I switched out my Southern California lawn eight years ago and saved 60 gallons of water per day. My native garden's flowers and seeds attract insects and birds galore including monarch butterflies. I imagine that the twenty-two thousand gallons of water that I leave in nature each year fills up a small pond in the Sierras that supports wildlife. We humans monopolize life giving resources of this planet's and leave little left for its other inhabitants.
Even if you don’t have to water the grass, the lack of biodiversity is still an issue. A lot of homes in the north east should really replace the majority of their lawn with region appropriate landscaping that can support the local insect populations.
I don't think California can hear you. they continue to drain the northwest with no end in sight, but they are using paper straws. Seems like most climate activist are huge hypocrites
I didn't grow up with a lawn, so I've never understood the whole obsession with them. The area would be far better used for a garden, which could be at least partly used to grow food.
Agreed. When my wife and I buy a house we intend to put in drought resistant landscaping, and a small garden box. Besides that, we plan on using the local park for most of the typical activities that makes people believe they “need” a law .
I did grow up with one and I do't get it either. The overgrowth I see while walking around the city looks much more interesting and requires a lot less work
It's a way to filter a community by wealth. Giving every house a big expanse of lawn ensures that you can only cram so many people in per square meter, which makes sure only comfortably middle-class residents can afford to live there. Keeps the poors out.
@@rickmanzone3581 explains what all? Lol. You’re acting like a made a huge political statement. It’s a statement on water and the amount used on lawns. Chill
When repealing lawn laws is considered "radical", it might be time to stop and ask, "Are we ACTUALLY a 'free country'? Why do I get to dictate what my neighbor does to his property? If I want it to have a lawn, isn't it then on me to buy the land and create the lawn according to my tastes?" Fact (don't think this was directly mentioned): grass is the most irrigated plant in America. Even if we weren't having water supply issues, this is just grotesque. This is sheer vanity. When one is this preoccupied with appearance, it's hard to imagine that there is much room left over for character.
Living in the drought burdened West, I am proud of my water district for supporting homeowner who want to replace lawn turf with vegetable gardens, because they use way less water. They give the urban community garden a priority in water access.
I was one of these lawn cops. We had no enforcement power and no residents ever took us seriously, despite all the science backing us. I would get yelled at, lectured and insulted. Emotions surrounding lawns lodge in an extremely primal portion of the brain. This refusal to even hear me, a municipal employee with sound science and the (half-committed) power of the law behind me, radicalized me and fuels my career in environmental law.
I live on a 1/4 acre lot and I've finally removed all of the turf grass (lawn), though there are plenty of native grasses still in my gardens. Like others, I've found that we see far more animals in our gardens than those with just flat lawn. I also think we need to change our language about planting gardens/plants for food...Just because you aren't eating it, doesn't mean it isn't food. I try to plant only native plants to my region and I feel excited when I see that something has been snacking on it; that's how I know the plant is doing its job and adding to my habitat.
Good for you. That is your choice but for the majority we're keepin' our lawns. This is all about controlling We the People. Nope... ain't gonna happen.
As an European, I never understood the obsession with lawns. I also don't understand why HOA can dictate what you do with your piece of land. I would totally make a garden fruits and veggies and maybe flowers (it depends on the location, obviously).
HOAs exploded in popularity after the civil rights act. When there was no longer a way to keep out the blacks by law, communities got together and came up with the next best thing: Making sure their communities remained just expensive enough to live in. Not /too/ expensive, but enough to keep the lower economic classes from being able to move in.
That low-water front yard at 4:22 looks better than any lawn, imo. Whoever did it has an artist's eye and imagination. Actually, they are an artist. That's all there is to it. I absolutely love it.
I have lawn that is a mix of weeds, flowers , and turf grass.I never water or use pesticides on it and I've converted about 30% of it into tree and flower beds. It's a work in progress but I'm hoping to get my nature loving neighbors involved in the no lawn movement. ❤
My state (Utah) passed a law that invalidates HOA rules that prevent zero-scaping and xeriscaping. But it would also be nice if the government set the example. Our state capitol building has to have something like 10 acres of lawn and my city has lots of city-maintained grass park strips. Personally, I think grass in play areas is great, but if it's purely decorative, then it shouldn't exist. For me, that applies to every park strip, pretty much every side lawn and most front lawns. We just pulled out 600-800 square feet of sod (to plant trees and shrubs for privacy), but there's plenty more to do.
my house was lawn free long before the no-lawn movement. Attracts various kind of wildlife- nighttime is especially the best when you can hear all the crickets and frogs.
A portion of my backyard is "wild" and there are so many insects there...a ton of them get into my house...i cant even imagine letting my lawn go wild.
@@Sanyu-Tumusiime Native plants are those that grow wild in your area with no care or maintenance; you don't even have to buy seeds if you don't care, often they'll colonise your yard on their own while the water-starved turf grasses struggle and die, tho the transition can take a while.
As someone who is from the east side of the world, always admired America for it's greenery, especially beautiful lawns, but after coming here, I felt greenery without soul. Back in home, we had a lush wealth of nature, very diverse ecosystem. But it never looked as cool as American lawns. After knowing the environmental impact the 'coolness' America is portraying to the world is just saddening.
There are so many practical reasons to get rid of your lawn. For the longest time growing up, my mom wanted a lush green lawn but she realized the amount of money she would save on water made getting rid of it the more sensible option. Plus we lived in flipping Arizona! She replaced the lawn with this red colored gravel and it looked pretty nice.
I live in a city on lake Ontario, Canada and I haven’t had a lawn in five years. I now have a native habit designed for us by us to attract birds, Bees, butterflies and other garden creatures. It’s restorative to be in the garden and we’re constantly get complements from passerby’s. We’ve even had people knock on our door to thank us personally for creating this magical landscape, which is always lovely to hear and nice to know that it brings joy to others. We did it in chunks over about three years, starting with pathways, improving the soils biology with compost and broad forking with a garden fork to open up the soil compaction. Once we did that we planted mainly native species that would thrive and bring in the insects and birds we wanted to attract. I highly recommend this for a front yard. Start by contacting your local garden club and master gardener’s association. They love to help new gardeners or those who need assistance with particular questions. Wishing you all greener pastures 👩🌾
I love this. An idea to consider is potting up and giving away native plants to your neighbors. I have volunteer plants all the time and have found that, if I give them away, many more people are wiling to try natives. Several co-workers tell me that they've expanded their gardens since I got them started with 5-20 free plants.
@@carolannhook554 I 100% agree with your idea. We typically have friends who we offer up plants and seeds to with full disclosure as to the habits of a particular plant. Any leftovers are potted and put at the end of our driveway. People walking by have always take them. They’ll sometimes come back and ask me for information (☀️🌤💦🌵🌸📆📏) about the ones they took or show me pictures of their garden’s. Sometimes I even snag an invite for a garden tour. 😉
I’m in bc and have a neighbour with a similar front lawn and I LOVE it! I’ve been wanting to compliment them on it- in a sea of lawns, not only is it gorgeous, doesn’t require watering, but it also always has a ton of bees pollinating it! It makes my heart so happy. And my ears happy to have one less lawn that needs to be mowed.
@@uioplkhj Big houses = larger and more distant suburbians, in a nutshell this means you live where everything is so distant that you can't go anywhere without a car.
@@sivlaaitch It’s so funny that a lot of right wingers will immediately assume any new position they don’t understand is “lefty” or “woke”. Cause they’re the ones stereotypically towing party lines, while the rest of us want to talk about facts.
4:30 When all that lawn is removed, it really helps emphasize just how much space is wasted by lawns in general and how much plant life you need to re-fill said space.
The lighthearted and comedic moments in this video definitely underscore the immediacy and severity of the climate catastrophe! Thanks for making sure radical but necessary ideas like this one get taken seriously and not as coastal elite disdain for non-urban Americans, NYT and Agnes Walton! I bet putting this video together was a real hoot!
@@irrichman Yeah, cause all of Americas bad ideas and systemic issues are baked into both the culture and the law. We don’t have an easy way to travel to other countries unless you’re upper middle class, so we kind of have to get dramatic to get these slubs to pay attention.
Today i put carboard on 30 square meter of tilled lawn, in 6 weeks i will be planting seed of native flowers and native grass! It's only the beggining, we can stop this grass-madness.This video helps
I never use water, fertilizer or pesticides on my weeds and grass. My neighbors might not be impressed, but the bees, birds and butterflies are. I’m able to use a reel mower on my small yard - good exercise without the fumes or noise.
Same here. Living in the midwest, I've never once watered my lawn in over a decade of homeownership. When the grass gets dry I am just thankful I won't need to mow it as often and leave it at that. Our lawn gets used recreationally for playing football, soccer, fetch with our dog, and cooking smores over our fire pit. Couldn't do any of those things near as easily if we instead had the immaculate landscaping or natural meadow flora they talk about here.
Front gardens are so much prettier than a plain ol lawn. My aunt dealt with California drought by mixing xeriscaping (and not just succulents) with fruit trees like figs, mango, and guava. You could hardly see her house from the street, but it was still the prettiest front yard on the block!
Honestly, I just bought clover/bluegrass seeds for my lawn and let the weeds also stay to let it be natural. It looks fine, I don't understand why people obsess about it looking perfect
I've been saying this for years, even when I was a kid and told to cut the grass I immediately thought to myself that it just didn't make sense to have a lawn. A garden yes, but a lawn? No.
I live on a 1/5 acre and still have two small patches of "lawn." It's not exactly the current rendition of a lawn though. We don't use pesticides, we've mixed up the grass that was there with clover to help with water retention and nitrogen. We don't fertilize the lawn or use herbicides. When the clover is flowering it becomes a huge pollinator magnet. We're ripping out another patch of grass this fall in preparation for 2 more fruiting trees, bushes, and flowers. Our yard is strongly used by both us for food and play and the local bird/insect population for food and refuge. I currently live out west and am still trying to have my place be a healthy balance within our water restrictions. It's not easy but it's getting there.
Ya we should absolutely move away from lawns. I think it’s a great idea to pay people to get rid of lawns and implement native plants or other landscaping.
If you visit the suburbs with their lawns you will discover that the residents only interact with the lawn when they mow their lawn. Otherwise the suburbs are ghost towns.
Love my lawn, but I have downsized the amount of grass I have. Just too much effort and cost to keep up a larger yard. Glad people are talking about this.
I've heard about clover lawns as an alternative, would have been nice to touch on those. It seems like a less jarring transition than going right to "meadow" or trees and flowers taking up the entire space.
Moss lawns are really cool too if u have the environment for it. I had a house with a natural moss lawn on one side. Surrounded by a creek. It was cool. U can take moss, grind it up with water in a blender and paint it on stuff to make mossy stuff like benches. Some cool ideas online.
@@Serai3 Clover doesn't have to be mowed. As much as I'd love a yard full of wild plants, it'd get too tall to maneuver through and I'd be worried about snakes and ticks.
Those eco-homes that are basically a mound with nature all around, that's where it's at. They're domed which means nigh unbreakable, can even support small trees on top. (obviously the roots don't have many places to go) AFAIK those only exist in select parts of Europe, but I'd love to see those go mainstream here in the US. A colony of those wouldn't be seen from space at night but would still enjoy modern comforts.
I talked to someone who lived in one of those in the US, and they said it was dark and damp, and they had problems with mold and mildew...but they still liked it. It was less expensive to maintain.
@@Andreamom001 Lacking natural lighting makes sense, but damp? Probably poorly engineered drainage. With a bit of work that could be mitigated, I would guess.
@@sarysa The family built it themselves, so I would imagine professionally-built ones would have airflow or something to deal with that...also likely better lighting. But they did like it. I didn't know them well, just for a short time.
Looks good, but there's an eco-downside: It's only good for low-density housing, which is about as un-eco-friendly as housing can get. The fewer people you have living in an area, the more you have to spend proportionally on travel, roads, infrastructure, and so on. Even down to the cost of garbage collection. Suburbs tend to be tax-negative: The residents pay less in tax than it costs to maintain the suburb.
I hate everything about the suburban lawn. Having seen how much of their lives my parents have spent working on their lawn, I just do not see the point.
It would be wonderful if a new trend emerged whereby lawns were gradually replaced by more natural vegetation, and by that I mean endemic vegetation for each area and biome, so landscapers came up with creative layout for gardens using native plants that are more adequate to the environment. And, by the way, while we are at it, that ridiculous game of golf should be banned unless artificial grass was used.
I get your intent but artificial grass can be even worse. the plastic is, as we all know, made from oil and the little black pebbles that is often mixed into the fake grass washes into our water systems. The fake blades will break and degrade and also get into our water systems. It's not really a solution but rather a bandaid that is still quite harmful. better to re-do the game of golf to be played in meadows instead of turf grass. Or just eliminate the game altogether.
You can collect rain water in tanks from your eavestroughs and use it for lawn watering when there isn't adequate rain. It doesn't need to be public drinking water used.
My backyard lawn is something else entirely, as it isn't a turf lawn nor an environmentally friendly meadow, but rather a brown muck of dirt and mud dotted with chicken dirt bath holes. Ever since we bought chickens, they have basically taken care of all the insects too, but in the process ate or killed the grass. While it isn't much of an issue, the occasional summer storm can turn it into a sea of unpleasant mud.
Tall grasses in neighborhoods allow pests to breed, promote ticks and snakes, and are a fire hazard. I don’t use chemicals. I mow at 4 inches to protect roots from heat, and I have islands of wild vegetation.
This is funny. I live in an apartment complex that has a beautiful lawn in the front and no one is allowed to sit on it , no pet's on it . I don't miss having a lawn. I grow herbs and plant's we can eat. Make your lawn into a garden.
I think this is all awesome, but one issue I see is that those alternative lawns don't look like they have space for kids to run around, and fall and land on something relatively soft.
That’s what public parks are supposed to be for. A lot of issues in america come from everyone needs their own private version of something that should be a public service. Transportation, low density housing, lawns instead of parks, personal pools, etc.
Grass is nice. Many insects live in the grass and of course, worms live in the soil. Both worms and insects are a food source for birds and various mammals. For a sensible person it is also low maintenance. In Europe we don't water it. So in a hot summer it dies back and once it cools and rains the grass grows back. Grass always comes back. When you say 'landscaped' I will assume you mean you replaced the grass with something else that's living, as opposed to the unmentionable...
@@grahamesworld415 landscaping can be split into two: hard landscaping which is inanimate, and soft landscaping which is living. I take it that you know for a fact that peat was not used in the growing of your plants? Or even that all your plants were grown on home soil and not imported? Presumably the plants were transported to you using vehicles. Zero carbon footprint as a claim is pretty much meaningless when you actually think about the processes your new garden has been through to get to you. The agricultural industry still use murderous concentrations of pesticides: slug pellets, bee killing neonicotinoids and the like. Peat even is still incredulously, uniformly sold as a growing medium.
@@hansiesma16 We should take our wins where we can. My garden, front and back, no longer requires a gas guzzling lawnmower nor constant watering. If you want wins to keep happening, you have to recognize them when they do occur and then move on to achieving the next.
I live in New York State and I’m about 50 years old. It’s crazy to me that I own a cast iron Nelson Rain Train (sprinkler) that I bought in my 20s. I think I thought that caring about my lawn was a very adult thing to do. A quick internet search tells me that Nelson is still at it. It’s time to pivot or die.
I lived homeless in New Orleans and learned how to bathe proper with 20oz of water. If you wanna know how, I like you. No, don't ask me, that's weird. Suds the washcloth with 6oz and rub....rinse. That's it! 20oz does it. Now you know, AND I like you.
I'm already there. I killed my lawn and let native species take it back. The town hates me and I still have to mow and edge but at least I know I've the right thing.
I often reflect on how useless my lawn is and what a waste, but I still love mowing it. That said, I live in Ohio and I've never, ever watered my grass.
I have a lawn but have always too lazy to water, seed, fertilize, or use herbicide on it. And I have an electric mower. And I think mowing is a nice little cardio on saturday. So take that.
I'm lucky I live in a city that doesn't mandate lawns, even though I also don't get any cash incentives to de-lawn. I didn't totally erase all the turf grass, but I reduced it significantly as a part of my home's landscape.
I believe there's an error at 0:55. Historically, in mainland Europe, gardens were the fashion. In England, lawns were the fashion. Lawns are not a European tradition, they are an English tradition. If the U.S. had followed the European fashion, we'd all have gardens in our front yards, not lawns.
I sold my home a year ago with minimal lawn and perennials and ground cover. Just drove by and all is gone to .... Lawn! Sad. And the new owner is a teacher.
All teachers are not smart and clever enough to be teachers. I once visited a teacher in her home, and all I saw on her bookshelfs was a.... Wait.. a bible! People like those should not be teachers!
I’d like to see turf become an affordable alternative, for those who enjoy the grass look and don’t prefer growing tall native grasses and bushes. It has its own issues though.
Yes I get the love affair with lawns, however I have come up with my own solution for this. I live in the arid northwestern part of California where wildfires and heat waves are a yearly occurrence. For this reason I maintain a lawn like green space around my home. It helps cool my home while acting as a fire break. To accomplish a more environmentally sound green space, we allow what some would consider weeds to invade our grass thus avoiding herbicides and the need for fertilizing. Second our green space is primarily mowed by a grazing animal and we periodically even out the turf with an electric mower. To offset the cost of pumping water from our well we are currently planning to install solar power. And while I understand that this regime is not an option for everyone I can say that people seeing what I call my managed meadow always comment on how manicured and beautiful it looks. We all need to just start thinking outside the box to accomplish a more balanced approach to green spaces.
Somewhat-Relevant Sidenote: HEALTHY SOIL with diverse, native plants/groundcover generally ABSORBS MORE water during heavy rainstorms, reducing flooding in your house.
This is truly hilarious to me. I live in AZ. I have grass! Love it. It’s called Bermuda grass and it loves heat and drought! As a matter of fact that grass is super happy when I turn my sprinklers OFF for a week or two. Another reason it’s funny is the fact that seminconducter factories here in AZ (there’s a lot) consume millions and millions of gallons of water daily. One more thing of note…. My gas guzzling Honda Lawnmower gets filled up once during the summer months. It’s a half gallon tank. So all you DB’s that think this racist video is anything other than WOKE! God bless you because you’re a certain kind of special.
Desert ecosystems look very pretty in their own way. I’ve never understand the suburbs in Arizona and whatnot that plant actual grass lawns. In the desert lol
As someone that never waters or puts chemicals on the various lawns I’ve had, just mow with an electric mower…. I’m good right? It does bother my allergies when I mow, though.
There's nothing wrong with lawns, just with lawns in the wrong places. Here in New Zealand our irrigation comes from the sky, not from aquafers. Fertiliser is optional with our fertile soil, and even a heavy user is going to use a fraction of the nitrogen used by a dairy farmer over the same area (15kg per hectare versus 150kg). Lawns are not inherently bad, and those "low maintenance" gardens you showed are anything but.
I bought a house without a lawn. Then I had kids. Mud everywhere in my house. Planted a lawn. Much less mud. Lawns turn out to be quite practical if you live in a place where lawns grow without too much difficulty.
Our lawn allows for our kids to play safely in the backyard. They play various forms of baseball, soccer, tag, hide and seek, etc with lots of running about. That’s why we have a yard with grass.
Yeah, back during the pandemic, my mom transformed the lawn into a vegetable garden. While we did stop watering it due to the drought, it's now a dry wasteland again. We'll have some fresh veggies to eat in spring, and sometimes summer.
I'm aerating and overseeding this fall. The drought hasn't affected me and I water twice a day. The stripping of my right to live my life the way I choose stops at my property line. To the people living in the desert, you chose to live there. Until you stop trying to grow lawns in the south-west, you'll always face these problems. I will not subsidize your foolishness.
@@what_what_what_what I’ve seen people in these comments complaining about how attracting birds will lead to more bird crap, they aren’t going to care about bugs (even though they should).
I do not have a treated lawn and pull the weeds and crab grass by hand. No chemicals, lots of work. Would love to get rid of grass and have flowers and trees. My yard is safe for my elderly cats and to take my snakes outside for enrichment. I live in New England and will look into what thrives through our winters and will come back in spring.
Highly recommend almost every type of bulb. Our block association used to plant them in the nearby park. They got almost zero care but bloomed every spring anyway!! Also, my favorite thing was seeing the little tips struggling up through the ground in February, because you knew that meant that winter was almost over.
My NW Colorado landlady insisted on regularly spraying our lawn with herbicides even though it was on the edge of a lake, and even though the neighbour had struggled to survive Non Hodgkin's lymphoma and I suffered Chronic Fatigue. My cat died after two years of having to breathe in what is essentally a broad spectrum antibiotic. My landlady, predictably, died with cancer five years later. I wish she'd lived long enough to sue Monsanto.
I have been anti-lawn for years. Aside from cementing and painting it green, I have been looking for options for years. I never watered mine, and God help you if you work for a "green lawn company" and approach me with a sales pitch, you'll get an earful of my environmental philosophy. Ironically, and sadly, neighbors who pay for such poison, have lawns that do not look any better than mine, often times theirs looked worse. Finally, we are going with clover, it's green and tolerates walking. Mowing be damned.
![Suburbia is Subsidized: Here's the Math [ST07]](/img/n.gif)
I switched out my Southern California lawn eight years ago and saved 60 gallons of water per day. My native garden's flowers and seeds attract insects and birds galore including monarch butterflies. I imagine that the twenty-two thousand gallons of water that I leave in nature each year fills up a small pond in the Sierras that supports wildlife. We humans monopolize life giving resources of this planet's and leave little left for its other inhabitants.
I bet all that bird S*it is a lovely sight.
@@Jaisee14 it's all fertilizer...
Sounds beautiful
Well done! I did the same, awesome environment to hang out in 😊
I mean, it helps the Colorado river not the sierras (which is still important) but beautiful anyways.
I think as a general rule of thumb for Americans, if grass couldn’t survive there without our help we shouldn’t be wasting water on keeping it alive
welp some people just like to be in a toxic relationship.
As a general rule of thumb, I find that Americans who don’t take care of their lawn are typically just lazy.
Even if you don’t have to water the grass, the lack of biodiversity is still an issue. A lot of homes in the north east should really replace the majority of their lawn with region appropriate landscaping that can support the local insect populations.
I don't think California can hear you. they continue to drain the northwest with no end in sight, but they are using paper straws. Seems like most climate activist are huge hypocrites
@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet I let milkweed grow in my lawn. The other day, I saw a monarch. I was so happy. I heard they are now endangered. 😞
I live near Denver and I know some of my neighbors are spending $300+ per month to water their lawns. Complete insanity.
Agreed! I live in southern Colorado so I’ve never understood the obsession.
Do they limit the amount of breweries in Denver?
Water lawns???!! that is insane for us here in Latin America...
@@abcam20 definitely insane
@@matthewhackett3429 LOL. Valid argument. We probably use as much water on beer as we do lawns. I prefer beer over green lawns though. :D
I didn't grow up with a lawn, so I've never understood the whole obsession with them. The area would be far better used for a garden, which could be at least partly used to grow food.
Agreed. When my wife and I buy a house we intend to put in drought resistant landscaping, and a small garden box. Besides that, we plan on using the local park for most of the typical activities that makes people believe they “need” a law .
Lol you talking without experience. People like you support all the silly things because of the lack of experience things first.
I did grow up with one and I do't get it either. The overgrowth I see while walking around the city looks much more interesting and requires a lot less work
@LStone2001 because it wasn’t your lawn, ask your dad.
It's a way to filter a community by wealth. Giving every house a big expanse of lawn ensures that you can only cram so many people in per square meter, which makes sure only comfortably middle-class residents can afford to live there. Keeps the poors out.
I was listening to NPR and they said that agriculture in USA requires 30 trillion gallons, whereas lawns require 20 trillion gallons
In.sane.
LOL *NPR* ummmm OK
npr devotee, explains it all. lol
@@rickmanzone3581 explains what all? Lol. You’re acting like a made a huge political statement. It’s a statement on water and the amount used on lawns. Chill
And a larger part of our produce is grown in Mexico
When repealing lawn laws is considered "radical", it might be time to stop and ask, "Are we ACTUALLY a 'free country'? Why do I get to dictate what my neighbor does to his property? If I want it to have a lawn, isn't it then on me to buy the land and create the lawn according to my tastes?"
Fact (don't think this was directly mentioned): grass is the most irrigated plant in America. Even if we weren't having water supply issues, this is just grotesque. This is sheer vanity. When one is this preoccupied with appearance, it's hard to imagine that there is much room left over for character.
Living in the drought burdened West, I am proud of my water district for supporting homeowner who want to replace lawn turf with vegetable gardens, because they use way less water. They give the urban community garden a priority in water access.
I was one of these lawn cops. We had no enforcement power and no residents ever took us seriously, despite all the science backing us. I would get yelled at, lectured and insulted. Emotions surrounding lawns lodge in an extremely primal portion of the brain. This refusal to even hear me, a municipal employee with sound science and the (half-committed) power of the law behind me, radicalized me and fuels my career in environmental law.
Go spray their lawns with a lethal dose of chemicals 😈
I live on a 1/4 acre lot and I've finally removed all of the turf grass (lawn), though there are plenty of native grasses still in my gardens. Like others, I've found that we see far more animals in our gardens than those with just flat lawn. I also think we need to change our language about planting gardens/plants for food...Just because you aren't eating it, doesn't mean it isn't food. I try to plant only native plants to my region and I feel excited when I see that something has been snacking on it; that's how I know the plant is doing its job and adding to my habitat.
Good for you. That is your choice but for the majority we're keepin' our lawns. This is all about controlling We the People. Nope... ain't gonna happen.
Nice!
Awesome!
As an European, I never understood the obsession with lawns. I also don't understand why HOA can dictate what you do with your piece of land. I would totally make a garden fruits and veggies and maybe flowers (it depends on the location, obviously).
Hoas are insane
HOAs are scam.
Always bragging about their freedom and rights and then someone tells you how to landscape *your* frontyard...
Keep your stuck up nose out of Americans likes or dislikes.
HOAs exploded in popularity after the civil rights act. When there was no longer a way to keep out the blacks by law, communities got together and came up with the next best thing: Making sure their communities remained just expensive enough to live in. Not /too/ expensive, but enough to keep the lower economic classes from being able to move in.
That low-water front yard at 4:22 looks better than any lawn, imo. Whoever did it has an artist's eye and imagination. Actually, they are an artist. That's all there is to it. I absolutely love it.
No
I have lawn that is a mix of weeds, flowers , and turf grass.I never water or use pesticides on it and I've converted about 30% of it into tree and flower beds. It's a work in progress but I'm hoping to get my nature loving neighbors involved in the no lawn movement. ❤
My state (Utah) passed a law that invalidates HOA rules that prevent zero-scaping and xeriscaping. But it would also be nice if the government set the example. Our state capitol building has to have something like 10 acres of lawn and my city has lots of city-maintained grass park strips.
Personally, I think grass in play areas is great, but if it's purely decorative, then it shouldn't exist. For me, that applies to every park strip, pretty much every side lawn and most front lawns. We just pulled out 600-800 square feet of sod (to plant trees and shrubs for privacy), but there's plenty more to do.
my house was lawn free long before the no-lawn movement. Attracts various kind of wildlife- nighttime is especially the best when you can hear all the crickets and frogs.
Rat's look interesting in the dark of night
A portion of my backyard is "wild" and there are so many insects there...a ton of them get into my house...i cant even imagine letting my lawn go wild.
and snakes??
Ticks
I realized how much time it was wasting and I saw how much water. I let my grass turn brown in the summer because it seemed like a waste.
this is a "let them eat cake"
they expect you to replace your lawn with a bunch of flowers. this is insane.
@@Sanyu-Tumusiime well those wild flowers cost less to build and maintain than a lawn. The "let them eat cake" is rather on your side.
@@thastayapongsak4422 really? i mean i wouldn't know anyways i live in an apartment
@@Sanyu-Tumusiime Native plants are those that grow wild in your area with no care or maintenance; you don't even have to buy seeds if you don't care, often they'll colonise your yard on their own while the water-starved turf grasses struggle and die, tho the transition can take a while.
@@WulfgarOpenthroat i don't care about what you have to say tbh . just use plastic grass if you have to.
Here for crime pays but botany doesn’t.
Absolutely criminal they didn't fit CPBBD into this. At least get a bleeped "GFY, bye" from Joey.
As someone who is from the east side of the world, always admired America for it's greenery, especially beautiful lawns, but after coming here, I felt greenery without soul. Back in home, we had a lush wealth of nature, very diverse ecosystem. But it never looked as cool as American lawns.
After knowing the environmental impact the 'coolness' America is portraying to the world is just saddening.
There are so many practical reasons to get rid of your lawn. For the longest time growing up, my mom wanted a lush green lawn but she realized the amount of money she would save on water made getting rid of it the more sensible option. Plus we lived in flipping Arizona! She replaced the lawn with this red colored gravel and it looked pretty nice.
I live in a city on lake Ontario, Canada and I haven’t had a lawn in five years. I now have a native habit designed for us by us to attract birds, Bees, butterflies and other garden creatures. It’s restorative to be in the garden and we’re constantly get complements from passerby’s. We’ve even had people knock on our door to thank us personally for creating this magical landscape, which is always lovely to hear and nice to know that it brings joy to others.
We did it in chunks over about three years, starting with pathways, improving the soils biology with compost and broad forking with a garden fork to open up the soil compaction. Once we did that we planted mainly native species that would thrive and bring in the insects and birds we wanted to attract.
I highly recommend this for a front yard. Start by contacting your local garden club and master gardener’s association. They love to help new gardeners or those who need assistance with particular questions.
Wishing you all greener pastures 👩🌾
I love this. An idea to consider is potting up and giving away native plants to your neighbors. I have volunteer plants all the time and have found that, if I give them away, many more people are wiling to try natives. Several co-workers tell me that they've expanded their gardens since I got them started with 5-20 free plants.
@@carolannhook554 I 100% agree with your idea. We typically have friends who we offer up plants and seeds to with full disclosure as to the habits of a particular plant. Any leftovers are potted and put at the end of our driveway. People walking by have always take them. They’ll sometimes come back and ask me for information (☀️🌤💦🌵🌸📆📏) about the ones they took or show me pictures of their garden’s. Sometimes I even snag an invite for a garden tour. 😉
I’m in bc and have a neighbour with a similar front lawn and I LOVE it! I’ve been wanting to compliment them on it- in a sea of lawns, not only is it gorgeous, doesn’t require watering, but it also always has a ton of bees pollinating it! It makes my heart so happy. And my ears happy to have one less lawn that needs to be mowed.
Lawns are a burden. Just more stuff to maintain.
Lawns, parking, housing shortages, and more.
Zoning really is crippling the US.
@Dacia Sandero guys I'm not saying no zoning, but runaway zoning is going on in the US.
@@d0cf0x4 exactly.
Yeah the zoning mono culture in the US is terrible.
Great stuff NYT, I would also add the fact that big lawns for filling the "gap" on suburbian big houses also lead us to car-dependency too.
Yeah lets all go back to horse and buggy's. Do you realize that this makes zero sense? LOL You loons on the left are insane.
Why would that be?
@@uioplkhj Big houses = larger and more distant suburbians, in a nutshell this means you live where everything is so distant that you can't go anywhere without a car.
@@Jaisee14 its not a leftist things, its a dont force people to throw away resources thing
@@sivlaaitch
It’s so funny that a lot of right wingers will immediately assume any new position they don’t understand is “lefty” or “woke”.
Cause they’re the ones stereotypically towing party lines, while the rest of us want to talk about facts.
4:30 When all that lawn is removed, it really helps emphasize just how much space is wasted by lawns in general and how much plant life you need to re-fill said space.
The lighthearted and comedic moments in this video definitely underscore the immediacy and severity of the climate catastrophe! Thanks for making sure radical but necessary ideas like this one get taken seriously and not as coastal elite disdain for non-urban Americans, NYT and Agnes Walton! I bet putting this video together was a real hoot!
Only in the US does is need a polarising title and ominous music.
In stead of: here s a few ideas to improve your garden.
@@irrichman
Yeah, cause all of Americas bad ideas and systemic issues are baked into both the culture and the law. We don’t have an easy way to travel to other countries unless you’re upper middle class, so we kind of have to get dramatic to get these slubs to pay attention.
I dont have a Lawn, my whole yard is a Garden that produces food for me and my Neighbors that i like
Today i put carboard on 30 square meter of tilled lawn, in 6 weeks i will be planting seed of native flowers and native grass! It's only the beggining, we can stop this grass-madness.This video helps
Next: Your Golf Courses - Bwaahaahaa!
I never use water, fertilizer or pesticides on my weeds and grass. My neighbors might not be impressed, but the bees, birds and butterflies are. I’m able to use a reel mower on my small yard - good exercise without the fumes or noise.
Same here. Living in the midwest, I've never once watered my lawn in over a decade of homeownership. When the grass gets dry I am just thankful I won't need to mow it as often and leave it at that. Our lawn gets used recreationally for playing football, soccer, fetch with our dog, and cooking smores over our fire pit. Couldn't do any of those things near as easily if we instead had the immaculate landscaping or natural meadow flora they talk about here.
Front gardens are so much prettier than a plain ol lawn. My aunt dealt with California drought by mixing xeriscaping (and not just succulents) with fruit trees like figs, mango, and guava. You could hardly see her house from the street, but it was still the prettiest front yard on the block!
Honestly, I just bought clover/bluegrass seeds for my lawn and let the weeds also stay to let it be natural. It looks fine, I don't understand why people obsess about it looking perfect
Middle class always imitates cheap version of what elite do but keep calling them out
Just say you’re too lazy to take care of your stuff. I don’t want ticks and snakes in my yard hence why it’s short and maintained
I've been saying this for years, even when I was a kid and told to cut the grass I immediately thought to myself that it just didn't make sense to have a lawn. A garden yes, but a lawn? No.
great video. quite insane how much time and money is pored into just maintaining lawns
I live on a 1/5 acre and still have two small patches of "lawn." It's not exactly the current rendition of a lawn though. We don't use pesticides, we've mixed up the grass that was there with clover to help with water retention and nitrogen. We don't fertilize the lawn or use herbicides. When the clover is flowering it becomes a huge pollinator magnet. We're ripping out another patch of grass this fall in preparation for 2 more fruiting trees, bushes, and flowers. Our yard is strongly used by both us for food and play and the local bird/insect population for food and refuge. I currently live out west and am still trying to have my place be a healthy balance within our water restrictions. It's not easy but it's getting there.
Ya we should absolutely move away from lawns. I think it’s a great idea to pay people to get rid of lawns and implement native plants or other landscaping.
Or just more housing
If you visit the suburbs with their lawns you will discover that the residents only interact with the lawn when they mow their lawn. Otherwise the suburbs are ghost towns.
Love my lawn, but I have downsized the amount of grass I have. Just too much effort and cost to keep up a larger yard. Glad people are talking about this.
I've heard about clover lawns as an alternative, would have been nice to touch on those. It seems like a less jarring transition than going right to "meadow" or trees and flowers taking up the entire space.
Why? What's the point? Wild meadow would be much prettier, and wouldn't take up all that water.
Moss lawns are really cool too if u have the environment for it. I had a house with a natural moss lawn on one side. Surrounded by a creek. It was cool. U can take moss, grind it up with water in a blender and paint it on stuff to make mossy stuff like benches. Some cool ideas online.
@@Serai3 From what I have read, clover also requires minimal water. The wild meadow look isn't for everyone.
@@Serai3 Clover doesn't have to be mowed. As much as I'd love a yard full of wild plants, it'd get too tall to maneuver through and I'd be worried about snakes and ticks.
@@laneatkinson6441 : I mow my clover. It grows flowers, you know. And they get tall and I ugly
Those eco-homes that are basically a mound with nature all around, that's where it's at. They're domed which means nigh unbreakable, can even support small trees on top. (obviously the roots don't have many places to go) AFAIK those only exist in select parts of Europe, but I'd love to see those go mainstream here in the US. A colony of those wouldn't be seen from space at night but would still enjoy modern comforts.
I talked to someone who lived in one of those in the US, and they said it was dark and damp, and they had problems with mold and mildew...but they still liked it. It was less expensive to maintain.
@@Andreamom001 Lacking natural lighting makes sense, but damp? Probably poorly engineered drainage. With a bit of work that could be mitigated, I would guess.
@@sarysa The family built it themselves, so I would imagine professionally-built ones would have airflow or something to deal with that...also likely better lighting. But they did like it. I didn't know them well, just for a short time.
I have ideas...I'm an engineer and a naturalist.
Looks good, but there's an eco-downside: It's only good for low-density housing, which is about as un-eco-friendly as housing can get. The fewer people you have living in an area, the more you have to spend proportionally on travel, roads, infrastructure, and so on. Even down to the cost of garbage collection. Suburbs tend to be tax-negative: The residents pay less in tax than it costs to maintain the suburb.
I hate everything about the suburban lawn. Having seen how much of their lives my parents have spent working on their lawn, I just do not see the point.
Every time I see a golf course I want to scream.
HOLY REDDIT
It would be wonderful if a new trend emerged whereby lawns were gradually replaced by more natural vegetation, and by that I mean endemic vegetation for each area and biome, so landscapers came up with creative layout for gardens using native plants that are more adequate to the environment. And, by the way, while we are at it, that ridiculous game of golf should be banned unless artificial grass was used.
I get your intent but artificial grass can be even worse. the plastic is, as we all know, made from oil and the little black pebbles that is often mixed into the fake grass washes into our water systems. The fake blades will break and degrade and also get into our water systems. It's not really a solution but rather a bandaid that is still quite harmful.
better to re-do the game of golf to be played in meadows instead of turf grass. Or just eliminate the game altogether.
I've converted almost all of my lawn into native landscape areas. I only spot mow here and there and I love my yard!
I hate maintaining my lawn so much. If HOA wasn't a thing, I would fill it with trees
Miss you on NPR, Lulu!
Check out Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't for much, much more on this topic
You can collect rain water in tanks from your eavestroughs and use it for lawn watering when there isn't adequate rain. It doesn't need to be public drinking water used.
Unfortunately its illegal to do that in some places. My guess is to limit standing water for mosquitoes and the like.
@@ShannonRusnak When it drains into a tank it's not nearly as problematic. Open top buckets with standing water definitely should be avoided.
My backyard lawn is something else entirely, as it isn't a turf lawn nor an environmentally friendly meadow, but rather a brown muck of dirt and mud dotted with chicken dirt bath holes. Ever since we bought chickens, they have basically taken care of all the insects too, but in the process ate or killed the grass. While it isn't much of an issue, the occasional summer storm can turn it into a sea of unpleasant mud.
We've had rocks and succulent since 2015 in SoCal.
Tall grasses in neighborhoods allow pests to breed, promote ticks and snakes, and are a fire hazard. I don’t use chemicals. I mow at 4 inches to protect roots from heat, and I have islands of wild vegetation.
This is funny. I live in an apartment complex that has a beautiful lawn in the front and no one is allowed to sit on it , no pet's on it . I don't miss having a lawn. I grow herbs and plant's we can eat.
Make your lawn into a garden.
Ripped out the grass in the front yard and replaced with native shrubs and trees. Got compliments from the neighbors.
I don't have lawn anymore, instead I plant vegetables 🥦🥦🥬🫑🥑🍅
Brie the Plant Lady has great suggestions for edible foodscapes that incorporate native plants
I think this is all awesome, but one issue I see is that those alternative lawns don't look like they have space for kids to run around, and fall and land on something relatively soft.
Take your kids to the park, lazy person maybe.
Sometimes, it really isn't about the children.
That’s what public parks are supposed to be for.
A lot of issues in america come from everyone needs their own private version of something that should be a public service. Transportation, low density housing, lawns instead of parks, personal pools, etc.
@@Bubble-FoamAbsolutely. And all this low density garbage leaves us lonely
Time to look for native plants here in San Antonio, Texas!
Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t
Thank you to this Journalist.
We just landscaped the grass out of our backyard and are about to do the same to the front. I never got why people were so attached to grass.
Grass is nice. Many insects live in the grass and of course, worms live in the soil. Both worms and insects are a food source for birds and various mammals. For a sensible person it is also low maintenance. In Europe we don't water it. So in a hot summer it dies back and once it cools and rains the grass grows back. Grass always comes back. When you say 'landscaped' I will assume you mean you replaced the grass with something else that's living, as opposed to the unmentionable...
@@hansiesma16 Landscaped does mean living things. The front lawn is now gone. Replaced by bushes, flowers and a tree. A zero carbon footprint.
@@grahamesworld415 landscaping can be split into two: hard landscaping which is inanimate, and soft landscaping which is living. I take it that you know for a fact that peat was not used in the growing of your plants? Or even that all your plants were grown on home soil and not imported? Presumably the plants were transported to you using vehicles. Zero carbon footprint as a claim is pretty much meaningless when you actually think about the processes your new garden has been through to get to you. The agricultural industry still use murderous concentrations of pesticides: slug pellets, bee killing neonicotinoids and the like. Peat even is still incredulously, uniformly sold as a growing medium.
@@hansiesma16 We should take our wins where we can. My garden, front and back, no longer requires a gas guzzling lawnmower nor constant watering. If you want wins to keep happening, you have to recognize them when they do occur and then move on to achieving the next.
I live in New York State and I’m about 50 years old. It’s crazy to me that I own a cast iron Nelson Rain Train (sprinkler) that I bought in my 20s. I think I thought that caring about my lawn was a very adult thing to do. A quick internet search tells me that Nelson is still at it. It’s time to pivot or die.
insane that some USA municipals and estates require homeowners to cut their lawns. INSANE!!
I lived homeless in New Orleans and learned how to bathe proper with 20oz of water. If you wanna know how, I like you. No, don't ask me, that's weird. Suds the washcloth with 6oz and rub....rinse. That's it! 20oz does it. Now you know, AND I like you.
Imagine caring enough about your lawn to water it.
I ditched my lawn decades ago!
I'm already there. I killed my lawn and let native species take it back. The town hates me and I still have to mow and edge but at least I know I've the right thing.
I would love being a lawn cop.
Same 😂
I often reflect on how useless my lawn is and what a waste, but I still love mowing it.
That said, I live in Ohio and I've never, ever watered my grass.
As a non american, i had to google parts of this, because i thought it was some late april joke.
50 days over a lifetime seems like a gross underestimate.
Wtf?? Thank god in Australia most of us now have electric lawn mowers
I have a lawn but have always too lazy to water, seed, fertilize, or use herbicide on it. And I have an electric mower. And I think mowing is a nice little cardio on saturday. So take that.
Stupid will be stupid!
Ignorance is bliss?
I'm lucky I live in a city that doesn't mandate lawns, even though I also don't get any cash incentives to de-lawn. I didn't totally erase all the turf grass, but I reduced it significantly as a part of my home's landscape.
Aww man, I though you would have talked to Joey Santore for this piece, would have been a no brainer!
Maybe a follow up?
I believe there's an error at 0:55. Historically, in mainland Europe, gardens were the fashion. In England, lawns were the fashion. Lawns are not a European tradition, they are an English tradition. If the U.S. had followed the European fashion, we'd all have gardens in our front yards, not lawns.
Man, if I had a garden, It would be survival of the fittest.
I sold my home a year ago with minimal lawn and perennials and ground cover. Just drove by and all is gone to .... Lawn! Sad. And the new owner is a teacher.
All teachers are not smart and clever enough to be teachers.
I once visited a teacher in her home, and all I saw on her bookshelfs was a.... Wait.. a bible!
People like those should not be teachers!
I’d like to see turf become an affordable alternative, for those who enjoy the grass look and don’t prefer growing tall native grasses and bushes. It has its own issues though.
We're in the process of turning ours into native grasses and flowers!
In my opinion, it’s stupid. If you want to mow your lawn, then mow it. If you want to grow it out, go ahead. Should not be required by the law to mow.
Insect reproduction numbers show us that what you just mentioned.......is just dumb
Agreed. On the other hand, this video takes a very one-sided stance imo.
I remember reading about Mr. Gould. It was HIS property, I hate that they forced him to mow his beautiful, lush garden.
@@ramr7051 well it's an opinion piece.
Yes I get the love affair with lawns, however I have come up with my own solution for this. I live in the arid northwestern part of California where wildfires and heat waves are a yearly occurrence. For this reason I maintain a lawn like green space around my home. It helps cool my home while acting as a fire break. To accomplish a more environmentally sound green space, we allow what some would consider weeds to invade our grass thus avoiding herbicides and the need for fertilizing. Second our green space is primarily mowed by a grazing animal and we periodically even out the turf with an electric mower. To offset the cost of pumping water from our well we are currently planning to install solar power. And while I understand that this regime is not an option for everyone I can say that people seeing what I call my managed meadow always comment on how manicured and beautiful it looks. We all need to just start thinking outside the box to accomplish a more balanced approach to green spaces.
Somewhat-Relevant Sidenote: HEALTHY SOIL with diverse, native plants/groundcover generally ABSORBS MORE water during heavy rainstorms, reducing flooding in your house.
I was expecting to see Crime Pays but Botany doesn't.😢
Have you see his show?
This is truly hilarious to me. I live in AZ. I have grass! Love it. It’s called Bermuda grass and it loves heat and drought! As a matter of fact that grass is super happy when I turn my sprinklers OFF for a week or two. Another reason it’s funny is the fact that seminconducter factories here in AZ (there’s a lot) consume millions and millions of gallons of water daily. One more thing of note…. My gas guzzling Honda Lawnmower gets filled up once during the summer months. It’s a half gallon tank. So all you DB’s that think this racist video is anything other than WOKE! God bless you because you’re a certain kind of special.
Tell the government to remove my HOA requirements.
My yard: two desert trees and cobbled rocks. Doesn't look bad either 😎
Sounds very cool.
@@karyannfontaine8757 Gracias chiquita
Desert ecosystems look very pretty in their own way.
I’ve never understand the suburbs in Arizona and whatnot that plant actual grass lawns. In the desert lol
The craziest thing about this obsession is that people are required by law!! to keep a manicured lawn. Where is the freedom there?
As someone that never waters or puts chemicals on the various lawns I’ve had, just mow with an electric mower…. I’m good right? It does bother my allergies when I mow, though.
There's nothing wrong with lawns, just with lawns in the wrong places. Here in New Zealand our irrigation comes from the sky, not from aquafers. Fertiliser is optional with our fertile soil, and even a heavy user is going to use a fraction of the nitrogen used by a dairy farmer over the same area (15kg per hectare versus 150kg). Lawns are not inherently bad, and those "low maintenance" gardens you showed are anything but.
I bought a house without a lawn. Then I had kids. Mud everywhere in my house. Planted a lawn. Much less mud. Lawns turn out to be quite practical if you live in a place where lawns grow without too much difficulty.
Our lawn allows for our kids to play safely in the backyard. They play various forms of baseball, soccer, tag, hide and seek, etc with lots of running about. That’s why we have a yard with grass.
just have proper grass, with flowers and bushes. kids love those even more than grass.
Yeah, back during the pandemic, my mom transformed the lawn into a vegetable garden. While we did stop watering it due to the drought, it's now a dry wasteland again. We'll have some fresh veggies to eat in spring, and sometimes summer.
Three of us on my street killing ours this month! And we live in Oregon!
I'm aerating and overseeding this fall. The drought hasn't affected me and I water twice a day. The stripping of my right to live my life the way I choose stops at my property line. To the people living in the desert, you chose to live there. Until you stop trying to grow lawns in the south-west, you'll always face these problems. I will not subsidize your foolishness.
Don't even get me started on golf courses!
You didn't mention the biodiversity crisis, especially insects..
Huge miss on their part. Not sure why there was no mention and why people in the comments aren’t talking about it more. Save our pollinators!
@@what_what_what_what
I’ve seen people in these comments complaining about how attracting birds will lead to more bird crap, they aren’t going to care about bugs (even though they should).
Thank you for posting this, lawns need to be phased out faster.
I do not have a treated lawn and pull the weeds and crab grass by hand. No chemicals, lots of work. Would love to get rid of grass and have flowers and trees. My yard is safe for my elderly cats and to take my snakes outside for enrichment. I live in New England and will look into what thrives through our winters and will come back in spring.
Highly recommend almost every type of bulb. Our block association used to plant them in the nearby park. They got almost zero care but bloomed every spring anyway!! Also, my favorite thing was seeing the little tips struggling up through the ground in February, because you knew that meant that winter was almost over.
My NW Colorado landlady insisted on regularly spraying our lawn with herbicides even though it was on the edge of a lake, and even though the neighbour had struggled to survive Non Hodgkin's lymphoma and I suffered Chronic Fatigue. My cat died after two years of having to breathe in what is essentally a broad spectrum antibiotic. My landlady, predictably, died with cancer five years later. I wish she'd lived long enough to sue Monsanto.
Lol someone read something from their apartment and thought “yeahhh this is a great story!” LMFAOOOO
I have been anti-lawn for years. Aside from cementing and painting it green, I have been looking for options for years. I never watered mine, and God help you if you work for a "green lawn company" and approach me with a sales pitch, you'll get an earful of my environmental philosophy. Ironically, and sadly, neighbors who pay for such poison, have lawns that do not look any better than mine, often times theirs looked worse.
Finally, we are going with clover, it's green and tolerates walking. Mowing be damned.
I agree 1000%! I'd love to do the clover lawn .. did you do it yourself or hire it out?
@@M4R1N4 gonna do it ourselves!