How to return your lawn to Nature
From sterile grass to abundant trees
This is your how-to guide for welcoming the wealth of nature into your yard
Even if you're not a gardener, or ready for a meadow, you can plant trees, and some of the other plants that thrive among them. You will welcome nature's flourishing in the natural mulch of the trees' own leaves.
Even if you're not a gardener, or ready for a meadow, you can plant trees, and some of the other plants that thrive among them. You will welcome nature's flourishing in the natural mulch of the trees' own leaves.
This website will show you how to convert high upkeep suburban lawn into something close to a native grove that is maintained almost solely by the generous hand of nature. It's not hard. Just plant a tree. Or two. Maybe some shrubs. Don't rake the leaves under them. More, if you want.
So little nature here and so much room to welcome it
Over forty million acres of lawn is too much!
The suburban lawn is as American as a mother’s love or Friday night football. But while there is no such thing as too much of a mother’s love, 40.5 million acres of turf grass covered soil is too much. Three times too much compared to any irrigated crop. Fifty nine million pounds of pesticides annually is too much. So is twenty trillion gallons of water a year - half of that wasted due to evaporation, runoff and overwatering. Every year nearly 30 million tons of pollutants are exhausted into the air by mowers, blowers, edgers, and the like. Too much. Lawns provide much too little to support the life of bees, butterflies, grasshoppers or crickets, nothing at all for lacewings, spiders, or roly-polys. No life there for songbirds, bats, tree frogs, nothing for turtles.
The suburban lawn is as American as a mother’s love or Friday night football. But while there is no such thing as too much of a mother’s love, 40.5 million acres of turf grass covered soil is too much. Three times too much compared to any irrigated crop. Fifty nine million pounds of pesticides annually is too much. So is twenty trillion gallons of water a year - half of that wasted due to evaporation, runoff and overwatering. Every year nearly 30 million tons of pollutants are exhausted into the air by mowers, blowers, edgers, and the like. Too much. Lawns provide much too little to support the life of bees, butterflies, grasshoppers or crickets, nothing at all for lacewings, spiders, or roly-polys. No life there for songbirds, bats, tree frogs, nothing for turtles.
Do I have to lose my lawn?
No, silly, the suburban lawn is not ALL bad. We love our lawns - as a play area for the kids, or an outdoor entertainment space for the adults. Nobody is going to throw the football in the woods, or play badminton in a forest. Lawns can frame a view or display the house. They can serve as a civilizing touch of the human hand.
Turf grass is the easiest solution for quick stabilization of exposed dirt to minimize runoff and stream pollution after construction or any major ground disturbance. Once a lawn is established, a grassy area is simple to maintain by regular mowing (and watering, and fertilizing, drenching in pesticides, and blowing year after year). The homeowner and the neighbors are content to see a neat and well maintained appearance.
Turf grass is the easiest solution for quick stabilization of exposed dirt to minimize runoff and stream pollution after construction or any major ground disturbance. Once a lawn is established, a grassy area is simple to maintain by regular mowing (and watering, and fertilizing, drenching in pesticides, and blowing year after year). The homeowner and the neighbors are content to see a neat and well maintained appearance.
But, really, do they need to be be SO BIG?
The purpose of this website is to provide a way out of the endless cycle started when the builder spread seed and straw, and toward a landscape that is maintained by the natural cycles formed over millennia, toward a landscape that is an integral part of the ecosystem that those millennia formed.
You get much more than trees alone
Trees are not your only option for replacing the folly of the lawn, but planting them is effective, simple, straightforward, and available to anyone regardless of their gardening skills. There are many links to native meadow and gardening sites in the RESOURCES section if you choose those approaches to supplement your trees.
There are so many OPPORTUNITIES in this process, and a few challenges, too
