 7y ago
Fires are a serious concern where we live. It gets dry enough in the summer, and keeping it unmanaged and wild just increases the amount of detritus, dead plants, and other potent kindling.

watwut 7y ago

For the same reason why people spend hours and hours in minecraft or drawing or ... .

JadeNB 7y ago
Hours and hours in Minecraft and drawing don't reduce biodiversity (except, perhaps, indirectly via energy consumption for Minecraft).

noelwelsh 7y ago

Lawns originated as a display of wealth, showing that you were so wealthy you could afford to have land that wasn't devoted to growing food. This attitude persists, even though the origin is forgotten; the majority of people hanker after displays of status even if they don't consciously understand what they are doing. I don't agree with it (I think lawns are stupid and forests are great) but that's the way it is. To change it would take concerted public education. I believe some US states (Colorado?) have efforts to encourage people to plant native species, for example. When I lived in Australia there were some fairly half-hearted efforts to do the same (though the majority of people still had stupidly wasteful lawns; Australia is mostly desert, it shouldn't look like the UK y'all.)

luckylion 7y ago
Shouldn't it shift back now that lawn is the default, similar to fat/thin, pale/tan or oysters as food? It's easy and cheap to have a your yard covered in lawn and use a mower to keep it reasonably groomed, it's expensive to have trees put in.
pjc50 7y ago
> Australia is mostly desert, it shouldn't look like the UK y'all. This is the big problem - lawns kind of make sense if you're trying to be a tiny Capability Brown emulating the English countryside, but outside of the temperate maritime climate they're highly unnatural and have to be kept on life support.
- Gravityloss 7y ago
  The things they have to do to maintain golf courses in other climates is sad as well.
- pvaldes 7y ago
  Is a desert now, but that shouldn't prevent us to restore a bit of the old australian forests here and there. Some places in Australia have much more water and are typically forested.
jacquesm 7y ago
Lawns are also great for kids to play on.
- Jedd 7y ago
  People say this, but I think there's plenty of shared lawns (parks, ovals, etc) for kids to mindlessly play on ... and ... I think that kids possibly get more use out of playing (working) in a productive home garden, with planting, weeding, harvesting, eating etc.
  - watwut 7y ago
    For 10 minutes approximately. The rest is a lot of work for adults.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    "don't walk on the grass". "no soccer" "this is not a playing field" Public space tends to be for people to look at, rarely to interact with. My kids get endless hours of fun out of the garden. If it looked pretty and was nicely planted then they wouldn't.
    - watwut 7y ago
      Not where I live. Grass in public parks is used by kids to play, the parts with decorative flowers are quite small. And people who have garden with vegetables and fruits really dont want kids to randomly play there - they want the vegetables and fruits to grow and be eaten. But, people with kids and productive garden have part of garden dedicated to kids play - it typically has only low maintenance grass on it.

danielg6 7y ago

Trees are also a liability depending on their proximity to valuable things. They also block light.

fangorn 7y ago
In, or rather around, passive houses they are meant to block light during summer. That's why it's recommended to plant trees that will shelter your house from the sun thus lowering temperature inside (and your cooling energy requirements, if you've got air-con, etc.). During winter they shed their leaves and let the sun in, providing the opposite effect. Of course that's in climate zones that actually have summers and winters. Granted, you don't need entire forest for that. Naturally, that works for most kinds of houses, not just passive ones. It's just especially important for those, if you want to achieve their stated (very low) energy requirements levels.
- sethammons 7y ago
  When I lived in southern California, shade trees on my house was imperative. When they were trimmed and the shade lost, the inside house temp went up about ten degrees.
nkrisc 7y ago
> They also block light. The lack of old trees that block like is why all those new developments you see are so miserable. You'll be blasting your A/C to keep the house comfortable if you live in a warm climate precisely because there's no big enough trees blocking the light. Being outside around your house without shade is also miserable in the summer. Those developments will be livable in 15-20 years when the trees mature. That's why I bought a house in a 25 year old neighborhood with mature trees. Any added maintenance of the trees is worth the shade they provide.

CalRobert 7y ago

I have a few acres, and tried leaving it all to its own devices, and then decided against that after picking several ticks off my toddler and spouse. Now we have the area immediately around the house mowed, then a sort of intermediate area with vegetable gardens, a further area where we let the grass grow tall so the farmer down the road can mow it for silage, and finally a bunch of saplings beyond that to encourage wildlife and coppice for heating fuel down the road. I generally agree with your sentiment. Without those ticks we'd just have tall grass even close to the house. This is the general idea behind permaculture zones, incidentally https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ad/Permaculture_Zones.svg/1024px-Permaculture_Zones.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ad/Pe...

tomohawk 7y ago
check out tick tubes. you can make your own.
- jhauris 7y ago
  Tick tubes may help with deer ticks, but when we tried them they had minimal effect on other species (which also carry disease). Nothing we've tried (poultry, tick tubes) controls ticks as well as mowing the areas people will be.
  - nkrisc 7y ago
    Doing some quick research, it seems tick tubes just contain permethrin treated cotton balls that mice (a tick vector) use for their nests? I've already got some permethrin we used for our outer layers and boots for hiking, seems easy enough to make on my own. Is that what you meant by tick tubes?
    - jhauris 7y ago
      Yes, that's correct. Again though, it's not a panacea.
sethammons 7y ago

blaser-waffle 7y ago

Fires are a serious concern where we live. It gets dry enough in the summer, and keeping it unmanaged and wild just increases the amount of detritus, dead plants, and other potent kindling.