Comments on: They make take our lawns, but they’ll never take…our** freedom!

By: raincoaster

raincoaster — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 09:48:59 +0000

The moss on my balcony is really doing well this year. Moss does better than grass in Vancouver, and it even looks better.

By: Never teh Bride

Never teh Bride — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:30:57 +0000

*Indeed, Emily — it was in a flyer about conscientious watering practices.

*The key to having a proper freedom lawn, Little Red, is maintenance. It’s pesticide free and doesn’t use a lot of water, but it does take clipping and mowing. In fact, the native grasses growing in my yard grow so much faster than the usual seed mix, so I find myself working in the garden more often. Maybe “freedom” isn’t the right word…

*A miniature meadow, La BellaDonna? That’s precisely what I want! I wrote an article once about setting up a wildlife sanctuary in one’s own backyard. Nature conservation groups will come and sign off on it so you can be sure you have the right sort of flora to support the local fauna.

By: La BellaDonna

La BellaDonna — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:32:14 +0000

Nature waters my “lawn” for me, and as long as everything is approximately the same height, I’m good with it. I mow (or have it mowed), because otherwise my city gives me a ticket (!), but I am definitely of the “no pesticides” school - there’s already a crisis in terms of bees* and bats disappearing (bats are my chosen form of flying pest control), and I’m always afraid of what happens when pets and toddlers mix with pesticides.

My true lawn dream? I would love to have a miniature meadow, with all kinds of wild grasses and plants, and even a water feature - the kind that can be my own wildlife sanctuary. No mowing, and lots of little creatures living safely and happily. *sigh*

*I don’t wish to get too upclose with the bees, myself, despite my trusty Epipen, but they are necessary.

By: Jennie

Jennie — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:33:47 +0000

I’m late to the discussion but @Little Red, maybe your part of the East coast is not in drought condition but ours sure is! We are in the 5th year of the worse drought on record and cannot water lawns except Saturday or Sunday. I just killed the grass in the back of my townhouse and am putting in pavers and naturalized drought resistant ground cover and potted plants.

By: Little Red

Little Red — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:58:10 +0000

Who knew that my father was so ahead of the times when he started his “Freedom Lawn” some twenty years ago when he decided that the lawn shouldn’t be watered or be sprayed with weed killers resulting in a lawn chock full of crabgrass. I was always so embarassed and I have to admit, I still am. *hangs head in shame*

I agree that in a place like Southern California, lawns are wasteful since the true climate and geography is that of a desert. But here on the East Coast and the Mid-West, I think they are more natural looking given all the other greenery.

By: Twistie

Twistie — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:58:14 +0000

Being as we’re in a significant drought situation here in sunny California, the water district has asked us not to water our lawn more than twice a week. Silly people! We are not watering the grass at all. When we have the funds, we intend to remove all the grass anyway and replace it with a nice, agressive, drought-resistant, low-lying ground cover and never mow again.

And I want a copper lawn rhinocerus.

Don’t ask me where one finds one of those, though. I just saw one once in a photo someone had taken of a lawn sculpture of great glory and decided I wanted it for my own. It was positioned to look like it was eating a large shrub.

By: Emily

Emily — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:07:24 +0000

Ah, this is why I’m ever so happy not to have a lawn. My backyard is so minuscule that we simply paid a fabulous mason to lay down paving stones and now have one massive patio, a sizeable planting bed, and tons of container plants.

My parents, on the other hand, has a massive lawn. However, my father refuses to water it.

NtB- Really- our city sent around a missive asking everyone not to obsess? I honestly think that’s a nice use of city funds.

By: Chachi

Chachi — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:31:10 +0000

Mlle. Acadienne, not all of us were so lucky to have grown up with woodsy trails and rocks behind our homes! Growing up in the city myself, our yard was used all the time for running races, practicing cartwheels and handstands, and running around on summer evenings trying to catch lightning bugs. Now that I live in dry, drought-tastic Southern California, I have much respect for the idea that lawns here are terribly misdirected uses of water. But boy oh boy, if I ever move back to the Midwest, mama’s gettin’ herself a house with a lawn. Preach.

By: La Petite Acadienne

La Petite Acadienne — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:06:31 +0000

I agree with you that lawns, while lovely to walk on, do tend to be rather useless. One argument I hear in favour of them is that kids like to play on them. Yet, how many of us have seen kids playing on a manicured lawn when they instead have the option to play in the woods, or in amongst big rocks, or in any other place that still has wildness to it? I rarely remember playing on our lawn as a kid. But do I remember running wild with my friends on the wooded trails behind our house? You betcha.