#anti lawn

[headspace-hotel]

I...tried to make a meme and got carried away and made A Thing that is like partially unfinished because i spent like 3 hours on it and then got tired.

I think this is mostly scientifically accurate but truth be told, there seems to be relatively little research on succession in regards to lawns specifically (as opposed to like, pastures). I am not exaggerating how bad they are for biodiversity though—recent research has referred to them as "ecological deserts."

Feel free to repost, no need for credit

#random #ecology #shitpost #sorta #gardening #plants #lawn alternatives #anti lawn #pro biodiversity #biodiversity win #bugs tw #ticks

[just-your-average-cryptid]

most of us have heard of the red car game. you’re on a road trip, you’re bored, you start looking for red cars to do something.

and then they’re everywhere. you notice them nearly every few minutes.

there aren’t suddenly more red cars now, of course. you were seeing them already, but you weren’t noticing. you weren’t looking.

I am noticing things.

there is a plant I notice everywhere now, a small bushy plant in suburbs, along streets, by shops on the highways. dwarf umbrella bush is what the internet tells me when I look for it’s name. I did this because I wanted to know why,

every time I ever saw it, every place,

it was always dying. always the leaves turning yellow, the branches small and scraggly. inside out - nitrogen deficiency. their soil drained.

I am noticing how many of these landscaping plants are yellowing, how small and sickly they look in just a few years. I am noticing how often the grass outside the house is replaced when it once again turns brown and dry, how the type never changes and the cycle starts again. I am noticing how the unmowed, unkempt spaces on lakesides and roadsides look more alive than this. how the preserve I grew up next to was miles of “messy” unmanicured nature and the ground was covered in leaves instead of grass and there was life.

I am noticing the birds that come by the lake. there was a flash of blue wings and red chest - eastern bluebird, male, relatively common. I had never seen one before. there is a family of ducks that appear every spring; i cannot say if it’s successive generations or different ducks, but I can always look forward to ducklings. there are little brown birds with white heads whose names I do not know - are they some kind of piper? why don’t I already know?

why is it so hard to learn about my native plants (accurately, that is)? why are so many gardening sites littered with people who think a plants value is based on how pretty or useful it is to them, who think a tree shedding leaves is “messy”?

why is knowing about the world we live in so… odd? why is it a hobby and not vital knowledge? I learned about polar equations. I taught myself about mycorrhizal networks and species of insects.

(did you know there are shiny green bees? a special species of wasp pollinating figs? that white flowers bloom at night for moths? do you know? have you looked?)

I cannot look at a lawn and see life anymore. it is a wasteland, devoid of life, dying slowly itself. everywhere is grass, grass, doused in water that runs over into storm drains, soaked in fertilizer and pesticides and a hundred other poisons and sending one clear message:

this is a place of death. life is not welcome here.

I do not think I could live in a city. too loud, yes, too busy, yes, too many people, yes, but the plants would bother me. a tree allotted only a convenient square, surrounded by dead stone and metal.

a forest cleared for this, for burning asphalt streets and racing cars and shops whose bathrooms are “for paying customers only”.

this is a place of death. life is not welcome here.

and now I am noticing.

#it speaks #idk man this is stream of consciousness and it’s midnight lol #I’m having thoughts about plants and people and how much I hate lawns #anti lawn #firmly believe that nature knowledge should be taught in school #yeah there’s biology but biology won’t teach you what plants are edible or deadly #or what birds live/migrate in your area and what they depend on #they teach civics bc even if you’re not politically active you should know how the government works #if you live in a world you should know how it works #bc even if it feels like it doesn’t matter. it does. it will. and if you notice it now you can do something about it

[dougielombax]

Little message for any Americans who come across my blog:

REJECT YOUR HOMEOWNER’S ASSOCIATION!!!!!!

GROW NATIVE PLANTS AND/OR CORN ON YOUR FRONT LAWN!!!!!!!!

Not saying you HAVE to! But HOAs are still a stupid idea anyway.

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲(okay that’s enough flags)

And if you can’t do that. Defy them in any way you can. No matter how small it may be.

FUCK HOAs!

HOAs can eat shit!

Feel free to reblog the shit out of this one if you wish!

Also please reblog my posts on sending aid to the Armenians and the Assyrian people too! They’re on my blog.

#personal stuff #dougie rambles #political crap #for any yanks out there #anti homeowner association #fuck the HOA #housing #homeowner association #anti lawn #anti mowing #fuck HOAs #rewilding #homeowners association #corn #reblog this #anti HOA #no more mowing #pollinators #tenant rights #anti landlords #fuck landlords #neighbourhood associations #kill your lawn #lawn #fuck lawns #signal boost #signal b00st #signal boooooost #please reblog this #reblog the shit out of this

[h3artstain]

A list of (realistic) things you can do to be more environmentally friendly

(from an earth-loving horticulture student.)

— COSMETICS

Use bar soap instead of soap bottles

Use old toothbrushes for cleaning surfaces

Try exploring and researching some homemade face/body/lip products

Use ice sleeves, sunglasses, and caps instead of sunscreen (Edit: I’ve seen people say that it is safer and even necessary to wear sunscreen at all times so try to use eco friendly sunscreen instead! In my country it’s pretty uncommon to wear sunscreen often as we usually wear ice sleeves which is why I did not know this oof)

Use coffee grinds or homemade tumeric masks instead of cosmetic products with exfoliator beads

Invest in a metal ear cleanser instead of cotton buds

Try placing more importance on skincare instead of contributing to exploitative beauty companies by buying makeup

Use cosmetic products that do not contain palm oil

— CLOTHING

Try as much as possible to rewear your outfits at least twice before washing them

Actually WEAR your clothes! I know some of y’all just wear them once for your Instagram post and let it rot in your closet forever. Stop doing that!

Thrift, stitch up holes in your clothes, and use second hand clothing instead of supporting fast fashion companies like SHEIN, H&M, Zara, etc.

Cut up your old clothing into yarn and do macramè with it

Cut patches of old clothing to turn into reusable cotton pads

Learn how to knit, crochet or stitch your clothes!

If you use tampons, try menstrual cups or discs instead. If you use pads, try reusable pads or period underwear. (Trust me, it works). Also, use reusable panty liners instead of disposable ones. They may seem expensive but you will end up saving a lot more in the long run

— GARDENING

Plant seeds/cuttings in your old bottles, jars, and containers

Propagate your plants and exchange cuttings with your friends instead of buying new plants

Make your own soil mixes instead of buying soil mixes

Better yet, don’t use soil for your indoor plants and try getting into hydroponics or semihydroponics instead. This saves so much water and doesn’t contribute to mining of soil

Fertilise plants with fruit peels, coffee grinds, and tea leaves. (DO NOT use chemical fertiliser on soil)

Plant more legume plants in your garden instead of using nitrogen fertilisers. (Look up the nitrogen cycle if you need an explanation on this)

Avoid pesticides unless really needed. Try sprinkling cinnamon powder on soil or spraying neem oil on plants and soil to keep away pests.

If you have a lawn, try looking into rain gardens and consider making one

Let the (non invasive) weeds in your lawn/garden grow! They are there for a reason!

Stop killing earthworms and millipedes in your garden. This also applies to snails native to your region. They are there for a reason.

Water used to wash fruits and rice can be used to water plants

— REDUCE, REUSE

Use the caps of jars as soap holders

Use recycled paper/notebooks

Wash and dry your glass/plastic items before throwing them in the recycling bin

Keep any plastic bags for future use

Use eco friendly or reusable dish sponges

Use reusable straws and cups

Invest in a fabric cup holder

Bring a water bottle with you wherever you go

Drink more water and less sugary drinks

Bring reusable bags for buying groceries instead of using plastic ones

Always keep a folded up tote/shopping bag with you in case you spontaneously decide to buy something

— ELECTRICITY

Set a timer on your air conditioning instead of letting it run throughout the night

Better yet, use a fan instead of an air conditioner

Open your windows! Aerate your home!

Allow natural light to enter your home during the daytime, so as to avoid turning on your lights

Switch to LED lightbulbs instead of regular lightbulbs

Turn off any switches in your house when they are not in use

Collect the water from your air conditioner/dehumidifier condenser and use that to water plants, clean surfaces, steam ironing, and flushing toilets. Do not drink it though!

— INTERNET

Delete your all of your unwanted emails

Delete your inactive social media accounts

Try not to post excessively on social media and stop scrolling excessively too. This not only reduces energy usage but also improves your mental health and productivity

Try to keep to one social media app instead of having so many

Reduce your internet usage

Save your eBooks on a thumbdrive instead of on cloud

Use Ecosia instead of Google

Stop being influenced by social media trends that only just contribute to consumerism

Download music instead of streaming

Reduce online shopping

— FOOD

Reduce intake of processed foods

Reduce intake of fish, beef, and dairy

Try eating vegan or vegetarian foods at least once or twice a week

Cook your own meals instead of eating out

Bring your own food containers when taking away food from stores

Beeswax wrap instead of cling wrap!

Buy loose-leaf tea or plastic free tea bags instead of regular tea bags

Eat more mushrooms, vegetables, and fruits and drink more water

Support local farmers

And finally, educate yourself more about ecology and the environment!

#environment #ecology #sustainability #ecofriendly #anti lawn #anti beauty culture #hell on earth #save the earth #recycling #fast fashion #plants #feminism #environmental activism #plantcore #ecopunk #solarpunk #horticulture #sustainable #slow fashion #zero waste #plastic free #conservation #climate change #global warming #soil science

[iicraft505]

I think something that anti-lawn (I am also anti-lawn) people need to understand and make clear is that forest is not the natural ecosystem everywhere, and not every forest is built equal. If you are de-lawning your yard, please research what the natural or pre-industrialization/pre-settlement (typically pre-settlement refers to pre-European settlement) ecosystem is. If you can't figure it out based on what's around, try to find the history of the area and what it was before.

For example, where my mom lives used to be swamp, and where I currently live is oak savanna, which is basically tall-grass prairie with few and far between oak trees (usually burr oak).

Some of the necessary management techniques (fire is key in oak savanna/tall-grass prairie) are going to be impractical in a civilian yard (try to run a yearly burn past a city or HOA, lmao), but you could still probably approximate it.

Basically, succession by big trees isn't the goal everywhere. Please learn your local ecology before doing anything.

#iicraft505 #politics #anti lawn

[grainelevator]

I wish lawnmowers were illegal

#anti lawn

[beetleandfox]

By joan_de_art on Reddit. literally WHEN will this be a reality

#anti lawn #humanity #rewilding #ecology #conservation #biodiversity

[neighborhoodjewishaunt]

still the mood

#abolish the police #abolish prisons #abolish landlords #abolish billionaires #anti lawn

[woodsfae]

it is infinitely nicer to hang out in the garden than it was to have a lawn.

#gardening #anti lawn #ecology #ecosystems #biodiversity #insect friendly #pesticide free #woodsfae #montana

[headspace-hotel]

What i've been learning thru my research is that Lawn Culture and laws against "weeds" in America are deeply connected to anxieties about "undesirable" people.

I read this essay called "Controlling the Weed Nuisance in Turn-of-the-century American Cities" by Zachary J. S. Falck and it discusses how the late 1800's and early 1900's created ideal habitats for weeds with urban expansion, railroads, the colonization of more territory, and the like.

Around this time, laws requiring the destruction of "weeds" were passed in many American cities. These weedy plants were viewed as "filth" and literally disease-causing—in the 1880's in St. Louis, a newspaper reported that weeds infected school children with typhoid, diphtheria, and scarlet fever.

Weeds were also seen as "conducive to immorality" by promoting the presence of "tramps and idlers." People thought wild growing plants would "shelter" threatening criminals. Weeds were heavily associated with poverty and immortality. Panic about them spiked strongly after malaria and typhoid outbreaks.

To make things even wilder, one of the main weeds the legal turmoil and public anxiety centered upon was actually the sunflower. Milkweed was also a major "undesirable" weed and a major target of laws mandating the destruction of weeds.

The major explosion in weed-control law being put forth and enforced happened around 1905-1910. And I formed a hypothesis—I had this abrupt remembrance of something I studied in a history class in college. I thought to myself, I bet this coincides with a major wave of immigration to the USA.

Bingo. 1907 was the peak of European immigration. We must keep in mind that these people were not "white" in the exact way that is recognized today. From what I remember from my history classes, Eastern European people were very much feared as criminals and potential communists. Wikipedia elaborates that the Immigration Act of 1924 was meant to restrict Jewish, Slavic, and Italian people from entering the country, and that the major wave of immigration among them began in the 1890s. Almost perfectly coinciding with the "weed nuisance" panic. (The Immigration Act of 1917 also banned intellectually disabled people, gay people, anarchists, and people from Asia, except for Chinese people...who were only excluded because they were already banned since 1880.)

From this evidence, I would guess that our aesthetics and views about "weeds" emerged from the convergence of two things:

First, we were obliterating native ecosystems by colonizing them and violently displacing their caretakers, then running roughshod over them with poorly informed agricultural and horticultural techniques, as well as constructing lots of cities and railroads, creating the ideal circumstances for weeds.

Second, lots of immigrants were entering the country, and xenophobia and racism lent itself to fears of "criminals" "tramps" and other "undesirable" people, leading to a desire to forcefully impose order and push out the "Other." I am not inventing a connection—undesirable people and undesirable weeds were frequently compared in these times.

And this was at the very beginnings of the eugenics movement, wherein supposedly "inferior" and poor or racialized people were described in a manner much the same as "weeds," particularly supposedly "breeding" much faster than other people.

There is another connection that the essay doesn't bring up, but that is very clear to me. Weeds are in fact plants of the poor and of immigrants, because they are often medicinal and food plants for people on the margins, hanging out around human habitation like semi-domesticated cats around granaries in the ancient Near East.

My Appalachian ancestors ate pokeweed, Phytolacca americana. The plant is toxic, but poor people in the South would gather the plant's young leaves and boil them three times to get the poison out, then eat them as "poke salad." Pokeweed is a weed that grows readily on roadsides and in vacant lots.

In some parts of the world, it is grown as an ornamental plant for its huge, tropical-looking leaves and magenta stems. But my mom hates the stuff. "Cut that down," she says, "it makes us look like rednecks."

#plants #ecology #usa ecology #history #american history #lawn #anti lawn

[wikipedia-main]

blinkiieeeez

#blinkies #flashing lights #gif #anti lawn #free 2 use if you wish ^_^

[dougielombax]

Okay.

I don’t understand why homeowner associations are a thing in America.

They don’t exist anywhere else as far as I know.

And they all sound like a bunch of nasty ruthless, obsessive, authoritarian, NIMBY, Karenite busybodies.

Ruled over and overseen by power-tripping middle-aged mediocrities.

Truly the only time capitalist thinkers embraced collectivism. As far as I know at least.

They sound utterly ghastly.

Apparently one of them had the cops go to a guy’s house and shoot him dead for not mowing his lawn.

Fuck lawn mowing! I’d sooner grow fucking CORN on my lawn if those fuckers existed in my country.

Fuck lawn mowing in general, it turns your garden into a desolate wasteland and it’s bad for small animals, insects and pollinators.

Fuck homeowner associations!

Anyway…

#personal stuff #dougie rambles #vent post #political crap #homeowners association #corn #housing #anti lawn

[beenovel]

okay i am hoping to hear about your no-prep 40-minute presentation!!

Ok bitch buckle up, I just woke up and in the spirit of it being no prep this is going to have so sources, just all the random crap I remember from all the gardening documentaries and books I’ve consumed. Coming back to say there is a LOT of swearing in here. Like wow I didn’t realize I was so mad about this until I was halfway through with no sign of stopping dropping curse words every other sentence.

Monoculture grass lawns are a bourgeoisie French nobility power move. Before the plain ass boring ass grass lawn most French nobility kept grazing animals (mostly sheep) around their homes to keep the grass at a manageable height. Eventually somebody with a massive money flexing kink decided that to prove that they had mass amounts of money, they would keep their animals in a separate field and hire servants to manually cut the grass with fucking shears (because the lawnmower hadn’t been invented yet) pretty much all day because without the lawnmower it took constant maintenance to keep the grass at a uniform length.

This proved two things. The first was that the owner had enough land to both keep livestock AND dedicate a large portion of land to just being manicured. And because it’s the French and they had some weird thing about bending nature to the will of man (if I’m remembering correctly this was during the 1700s when Versailles was being built), they showcased this by having exactly one type of grass in their lawn and keeping it perfectly uniform. The second was they had enough money to hire both livestock keepers and several servants with the sole occupation of trimming grass all day long.

This trend immediately caught on as a money/status flex among French nobility and eventually trickled down to the lower classes with land, dedicating portions of their land to being useless bio wastelands. Eventually some guy (I think a butler) came up with the idea of making a lawn mower that required less energy and cut the grass faster. It was basically a wheel of shrapnel ass blades that could be pushed around by hand and it was loud as FUCK. Now the servants still had to spend hours trimming the grass but now they could get it to a more uniform length and they didn’t have to bend themselves in half to hold the shears to the grass.

Fast forward to the 1950s. Suburbia is on the rise and everything is still in the early stages of development. Lots of ideas are being tossed around. Should we have gardens at the houses, which would be useful and attract pollinators? No! Because we have a massive fucking boner for the French, we’re going to imitate their nobility and dedicate the ENTIRE lawn to being a useless wasteland! This will also prove the fact that these people have enough money to buy all their own food rather than grow it (keep in mind that this is pretty much immediately after ww2 when pretty much everyone had to grow “Victory Gardens” because food stamps were often not enough, and a lot of people wanted to get as far away from any reminders of the war as possible).

Now we fast forward to present day. Uniform grass lawns has been around for decades and no one really remembers where it came from or what the purpose was, now it’s just about having a neater and greener lawn than your next door neighbor. It’s just Always Been That Way And Will Always Be That Way (even though it wasn’t done that way for most of human history).

But the problem with monoculture grass lawns is that they have no diversity. In fact it’s in the name “monoculture” itself, mono meaning one and culture meaning plant (essentially). This presents several problems. This means that there is nothing for pollinators to eat, and with so much land being developed into suburbs and grass lawns there’s just huge wastelands with nothing for pollinators and wildlife to eat. This is an undeniable factor in the worrisome decline in the population of bees in the past few decades.

This also contributes to! *uncomfortably long drum roll* climate change!!!! Because guess what! Nowhere in nature does a monoculture environment naturally occur. It simply doesn’t exist (there are a few common “exceptions” that people THINK have no biodiversity and I’ll talk about this in a minute). This means that there is nothing providing shade, very little absorbing co2 and other gasses, and pretty much nothing to eat for anyone except for invasive insects.

(This is where I had to get up and actually start my day and restarted right before bed)

Now! The “exceptions”. People may come into my comments and say “but bee! What about the desert? The tundra? Those are empty!” and those people would be incredibly wrong! To those people I say suck on these sweet sweet pictures!!!!

Let’s start with the desert, which is a word often used to describe a place that is barren and empty. But deserts have cacti, shrubs, flowers, and sometimes trees!

Tundras! My beloved tundra! These places are literally defined as biomes where tree growth is limited by cold conditions. However, while trees don’t grow, groundcover thrives

Look at that sexy sexy biodiversity!!!! The colors! The various heights of shrubs! The flowers! The moss! So while there might not be trees, it’s still thriving because there’s more than one fucking type of plant

Then we go on to the mass amounts of chemicals that people (including my own father who won’t fucking listen to me) dump all over their lawns to make them greener and kill off all the “pests” (read: the things that keep the environment alive), which then run into the sewers and down streets and into crop fields and the ocean, killing off entire species of insects and scores of plants just so some ignorant asshole can have a flat ass ugly ass green lawn.

Now for my finale (maybe, I might remember something while I’m writing but I think this is it), we’ll talk about my own personal bone to pick with monoculture grass lawns which is that they are ugly. There’s no way around it, they’re flat and one color and boring and ugly, there I said it fucking guillotine me. If we’re talking sexy lawns we gotta talk about diversity. Clovers with flowers. Shrubs with interesting colors and leaves. Grasses of different lengths and colors. For gods sake TREES we need TREES. The earth needs fucking trees! She can’t breathe and trees are her inhaler and she needs a lot of them!!!!!! For the love of fucking god plant a TREE in your YARD.

Nope we’re not done! I also hate grass lawns bc I’m allergic to all of the most common grass that people put in their yards and public spaces which means I am breaking out in hives all over and struggling to breathe and eyes watering pretty much everywhere I go except in winter. This isn’t actually a solvable problem, it just pisses me off.

Ok I’m done

#plants #anti lawn #tapestry lawns

[weird-dirt-creature]

Ran across this absolutely batshit headline when opening a new tab. First of all do these people know how much foil costs? And second of all CITATIONS NEEDED??

"an integral part"

Wow you don't say?

This is so stupid

Anyway don't fucking do this. Cheers.

#gardening #gardening tips #lawn care #bad garden advice #anti lawn #weed control #pest control #stupid ideas

[fennopunk]

I think it's absolutely hilarious that the building management has used shit ton of money and effort to maintain the lawn in the backyard where only very few people see it, and even fewer actually get to enjoy it, because to reach it you need to walk around the entire apartment building.

That same lawn is now pretty much entirely destroyed because all of the balconies are getting renovated and the construction workers don't give a shit about lawn 😂

#diaryposting #anti lawn #I had collected some seeds for seed bombing the lawn but I may postpone it #or maybe not #since obviously this summer the will be absolutely now lawn management happening if some of the plants manage to grow to seed #they could have a chance of spreding more

[solarpunkcitizen]

#anti lawn #colonialism #no lawns #waste