5 ms·

I don't understand why a lot of people have a lawn in the first place, most don't even use the lawn (besides mowing it on a regular basis hahaha)!

vidarh 5y ago
My local London borough was short on cash last year, and while that was a shame, the fact that one of the things they cut down on was mowing the parks was fantastic. While I get some people want short grass in parks for e.g. ball games, I wish they'd keep leaving larger parts of the parks mowed less often - the parks had far more flowers and far more bees etc. than usual.
- masklinn 5y ago
  TBF one of the issues with long grass is they also favour ticks: ticks need a relatively wet environment, short grass prevent moisture retention which is an issue for all sorts of good critters... but also for ticks.
  - goda90 5y ago
    The problem with trying to reduce ticks and mosquitoes in unnatural ways is that we often harm the things that eat them too. Since ticks and mosquitoes feed on us and other larger animals, they're the first to rebound their population, while their predators take longer to come back to keep their numbers down.
    - zdragnar 5y ago
      I live surrounded by hundreds of acres of forest. Wildlife is abundant, but there is absolutely no keeping up with the mosquito and tick population. Using deet and grooming ourselves and our dogs after they come inside every single time is just a fact of life.
      - goda90 5y ago
        It's a slow moving solution, but abundant bat boxes do wonders for mosquito control. Of course you'll never get rid of them entirely, but the population can be kept really low. Also promoting dragonflies helps a ton. For ticks, wolves are actually really important. They keep deer and coyote populations in check. Deer of course feed ticks, but what's really interesting is that coyotes have a two fold effect on ticks. First they eat some of the tick predators like opossums. And second they eat mouse predators like foxes, with mice being a major part in tick reproduction. Wolves don't usually eat these smaller animals. So wolves help keep a balance.
        toast0 5y ago
        > Also promoting dragonflies helps a ton. What are good ways to do that? Everything I saw that's good for dragonflies is good for mosquitos, but I'm not going to promote mosquitos. (Sure they've got a place in the world, but I wish it wasn't so close to my house)
  - vidarh 5y ago
    I'm in London. Everywhere is a relatively wet environment almost all the time. And my local borough at least have plenty of high moisture wooded areas whether or not the grass is cut short, so allowing more of the open grassland to grow out would not make a material change. Ticks are uncommon here (EDIT: Here being in my borough; there are definitely parts of England where it's more of a concern - and if I had a dog or if I was wandering around more in the woods, I'd still check for ticks, just in case) - some have been found in adjacent boroughs e.g. in Richmond Park, but that's thought to be due to to a high population of deer, but even there the proportion of infected ticks is tiny.
nsxwolf 5y ago
My homeowners association requires it even if I didn’t want it.
ironmagma 5y ago
Often times it is required by law or HOA. For example the FL fire code has a mandate that buildings be set back from the road a certain (insane) distance, ostensibly for fire safety reasons, and then people don’t really want to see huge dirt fields everywhere, so the HOAs require lawns.
- mdoms 5y ago
  "Huge dirt field" is not the only alternative to lawn. I would NEVER live somewhere where some busy-body group of Karens can tell me what I can, can't or must plant on my own property.
  - closeparen 5y ago
    A lot of people would never live somewhere lacking greenery.
    - cinntaile 5y ago
      Nobody in this thread is saying that though, so it's unclear who or what you are arguing against?
    - mdoms 5y ago
      Are you implying that not having a lawn means not having greenery? I would argue the opposite is true. While a monoculture lawn may be "green" it's about as barren a green space as you can imagine.
      - closeparen 5y ago
        Are you construing a requirement to have a lawn as prohibiting more intensive gardening? I have never heard of that. What I do see all the time is the front setback given over 100% to driveway and parking. These neighborhoods become very drab, even though if you look on satellite view there’s plenty of plant life - it’s just all locked away in private backyards. My personal preference is neither. Pull the buildings right up to the sidewalk. Present an interesting pleasant facade to pedestrians. But to the extent you are going to have setbacks, they should at least have some redeeming aesthetic value.
hanniabu 5y ago
What would you have instead? Seeing greenery is good for mental health.
- cinntaile 5y ago
  There are a lot of green alternatives that don't require the weekly maintenance and are better from a flora/fauna point of view than grass monoculture.
  - worik 5y ago
    My lawn (that I love) is not a mono culture. The parts I planted are dominated by the grass I planted (fescu? sp?) but the invasive flowering weeds are encroaching and I am happy to see them. Biggest influence is foot fall. High traffic areas are very different from low traffic areas. I imagine my lawnmower is like a herbivore eating the tops. I have experimented with letting it grow. Gets dominated by dock and long grasses generally
- wrycoder 5y ago
  I’ve heard of a guy who paved his front lawn with green concrete and mounted a lawn mower on a pedestal in the middle. I’ve heard of HOAs going after people for planting vegetables in their front yard. But, there is seriscaping, which is popular in dry areas.
- analog31 5y ago
  In my neighborhood, there are quite a few wooded lots, where they just let the trees grow with varying levels of deliberate gardening under the trees. It's quite pleasant. My neighbors have something like that in their back yard, and prairie grass in the front. My house has a big vegetable garden, some flower gardens, some bushes, and trees. We also have some lawn, but it's un-maintained and only needs to be mowed a couple times during the spring before it goes dormant. It's also about 1/2 weeds. Every year we convert more of it to garden. Only about 1/5 of the houses have actual managed green lawns. Contrast with my parents' neighborhood in another state. Every lawn in the entire 'hood is bushy bright green, and the people are out there mowing all the time. Many of their neighbors mow twice a week. One neighbor had a large mature tree cut down because it was shading their grass. Of course you can't see the lawns because all of the streets are lined on both sides with giant cars. In addition to the visual appearance, there's the noise. A relative of mine went on vacation recently, to a place that was more or less off the grid. His comment was that there were no string trimmers or leaf blowers. A lot of suburban neighborhoods are just a constant racket of equipment. I get it, it's a culture thing. But it's interesting to see that there are actually lots of possibilities for what to do with the grounds around a detached house.
rascul 5y ago
I'm not most people, but I live on an acre and between myself and my dog, we use almost all of it. Probably half of it has grass, though. Also, in many locations, the grass is already there when the house is built, but maybe needs some help coming back around the construction areas, so it's not like they're putting a lawn in that wasn't already there. It's just that perhaps now it's a lawn instead of a field because the house is there.
mjh2539 5y ago
Many HOAs in the United States require that you have a fully sodded lawn.

vidarh 5y ago

My local London borough was short on cash last year, and while that was a shame, the fact that one of the things they cut down on was mowing the parks was fantastic. While I get some people want short grass in parks for e.g. ball games, I wish they'd keep leaving larger parts of the parks mowed less often - the parks had far more flowers and far more bees etc. than usual.

masklinn 5y ago
TBF one of the issues with long grass is they also favour ticks: ticks need a relatively wet environment, short grass prevent moisture retention which is an issue for all sorts of good critters... but also for ticks.
- goda90 5y ago
  The problem with trying to reduce ticks and mosquitoes in unnatural ways is that we often harm the things that eat them too. Since ticks and mosquitoes feed on us and other larger animals, they're the first to rebound their population, while their predators take longer to come back to keep their numbers down.
  - zdragnar 5y ago
    I live surrounded by hundreds of acres of forest. Wildlife is abundant, but there is absolutely no keeping up with the mosquito and tick population. Using deet and grooming ourselves and our dogs after they come inside every single time is just a fact of life.
    - goda90 5y ago
      It's a slow moving solution, but abundant bat boxes do wonders for mosquito control. Of course you'll never get rid of them entirely, but the population can be kept really low. Also promoting dragonflies helps a ton. For ticks, wolves are actually really important. They keep deer and coyote populations in check. Deer of course feed ticks, but what's really interesting is that coyotes have a two fold effect on ticks. First they eat some of the tick predators like opossums. And second they eat mouse predators like foxes, with mice being a major part in tick reproduction. Wolves don't usually eat these smaller animals. So wolves help keep a balance.
      - toast0 5y ago
        > Also promoting dragonflies helps a ton. What are good ways to do that? Everything I saw that's good for dragonflies is good for mosquitos, but I'm not going to promote mosquitos. (Sure they've got a place in the world, but I wish it wasn't so close to my house)
- vidarh 5y ago
  I'm in London. Everywhere is a relatively wet environment almost all the time. And my local borough at least have plenty of high moisture wooded areas whether or not the grass is cut short, so allowing more of the open grassland to grow out would not make a material change. Ticks are uncommon here (EDIT: Here being in my borough; there are definitely parts of England where it's more of a concern - and if I had a dog or if I was wandering around more in the woods, I'd still check for ticks, just in case) - some have been found in adjacent boroughs e.g. in Richmond Park, but that's thought to be due to to a high population of deer, but even there the proportion of infected ticks is tiny.

nsxwolf 5y ago

My homeowners association requires it even if I didn’t want it.

ironmagma 5y ago

Often times it is required by law or HOA. For example the FL fire code has a mandate that buildings be set back from the road a certain (insane) distance, ostensibly for fire safety reasons, and then people don’t really want to see huge dirt fields everywhere, so the HOAs require lawns.

mdoms 5y ago
"Huge dirt field" is not the only alternative to lawn. I would NEVER live somewhere where some busy-body group of Karens can tell me what I can, can't or must plant on my own property.
- closeparen 5y ago
  A lot of people would never live somewhere lacking greenery.
  - cinntaile 5y ago
    Nobody in this thread is saying that though, so it's unclear who or what you are arguing against?
  - mdoms 5y ago
    Are you implying that not having a lawn means not having greenery? I would argue the opposite is true. While a monoculture lawn may be "green" it's about as barren a green space as you can imagine.
    - closeparen 5y ago
      Are you construing a requirement to have a lawn as prohibiting more intensive gardening? I have never heard of that. What I do see all the time is the front setback given over 100% to driveway and parking. These neighborhoods become very drab, even though if you look on satellite view there’s plenty of plant life - it’s just all locked away in private backyards. My personal preference is neither. Pull the buildings right up to the sidewalk. Present an interesting pleasant facade to pedestrians. But to the extent you are going to have setbacks, they should at least have some redeeming aesthetic value.

hanniabu 5y ago

What would you have instead? Seeing greenery is good for mental health.

cinntaile 5y ago
There are a lot of green alternatives that don't require the weekly maintenance and are better from a flora/fauna point of view than grass monoculture.
- worik 5y ago
  My lawn (that I love) is not a mono culture. The parts I planted are dominated by the grass I planted (fescu? sp?) but the invasive flowering weeds are encroaching and I am happy to see them. Biggest influence is foot fall. High traffic areas are very different from low traffic areas. I imagine my lawnmower is like a herbivore eating the tops. I have experimented with letting it grow. Gets dominated by dock and long grasses generally
wrycoder 5y ago
I’ve heard of a guy who paved his front lawn with green concrete and mounted a lawn mower on a pedestal in the middle. I’ve heard of HOAs going after people for planting vegetables in their front yard. But, there is seriscaping, which is popular in dry areas.
analog31 5y ago
In my neighborhood, there are quite a few wooded lots, where they just let the trees grow with varying levels of deliberate gardening under the trees. It's quite pleasant. My neighbors have something like that in their back yard, and prairie grass in the front. My house has a big vegetable garden, some flower gardens, some bushes, and trees. We also have some lawn, but it's un-maintained and only needs to be mowed a couple times during the spring before it goes dormant. It's also about 1/2 weeds. Every year we convert more of it to garden. Only about 1/5 of the houses have actual managed green lawns. Contrast with my parents' neighborhood in another state. Every lawn in the entire 'hood is bushy bright green, and the people are out there mowing all the time. Many of their neighbors mow twice a week. One neighbor had a large mature tree cut down because it was shading their grass. Of course you can't see the lawns because all of the streets are lined on both sides with giant cars. In addition to the visual appearance, there's the noise. A relative of mine went on vacation recently, to a place that was more or less off the grid. His comment was that there were no string trimmers or leaf blowers. A lot of suburban neighborhoods are just a constant racket of equipment. I get it, it's a culture thing. But it's interesting to see that there are actually lots of possibilities for what to do with the grounds around a detached house.

rascul 5y ago

I'm not most people, but I live on an acre and between myself and my dog, we use almost all of it. Probably half of it has grass, though. Also, in many locations, the grass is already there when the house is built, but maybe needs some help coming back around the construction areas, so it's not like they're putting a lawn in that wasn't already there. It's just that perhaps now it's a lawn instead of a field because the house is there.

mjh2539 5y ago

Many HOAs in the United States require that you have a fully sodded lawn.