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Also stop using herbicide and plant some clover. My neighbors hate me but I (and the bees, bunnies, and other critters) love my almost white lawn in July. It
by candiddevmike 5y ago
Also stop using herbicide and plant some clover. My neighbors hate me but I (and the bees, bunnies, and other critters) love my almost white lawn in July. It smells great, and the clover keeps the grass healthy.
- nsxwolf 5y agoI consider clover to be a weed and go to great lengths to eradicate it. People underestimate how many people just want lawns of perfect, green, undifferentiated grass.
- goda90 5y agoWhat's the point? How does that enhance your life?
- coryrc 5y agoMight like going barefoot and not stepping on bees.
- drekk 5y agoYeah Americans not wanting to interact with pollinators is why they are disappearing from our environments. You could achieve the same thing with zero-scaping also, not like you need to waste water to create a pollinator-free zone. But then it wouldn't look the certain way you want, would it? That seems to be the main concern for Americans.
- slothtrop 5y agoAren't there plentiful suitable environments for bees outside of suburbia? I don't think the issue is lack of environment so much as herbicides and destructive habits.
- Schroedingersat 5y agoYou mean all the monoculture crop land full of insecticide? Or the overgrazed pasture with no flowering plants? Or the industrial areas? I guess those at least have the occasional dumpster from a candy factory.
- slothtrop 5y agoNo, I mean wild lands. No shortage of that in Canada. If the U.S. lacks in protected public lands so much, you're kind of fucked in this regard and others. Many cities here aren't just surrounded by farmland, but forested valleys and lakes. That's "the environment".
- alar44 5y agoLol ok.
- pasquinelli 5y agoi stepped on a bee once and only once in my life and it was on the gravelly bank of a river. you know how it's hard to swat a fly? bees aren't trying to get stepped on, abd they're watching more closely than you.
- candiddevmike 5y agoWhat a waste of time, energy, and resources to maintain something so unnatural. Truly a testament to man's hubris against nature.
- tiahura 5y agoDo you feel the same way about body odor?
- dimitrios1 5y agoOr people who live in extreme climates and rely on HVAC systems to pump air conditioned / heated air in their homes and environments the majority of the time? The reality is the majority of our modern world and lives can be seen as a waste of energy, resources, and, "hubris against nature" and it seems like there is some subjective line for each person that delineates what is too far.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- worstestes 5y agoAre we really equating technology relevant to our survival in different climates to keeping a manicured lawn?
- sokoloff 5y agoThe overwhelming majority of HVAC energy use is for comfort, not survival.
- dimitrios1 5y agoThis just proves my point. Quite a generous framing to support your subjective view! "Technology relevant to our survival in different climates" can also be restated as "wasting energy and resources to support people living comfortably in naturally uninhabitable environments", it just depends on what degree of an environmentalist extremist you are. Why should we burn endless amounts of gas/coal/other energy when the "natural" solution is to either naturally adapt or to simply live in more habitable environments. Anyways, yes, I'll give you that comparing HVAC to lawns is silly, but it doesn't take much imagination to think of less silly examples that we accept. So my question is who draws the lines? Whose standard is the standard that everyone should follow? Manicured lawns not cool, ok. What about backyard pools? What about irrigation systems? What about drainage ditches or other infrastructure that allow for land to perk so more housing can be made available, but negatively affects downstream wildlife? Etc, etc.
- mhh__ 5y agoBut people like coldplay and voted for the Nazis! If you don't want a weed on your garden, fair enough, but what's the point of the homogenous-lawn ideal Americans seem to have? It feels like a holdover from something like cold-war cultural propaganda.
- sokoloff 5y agoWhat's the point of a manicured English garden? What's the point of a fine suit or dress? What's the point of a nice oil painting? What's the point of a Porsche 911 or Ferrari 488? People have different preferences and that used to be OK.
- pfdietz 5y agoVeblen goods. They display that you can afford them.
- nsxwolf 5y agoIn the Midwest you don’t even need a 6 figure salary to have a lawn.
- pfdietz 5y agoI wonder if there's a term for things that used to be Veblen goods, but then became accessible to the average person. Old useless antiques might fall in that category, kept around because they really meant something 100+ years ago.
- mhh__ 5y agoLawns would be like everyone owning the same model of Porsche.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5y agoLike Subarus in Portland
- gordaco 5y agoI'm going to be that guy and point out that clover wasn't considered a weed until a chemical that killed clover, but not grass, was developed by Dow Chemical and the company wanted to sell it as a weed killer, so they ran a campaign about it. https://laidbackgardener.blog/2020/11/04/clover-in-the-lawn-from-friend-to-weed-to-friend-again/ https://laidbackgardener.blog/2020/11/04/clover-in-the-lawn-... The secret was to turn clover from a friend into an enemy. Pesticide companies decided to launch an intensive advertising campaign to convince homeowners that white clover was a weed that needed to be destroyed. They spent literally millions on advertising to persuade unconvinced gardeners.
- swayvil 5y agoPropaganda can turn black to white and white to black. And it propagates down the generations better than genetic damage. And we just call it "facts" or something.
- nsxwolf 5y agoThat’s great but, I independently came to the conclusion that clover looks horrible on a nice lawn.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5y agoProbably not independently. You no doubt got the idea from TV, movies, etc which are basically pushing the same propaganda. You think you're above such things, when in reality you're a victim of it.
- michaelcampbell 5y ago> I consider clover to be a weed ... You and Dow chemial, who demonized this Nitrogen fixing wonder in order to make more money.
- maguirre 5y agoDo you have a picture of what it looks like in full display? I have been thinking of trying clover on mine.
- silisili 5y agoNot OP, but here was my yard a few years ago. I never planted any, it just spread itself I guess. Very beautiful and attracted bumble bees and rabbits. Apologies for the quality, cheap Android cam 4 years ago, zoomed in at that. https://ibb.co/nsB7fFT https://ibb.co/nsB7fFT
- QuarterReptile 5y agoWhen I see a picture like this, I wonder what everyone else is doing. This picture would be the result of extreme lawn care at my house... I normally don't cut the grass until it's long enough that I can pick the flowers there and bring them inside (monthly?)
- chris_va 5y agoBunnies can keep the grass quite short.
- QuarterReptile 5y agoWe have very few rabbits around me. I've heard it's because the nearby golf course provides space for foxes. Otherwise I imagine they'd struggle with all the backyard fences. My real goal is to provide a maximally inhospitable environment for cockroaches of all sizes.
- kansface 5y agoRabbits don’t mow the lawn, they chew holes into it.
- tharkun__ 5y agoI move the guinea pig run across our lawn. Once they've cut it down "enough" I move it, so that it overlaps slightly. The wild bunnies do help. It's funny when they look at each other. Cavies inside the run, bunny outside, all of them chewing.
- odonnellryan 5y agoWhat clover? Would love to do this even though clover is really expensive. I planted some last year but it only half kinda took.
- candiddevmike 5y agoIt's a mix of white and pink, mostly white though. I also planted some creeping thyme and I keep a lot unmowed with some wildflowers. I have a decent sized lawn (little over 1/2 acre), but a good chunk of it is taken up by a septic system.
- lijogdfljk 5y agoDo you have tall grass too? I planted clover a while back over my existing grass and if i didn't mow i'd still have a foot tall grass, which i find really annoying. I still love the clover, and it helps keep the grass a bit more sane - but the length of the grass is my primary fight.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- londons_explore 5y agoAdd rabbits. Wild rabbits look after themselves (no need to cage them or anything), and will keep grass down to a height of about 2 inches. They stay within about 50 yards of wherever their 'home' hole is, so they won't run off (although their offspring may!). You still need to mow about twice a year to get rid of plants the rabbits don't like to eat, which will otherwise grow into bushes.
- luckman212 5y agoDo rabbits follow the don't shit where you eat mantra? i.e. will there be rabbit poo all over the lawn?
- 5y ago
- xahrepap 5y agoWe’re planting clover in our park strip to augment the lawn. We had some naturally move in last year and we really liked it So we’re going to help it out. It was soft, and keeping the lawn green/alive/pretty in the park strip is notoriously water wasteful.
- rootusrootus 5y agoWe just gave up on the parking strip. Close enough to the heat of the asphalt road that it takes a fair amount of water to keep it green. So instead I ripped it out and put in rocks of varying sizes 1-3 inches, along with a few hardy shrubs that can take some abuse and don't grow too fast. Capped all the sprinklers but one next to each shrub and then ran a drip line to it.
- 29athrowaway 5y agoThe use-case for herbicides are large agricultural fields (several acres) where a worker can no longer deal with weeds individually. Most herbicides require you to wear PPE. But in the residential market people ignore those instructions. Most of them are also unaware of the existence of safety data sheets, and are also unaware that the product packaging is not required to have every safety instruction for the product. The result: a proliferation of cancer lawsuits against herbicide manufacturers. After use, herbicides still leave the dead plant behind that needs removal. So, in practice, using herbicides for a residential yard is as stupid as declawing a cat.