Each morning, like clockwork, my mother would swing open my bedroom door, yank open the blinds and turn on the blinding overhead light. At 6:30 a.m., the jingling sound of a small metal bell pierced my brain every day, Monday through Friday. To my mother, what the weather decided to present that day was a minor inconvenience. 29° and damp, add an extra layer; 83° and humid, “yucky” as the weatherman described it, wear breathable clothes and drink some water; 25° with a chance of flurries, make sure to wear a hat and gloves and don’t forget to double up on socks. We would walk my siblings to school, she insisted.
Despite the early start, I was fond of those walks, the quiet before the start of the day, moments of small observations preceding the routine drudgery. Some mornings, I would notice the frost, the way the fog clung to the dips in the hills, the sound of birds or the flowers emerging from the thawing soil, but every morning, I couldn’t help but notice the grass.
Each yard sat uniform to the next, perfectly trimmed, green, thick and watered. Those yards which hadn’t received their monthly chemical treatments would begin to show signs of life: a dandelion, a clover, or a wildflower emerging from the green, fighting against artificial domesticity. A sign the homeowners had emerged from their momentary lapse of routine marked by the twirling of a dandelion, quickly banished by chemicals. The wrong kind of flower.
For many Americans, lawn care is simply part of their routines, part and parcel with suburban living. The mowing, trimming, fertilizing and pesticides are a small price to pay for a “perfect” yard.
The strange obsession with manicured lawns, however, comes at a great environmental cost. Over 40 million acres of land in America is covered by lawn or turf grass, all requiring special maintenance. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, up to five percent of total air pollution in the United States originates from lawn mowers.
Even more harmful is the excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides. Approximately 3 million tons of nitrogen-based fertilizers are used on lawns each year, most of which run off into local bodies of water, contributing to the issue of eutrophication, the overabundance in organic matter such as nitrogen which leads to algae blooms and result in oxygen depletion thereby creating “dead zones.” Fueled by large companies that drive around with tanks of pesticides and the ready availability of products like Roundup, Americans apply more than 80 million pounds of pesticides on their lawns each year. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), homeowners use up to 10 times more chemical pesticides per acre on their lawns than farmers use on crops.
In addition to the harm lawns cause to the environment, Americans do not mind pumping thousands of dollars into their lawn care each year. In fact, Americans spend more per acre, on average, to maintain their lawns than farmers spend per agricultural acre, according to the USFWS. All this money sustains sterile monocultures that have a detrimental impact on local biodiversity and wildlife populations.
The obsession with the upkeep of a perfect green carpet not only harms our environment, a reason enough to ditch the habit, but its origins and symbolism represent a vision no longer aligned with the values and ideals of new generations.
The idea of lawns originated in the aristocratic traditions of Europe. The ability of wealthy landowners to keep sprawling green spaces clear of crops stood as a clear status symbol – the ability to leave valuable land barren. While the Americans became independent from the British in the 18th century, they had brought over European grass as well as the idea that sprawling lawns symbolized wealth – maintained at the expense of enslaved people.
Eventually, lawns came to represent the American Dream. The rise of suburbia and widespread home ownership gave rise to the idea that lawn care was a civic responsibility, part of doing one’s part in keeping the neighborhood “visually pleasing,” all enforced by Home Owner’s Associations, notorious for fining “unkept” lawns.
Deeply embedded in American culture, lawns have become a symbol of conformity. A signal to others that one has the money and time to maintain the rituals of lawn care, an indication of belonging in suburbia and an adoption of its traditions.
The lawn presents itself as a perfectly appropriate symbol of America – a taming of the wild, the ability to conquer nature and make it synthetic. However, it also contradicts American individualism, presenting itself as the default. Lawns look the same across the US, in spite of the unique climate and flora of the region.
The United States is home to a remarkable range of ecosystems seldom seen in most countries – from the tropical, lush vegetation of the South to grasslands in the Midwest, and arid desert-like climates of the Southwest. It is nonsensical to grow and maintain non-native grasses over plants that belong to each region.
Already, there is a growing movement, known as the anti-lawn movement, to abandon the current system of toxic, resource-taxing lawns. In Phoenix, Arizona, one of the driest U.S. cities, many homeowners have finally embraced desert landscaping by growing native desert plants.
In an era where prospects for home ownership have dwindled and the American Dream is less attainable than ever; it is time to leave the dated ideas of lawn maintenance in the past. To be faithful stewards of our environment does not mean conforming to manufactured ideals of manicured lawns, but rather, learning to embrace the beauty of what nature readily offers.
Every dandelion with its soft yellow petals, every white sweet-smelling clover and each patch of unidentified green are flowers only waiting to be recognized as such.
Photo courtesy of Unsplash.
The vilification of the dandelion – why our generation should end the lawn obsession
Each morning, like clockwork, my mother would swing open my bedroom door, yank open the blinds and turn on the blinding overhead light. At 6:30 a.m., the jingling sound of a small metal bell pierced my brain every day, Monday through Friday. To my mother, what the weather decided to present that day was a minor inconvenience. 29° and damp, add an extra layer; 83° and humid, “yucky” as the weatherman described it, wear breathable clothes and drink some water; 25° with a chance of flurries, make sure to wear a hat and gloves and don’t forget to double up on socks. We would walk my siblings to school, she insisted.
Despite the early start, I was fond of those walks, the quiet before the start of the day, moments of small observations preceding the routine drudgery. Some mornings, I would notice the frost, the way the fog clung to the dips in the hills, the sound of birds or the flowers emerging from the thawing soil, but every morning, I couldn’t help but notice the grass.
Each yard sat uniform to the next, perfectly trimmed, green, thick and watered. Those yards which hadn’t received their monthly chemical treatments would begin to show signs of life: a dandelion, a clover, or a wildflower emerging from the green, fighting against artificial domesticity. A sign the homeowners had emerged from their momentary lapse of routine marked by the twirling of a dandelion, quickly banished by chemicals. The wrong kind of flower.
For many Americans, lawn care is simply part of their routines, part and parcel with suburban living. The mowing, trimming, fertilizing and pesticides are a small price to pay for a “perfect” yard.
The strange obsession with manicured lawns, however, comes at a great environmental cost. Over 40 million acres of land in America is covered by lawn or turf grass, all requiring special maintenance. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, up to five percent of total air pollution in the United States originates from lawn mowers.
Even more harmful is the excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides. Approximately 3 million tons of nitrogen-based fertilizers are used on lawns each year, most of which run off into local bodies of water, contributing to the issue of eutrophication, the overabundance in organic matter such as nitrogen which leads to algae blooms and result in oxygen depletion thereby creating “dead zones.” Fueled by large companies that drive around with tanks of pesticides and the ready availability of products like Roundup, Americans apply more than 80 million pounds of pesticides on their lawns each year. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), homeowners use up to 10 times more chemical pesticides per acre on their lawns than farmers use on crops.
In addition to the harm lawns cause to the environment, Americans do not mind pumping thousands of dollars into their lawn care each year. In fact, Americans spend more per acre, on average, to maintain their lawns than farmers spend per agricultural acre, according to the USFWS. All this money sustains sterile monocultures that have a detrimental impact on local biodiversity and wildlife populations.
The obsession with the upkeep of a perfect green carpet not only harms our environment, a reason enough to ditch the habit, but its origins and symbolism represent a vision no longer aligned with the values and ideals of new generations.
The idea of lawns originated in the aristocratic traditions of Europe. The ability of wealthy landowners to keep sprawling green spaces clear of crops stood as a clear status symbol – the ability to leave valuable land barren. While the Americans became independent from the British in the 18th century, they had brought over European grass as well as the idea that sprawling lawns symbolized wealth – maintained at the expense of enslaved people.
Eventually, lawns came to represent the American Dream. The rise of suburbia and widespread home ownership gave rise to the idea that lawn care was a civic responsibility, part of doing one’s part in keeping the neighborhood “visually pleasing,” all enforced by Home Owner’s Associations, notorious for fining “unkept” lawns.
Deeply embedded in American culture, lawns have become a symbol of conformity. A signal to others that one has the money and time to maintain the rituals of lawn care, an indication of belonging in suburbia and an adoption of its traditions.
The lawn presents itself as a perfectly appropriate symbol of America – a taming of the wild, the ability to conquer nature and make it synthetic. However, it also contradicts American individualism, presenting itself as the default. Lawns look the same across the US, in spite of the unique climate and flora of the region.
God always sees us: a Saturday night Revival update
The United States is home to a remarkable range of ecosystems seldom seen in most countries – from the tropical, lush vegetation of the South to grasslands in the Midwest, and arid desert-like climates of the Southwest. It is nonsensical to grow and maintain non-native grasses over plants that belong to each region.
Already, there is a growing movement, known as the anti-lawn movement, to abandon the current system of toxic, resource-taxing lawns. In Phoenix, Arizona, one of the driest U.S. cities, many homeowners have finally embraced desert landscaping by growing native desert plants.
In an era where prospects for home ownership have dwindled and the American Dream is less attainable than ever; it is time to leave the dated ideas of lawn maintenance in the past. To be faithful stewards of our environment does not mean conforming to manufactured ideals of manicured lawns, but rather, learning to embrace the beauty of what nature readily offers.
Every dandelion with its soft yellow petals, every white sweet-smelling clover and each patch of unidentified green are flowers only waiting to be recognized as such.
Photo courtesy of Unsplash.