Landscaping

[blue_shadows9]

So, it's spring, and I live in a house with a lawn and bushes and flowers and things.  Now is the time to deal with lawn care, a subject about which I knew absolutely nothing prior to quizzing Todd about it this afternoon.  Apparently mulch keeps weeds to a minimum.  Who knew?  Everyone but me, I suspect

Comments

[nicwhite86]

I disagree with basically all of this, except for the bit about how houses should be better made. It's stupid how houses are basically built to fall down. But they should definately not have fireplaces and chimneys - that's just pumping shit into the atmosphere and it takes a lot of time people don't have to organise the firewood, etc. Fireplaces are obsolete now that you can have gas.

Dandelions are fucking irritating. Once there's a few of them its very hard to get rid of them and they are very difficult to kill. We have tools at my house specifically to dig them out because if you don't get all the roots they just grow back. And they look icky and crowd out whatever other plants you have. Short lawns also look better and are easier to take care of because any weeds are mor visible. Lawns are also good because you can put things on them, like outdoor furniture. You have a law, then around the edges, etc you plant other plants that don't propagate easily by themselves.

I'm not big on tall trees either. We have quite a few of them around here, but they drop a lot of folage everywhere, which is annoying to clean up (or not, mostly).

I don't see how any of this is unreasonable. Certainly not so much that it deserves a rant.

[blue_shadows9]

It is unreasonable because, to quote a publication* of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service:

"Americans manage approximately more than 30 million acres of lawn. We spend $750 million per year on grass seed. In managing our yards and gardens, we tend to over-apply products, using 100 million tons of fertilizer and more than 80 million pounds of pesticides annually. The average homeowner spends 40 hours per year behind a power mower, using a quart of gas per hour. Grass clippings consume 25 to 40% of landfill space during a growing season. Per hour of operation, small gas-powered engines used for yard care emit more hydrocarbon than a typical auto (mowers 10 times as much, string trimmers 21 times, blowers 34 times). A yard with 10,000 square feet of turf requires 10,000 gallons of water per summer to stay green; 30% of water consumed on the East Coast goes to watering lawns."

Their recommendation is to cut down on pollution and waste by cutting back on lawn space and instead planting native trees, shrubs, and other perennials that require far less water, fertilizer, and maintenance.

If you don't like taking care of plants, go live somewhere deserty and put a bunch of rocks in your yard. Or live in an apartment and forgo the lawn. But for god's sake, don't advocate turning beautiful, wild, biologically diverse areas into deserts themselves just because the land has been zoned for housing.

I love how you're so concerned that fireplaces will "[pump] shit into the atmosphere," but simultaneously want lawns that require all the aforementioned pumping of shit into the ground, and want to get rid of the trees that take shit out of the atmosphere. I don't think people should necessarily rely on fireplaces for heating. I just think people should have fireplaces, partly because I love the way they look, and partly because I just like the idea of houses that are livable independent of utilities companies. Because if they're not, you should ideally be living inside a city to begin with instead of contributing to urban sprawl.

As for dandelions, I think they're pretty and I see no reason to kill them at all. I suppose they might be an invasive species, but that's the only good reason I could see to get all anal about removing them.

*Native Plants for Wildlife Habitat and Conservation Landscaping: Chesapeake Bay Watershed

[nicwhite86]

If you need fertiliser to grow a lawn then you aren't doing it right. Where I live is damn sure worse for plants than basically anywhere in America outside the deserts and we cope while not even being allowed to use sprinklers more than twice a week. There also no reason for most of those stats to exist. You don't need to mow anywhere near that often and grass clippings can be used for mulch and are bio-degradable even if they go to landfil.

And dandelions are incredibly ugly and crowd out flowers and any other plants you put anywhere and are almost impossible to control.

What do you mean by living inside a city?

[blue_shadows9]

It's pretty unfair to compare your patch of Australia to the multitude of environments that make up the entire country of America. Maybe not every place in America needs fertilizer, but in those places the plants grow so easily that you do actually need to mow a lot. Maybe not every place in America requires a lot of lawn mowing, but you do need fertilizer to grow plants. The problem isn't lawns per se - perhaps in some places lawns are perfectly fine and pretty low-maintenance - but why should every patch of land with a house on it anywhere in the world automatically have a golf-course-style lawn? It's a one-size-fits-all ideal that actually fits very few sizes. I can't defend the throwing away of grass clippings - that really is sheer stupidity.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so don't insist that dandelions are ugly. You think they're ugly. Fine, get rid of the ones on your lawn. The problem here is that I don't think they're ugly at all, but I still have to spend time and effort and/or money getting rid of the ones on my lawn. Furthermore, it's not as if I can choose to live in a suburb where people tolerate dandelions, because there pretty much aren't any.

I mean living in an urban environment, where lawns are smallish if they exist at all, and houses are right next to one another, as opposed to far-flung suburbs where everyone has a large lawn and you have to drive fifty miles to get to work. I suppose you could have housing arrangements that I mentally categorize as "suburban" that are actually within city limits. But I mean places where human populations are pretty dense and you're not using much land per person.