Is Lawn Green?

Can You be Green and Have Lawn?

If you read my previous post about a funny discussion between God and St. Francis and suburban lawns, you’ll know that lawns aren’t normally green or eco friendly.

But are they all bad?

Well, I don’t think so.

They do have problems, but you can still be green and have lawn.

• Lawn is a mono-crop (no diversity)
• The don’t attract bees and only limited birds
• They need a lot of care and attention
• Mowing them increases our carbon footprint (because mowers use gas / petrol or electricity)
• We kill other plants which grow in the lawn, often with chemical poison which then is washed by rain into our drains, streams and water supplies
• We generate a large amount of garden waste with the lawn clippings
• We often add chemical fertilizers to lawns to make them grow better – these chemicals also end up in our water supplies
• Garden mulch is sometimes made from trees, when we should be trying to keep trees growing to help us and the planet
• Sometimes trees are cut down to make room for a new house and lawn

However, lawns can be better than some other alternatives.

Ripping out your lawn to replace it with concrete for example, would be even less green.

Lawns do absorb rainwater, and provide a home for insects.  Concrete doesn’t do that, and indeed, large amounts of concrete may lead to flooding because the water can’t soak away.

And many of us genuinely like lawns, and they’re a good place for kids and dogs to play.

But I like to see lawns with lots of other things – trees, shrubs, flowers, even vegetables and fruits – to get away from the monoculture and also to provide a more interesting and appealing garden.

What About the Suburbs?

Where I live, homeowners can do pretty much anything on their own land.

But some of my readers have told me that they live in suburbs where the front ‘gardens’ are required to be completely lawn, and that growing anything else is frowned upon.  Wow! Apart from the environmental issues, whatever happened to individuality?

But we all want good neighborly relations.

As I write this I’m thinking of the cases I’ve seen publicized on the news and social media about people growing food in their front gardens and being sued (see this youtube video as an example)

Green Your Lawn

If you want to be green, and still have a lawn, here’s how to green your lawn.  (And you can also find out what’s so special about lawns in California).