Murder Your Lawn
How many of you watered your lawn this week? Come on, raise your hands, don’t be shy. Good.
Bearing in mind that I’m writing from southern California, here’s your next question. If the average annual rainfall in Santa Barbara is between 18 and 21 inches, and we only received 6 this year, and a chicken gets on a train in Miami heading north at 60 mph into a 6 mph headwind, how long will it take to water your lawn when the reservoirs go dry?
O.K. I’m ready to rant. That’s not usually my style. I try to gently convince people of my views without putting any guilt trips on them. I’d hate to make anyone feel uncomfortable. I’ve never been a hardcore activist about much of anything—more of a quiet “you have your opinion and I’ll have the right one” manifesto.
But a recent LA Times article (Public Enemy No. 1, July 5) about the astounding impact of our obsession with lawns has got me cursing out loud about the gardens I see in this town and around the nation.
Would someone PLEASE tell me why there are lawns in front of houses? The kids are in their rooms playing computer games, chatting on AIM, or downloading pirated videos, so don’t tell me it’s about a place for them to play. Lawn in the backyard? Maybe. Into nude sunbathing? Get a chaise lounge and place it on your permeably paved patio. Something for the kids and dog to cavort on? O.K., there’s nothing to completely take the place of a patch of turf, but how many thousand square feet do you really need?
Let me go on record as stating that a lawn that is not used for recreational purposes is an act of environmental arrogance. (Geez, I can sense someone out there feeling uncomfortable—better pull back. NO! I’m going to overcome the “everyone has to like me” urge.) I’m talking about arrogance in the form of a blatant or ignorant disregard for the multiple environmental impacts of growing turf, at least the way the vast majority of people approach it.
Arrogance is the use of toxic pesticides to maintain that perfect suburban carpet. I screamed at my radio this spring when those lovely folks from Scott’s Lawn Care Products unleashed their campaign about protecting our kids from “nasty bugs.” They don’t really define “nasty.” I’m not sure if it’s a Donald Trump “you’re fired!” kinda nasty or “Mature Audience” nasty, but we’d better make sure we indiscriminately kill everything, just to make sure.
Arrogance is having an irrigation system that hasn’t been adjusted for the season, checked out for leaks or had the heads fine-tuned to keep them from soaking the sidewalks.
Arrogance is having your gardener run their inefficient mower that spews 10 times more emissions per minute than a car. Then, since no one is enforcing the local ban on gas-powered blowers, the clippings are blown into the gutter and then on to the creeks. Since most folks don’t really care if the gardener complies with the rules (the faster they mow, hoe and blow the less you have to pay), we have the insult of all that dust and exhaust going airborne with the grating noise as the sound track.
Ya get the idea? Do you really have to have it? Imagine life without a lawn. Imagine a diverse, low water-using palette of texture and color that attracts birds and other fun critters.
Consider taking the pledge. Join a support group for the forlawn (use a pun, go to jail). Be the pioneer on your block. Murder your lawn and set yourself free! Up next - murder without herbicides!
Tags: environment, gardens, Landscaping, lawns
- Uncategorized
December 15th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
blowers cause air pollution?
Have a scientific citation for that? Or are you just blowing your own hot air?
December 16th, 2007 at 3:19 am
I know about the tailpipe emissions of blowers.
I was referring to your “the dust and dried dung they kick into the air is just plain unhealthy” comment which sounds like unsupported bullshit to me.
December 16th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Gardener: aside from your uncivil tone and choice of language (you kiss your mother with that mouth, dude?), what kind of science do you need besides common sense?
See if you can follow along with this. We’ll go slow and use small words:
1) Dogs, cats, opossum, raccoons, birds, and other urban dwellers eat, then dump. You still with me?
2) They do not use toilets and don’t pick up after themselves, so it lands on lawns, cars, sidewalks, curbs, gutters, etc.
3) The nature of this material begins with a high water weight, then gradually dries, eventually turning to a itsy bitsy chunks, tinier granules, then, as time marches on, dust. Kinda like big boulders becoming sand.
4) Given the choice between a little exercise with a broom (which, by the way, creates a lot less “lift” for the debris and holds it lower to the ground) a typical homeowner or plant janitor (can’t really call those guys gardeners) cranks the blower (gas or electric) on full throttle and proceeds to scatter all the fine material high in the air while trying to get the bigger stuff into a pile.
Sorry, no science behind this but I’m guessing any county Air Pollution Control District or asthma organization will bear this out.
Here’s an idea for a true clinical study. How about you just slowly walk along in front of a blower in a typical neighborhood, do some yogic deep breathing, then have a friend sample your dried boogers and we’ll run them through forensics? Guess what we’ll find?
December 16th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
Show some study or something. Right now, you have nothing but your hot air. Most people don t stand in front of blowers when they are operating, except maybe you. Maybe you can have your boogers tested and file the report here. That would better than nothing, jackboot.
“Sorry, no science behind this but I’m guessing any county Air Pollution Control District or asthma organization will bear this out.”
Yeah, so far, no science. So nada. I have never heard anything by an Air Pollution Control District or other governmental organization regarding health hazard of dust created by blowers due to spreading droppings or if that is even the case. Cite.
December 16th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
Gardener - I guess I missed something. Is this blog sponsored by the National Academy of Science? Is there a requirement that I publish peer reviewed double-blind scientific studies. If that’s what you come here for, do us both a favor and just avoid my blog.
Do you rag on the rest of the bloggers at this site who are equally unscientific or did I: a) catch you on a day when you decided to rip a stranger a new one, or b) pull the short straw?
I’m sorry it doesn’t meet the rigor you’re looking for. I have three blogs going out here in the “sphere.” You’re the first to insist on studies and data. In the meantime, let’s just agree to disagree.
December 17th, 2007 at 10:04 am
You used of the term “plant janitor.” That demeans millions of people working as janitors and attempts to insult probably millions more involved in landscape maintenance. You call me lacking common sense but you are the one with your photo and city of residence published while making ugly and racist statements.
Blowers are indispensible tools in landscape maintenance work, a labor saving device not different than a chain saw is to a tree trimmer or a power nail gun to a carpenter. Many racists get on the ban-the-blower bandwagon since many gardeners are recent immigrants and are politically easier targets to force the issue on their environmental “concerns.” It probably also makes them feel good that they can force them to work harder by taking away their tools.
Comments published clarify where the blogger is coming from.
Gardeners or other workers don t have to “exercise” when they are doing their job since that is not what they are getting paid to do. They are usually working hard enough as it is.
The comment that maintenance workers need to do a little exercise by using a broom is a variation on the old “lazy” racist stereotype directed at immigrants(a rather cruel one since they are the ones commonly doing all the work).
I predict you won t be publishing many more articles on this site and if you do publish again it will be under a different name without a photo.