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No Mow May, Low Mow Spring
- 0zemp2c 3y agoLots of people use landscaping services Most services want you on a weekly schedule because they make more money. Close-cut lawns are thirstier. It can take effort to find services that will only come twice a month but they are out there. Lawns aren't just ornamental for many...if you are on septic, the lawn is helping to recycle septic discharge, and trees would root too deep and break the lines.
- bingobongodude 3y ago[flagged]
- chomp 3y agoWe plant only Texas native plants in our garden. Bee balm, honeysuckle, Texas lantana, beautyberry, and turk’s cap to name a few. We get so many bumblebees and other pollinators in the late months of spring. Also (imo) looks way nicer than the generic “HOA plant” lawns around us.
- kelnos 3y ago> residents of Appleton, Wisconsin [...] convinced their City Council to suspend their weed ordinance for the month of May. This reminds me that there are many municipalities and homeowners' associations that essentially require you to mow your lawn weekly or bi-weekly, lest your grass gets too long and they fine you, because... reasons. It's really gross that we allow people to be such busybodies.
- thatfrenchguy 3y agoNever really understood why people have lawns in the first place, no-one ever sits on them. Really shocked me when I moved to the US, people value having backyards and just don't spend time there (yeah I'm watching you commenting down on how much you use it and challenge you to actual journal how much time your family spends in there)
- throwaway894345 3y agoWe use our yard every nice day. Technically we use it every day because our dog has to go to the bathroom somewhere and it’s nice just to let him in the back yard, but most days we play outside with him and/or read and/or work outside. Coming from the suffocating city, it has been really nice to have just a bit of private green space.
- madoublet 3y agoLooks nice. Soft to walk on. Great for kids and pets. Fairly inexpensive to maintain. Never really understood why people don't like lawns TBH.
- dgacmu 3y agoIn western and more arid states they're a huge waste of water. Really depends on the climate. In other areas they're just a lost opportunity for biodiversity. Mixing in some clover or other small perennial soft small flowers can help a lot with making it both self-fertilizing and more pollinator-friendly. (We kept part of our grass for exactly that reason but it helps that we don't have to water the lawn here. With added clover I'm quite happy with it.)
- morkalork 3y agoMixing clover and other small flowering plants with grass is definitely the way to go. I can sit on the swing in my backyard and lose count of all the bumblebees and small butterflies bouncing across the lawn. What I don't understand is, is the need for huge front lawns. It's all the work with none of the benefits. Just a waste of space really. People don't use them the same way at all.
- programmarchy 3y agoMain problem I have with long grass is that it seems to attract more mosquitoes. I’d actually prefer xeriscaping but my HOA doesn’t allow it.
- madoublet 3y agoAlso impractical simply b/c non-commercial mowers cannot cut long grass.
- defrost 3y agoProblem solved, Australian xeriscaping has no grass, long or short, to be cut with a mower be it commecial or non commercial.
- anonymous_sorry 3y agoYou can use a strimmer or a scythe. Takes a bit longer but you're doing it much less frequently, obviously.
- jonnycomputer 3y agoAs someone who has been doing this for a few years in Virginia, which is plenty wet, it's not really bad. I minimize mowing until May (a little earlier this year because its been so warm so early), and the first go of it is tough, but I put the setting on the highest; then I keep it relatively short by June or July. Meaning, its really no big deal. The real issue, as far as I'm concerned, is what are you letting grow. If you just let it all out, it's not likely that you just have commercial grass growing, but a bunch of weeds. Now I like weeds, myself, but some are less desirable than others, particularly some invasive ones, and neighbors can complain (mine don't). My approach is to selectively weed the lawn (yes, by hand, and it's a half-acre) to try to rid it of the weeds I don't want, and selectively encourage those I do (e.g. in my case, the native fleabane which flowers in May). I do see a difference in the number of insects visiting fleabane compared to non-native weeds. Now, I'm in a rural enclave of an urban area in an environmentally sensitive part of Virginia, so my approach is different than it might be if I were in a California suburb, for example.
- aaron695 3y agoWith someone immunocompromised on the property long grass and mosquitos are a problem. We mow heavier around the house because of this, too lazy to do everywhere. Where we haven't been mowing really bad weeds have taken over. We are poisoning our way through them but it takes time. > Lawns cover 40 million acres, or 2%, of land in the US This is because they are amazing. They have a lot of mental health benefits with little mental work. You just mow... and immediately see the benefits of your work. Mowing is like the first coat of paint. It's a great example of how people are happier in the moment doing chores than in the moment with their kids. This theme adds mental work, which is fine if you have it to spare, lawns are great iterative projects.
- Scoundreller 3y agoWouldn’t mosquitoes affect the immunocompromised less?
- Daz1 3y agoThey're coming for lawns now?
- anonymous_sorry 3y agoCan't believe many people will wanna die on that boring, conformist, monocultured hill.
- EngManagerIsMe 3y agoLawns have been in the targets of environmentalists for decades.
- c22 3y agoI do this just because until mid-late spring the ground here is so wet my lawnmower will get stuck and just make everything look smashed and dirty. I also let it go extra long before my last trim of the season to allow the wildflowers to propagate.
- camhart 3y agoMy lawn is 100% for my kids. Schools give kids less and less time to get their energy out. They need areas to play and exhaust themselves more than ever. Most dog owners use the backyard in a similar fashion. Though thats only the backyard. Front yard could be rock, plants, flowers, long grass, etc and wouldn't make a difference.
- 10u152 3y agoAgreed. All these articles are one sided. My backyard lawn is a soft play space that is self repairing, zero carbon (it's not watered or fertilized barring home made compost) and mowed with solar power. We picnic on it and play on it. It also is great at absorbing rainwater runoff, dog byproducts and carbon. Being mown also reduces snakes etc and allows a rich variety of birdlife to eat insects off my lawn. It also reduces ambient temperature in the summer compared with a hard surface and is cool to the touch all year round.
- peteradio 3y agoMow what? The dog shit covered barren earth I call my backyard? I'm hip I'm "with it" I will let the spring time swamp hellscape flourish into a rare summer of blighted jumbo clover vine, mulberry saplings and invasive thistles. Only year after year of record breaking snow and a dog without conscience could smother mother natures step aunt.
- sokoloff 3y ago> Lawns cover 40 million acres, or 2%, of land in the US, making them the single largest irrigated crop we grow. That's comparing (an estimate of the) total lawn area to only the irrigated portion of corn (around 17% of the 91 million acres of corn in the US). If less than 40% of lawns are irrigated (which seems entirely plausible), then turfgrass is not the largest irrigated crop by any measure. Total for total, corn has more. Irrigated for irrigated, lawns have more iff ~39% or more of the total area is irrigated. I doubt that 2/5ths of all lawn area is irrigated, but good statistics on that were not readily findable (and certainly not cited in the article).
- TheBigSalad 3y agoYou'd have to think 90% or more of lawns are not irrigated or only occasionally watered by residents. I don't have actual numbers, but irrigation systems are an expensive luxury and not really needed in many parts of the country.
- thenerdhead 3y agoYeah let’s not look at farmers, politicians, or Aggie corporations. Let’s make you feel bad about bees while we give more water to those using majority of the limited resources to begin with.
- lukas099 3y agoFarmers are feeding the world efficiently. And residential yards really do make a difference.
- EngManagerIsMe 3y agoOne, we can do both. Two, lawns are the biggest agricultural crop in the US. Especially when you consider sod and seed. Lawns are basically wastelands, supporting little to no biodiversity. Removing them does material good to the surrounding area.
- nakedrobot2 3y agosame as recycling. it makes me sick. no one with power gives a fuck and then someone has the idea that we should blame individuals for cutting their own grass?
- simonsarris 3y agoI mow just a few times a year, mostly just cutting paths and leaving big sections of taller grasses. Some examples: https://twitter.com/simonsarris/status/1629638819954786305 https://twitter.com/simonsarris/status/1629638819954786305 https://twitter.com/simonsarris/status/1651949172931674112 https://twitter.com/simonsarris/status/1651949172931674112 The fields naturally have lots of clover, black eyed susans, milkweed, and daisies. I've also planted a lot of my own flowers. You can still have parts cut low, and if you leave the rest taller even the low part seems to resist drought better. I used to mow ~3 acres with just a gas push (self-propelled) mower. Now I have the "modest" X330. You don't need a big machine to do this. Though you do have to go slow when you cut at the end of the year around October.
- TheBigSalad 3y agoIt almost sounds like you are bragging about being environmentally friendly. I think most people with a yard that big would just mow a lawn for their needs and let most it ]grow in with trees or whatever comes up. For the record, I have no problem with what you are doing and I think it looks cool.
- simonsarris 3y agoThe intent isn't to brag but to show that something nice-looking and achievable outside the norm is possible. I think a lot of people want the feel of open space, so they go for a manicured lawn. In other words their desires are largely aesthetic. I think if you try to keep things field-like, its lower-effort for (IMO) a better aesthetic. It also seems to be environmentally better, but you don't even need that argument.
- tadfisher 3y agoI'd be bragging, that property looks fantastic.
- Diederich 3y agoI didn't get even a small sense of bragging from the above comment, and I'm actually quite glad it was posted, especially the pictures. It's good to see other people doing something similar to what we're trying to do with our ~1ac of grass.
- thomasfromcdnjs 3y agoI will never understand lawn culture. It doesn't make any sense to me what so ever. (Grew up rural Australia)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- baerrie 3y agoI didn’t mow once last year. I do weed out non native weeds but I keep most of the weeds that I find pleasing.
- EngManagerIsMe 3y agoKilling your lawn is the best thing you can do. There are SO much better things to do with the space than host a lawn (which is effectively a desert). If you need something green to walk on there are plenty of herbal/clover mixes that produce flowers for insect life. Alternatively you can build raised beds and plant flowers and vegetables. Or native wildflowers. Or trees. Getting rid of my lawn was the best decision I've made w.r.t. to my land.
- robohoe 3y agoYeah that’s gonna be a no from me dawg. In spring grasses get so long and thick my rescued dogs won’t have anywhere to poop or play in.
- randerson 3y agoAfter letting grass grow long, mowing it short can cause Lawn Shock where the grass goes brown and can even die. Grass stores its nutrients in the blades so you shouldn't take off more than an inch or two at a time. Unfortunately most lawnmowers can't do this with really long grass, or I'd let my lawn grow more often.