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#lawn culture
anipgarden · 10 months
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Un-Actions, or Restriction of Activities
This is my first post in a series I’ll be making on how to increase biodiversity on a budget! I’m not an expert--just an enthusiast--but I hope something you find here helps! 
There’s a good handful of ways you can help increase biodiversity in your yard that don’t require buying things--in fact, these may actually help you save money in the long run! They may seem small and simple, but every bit counts! Whether you can do these in totality, or just limit how often you do these actions, it’ll make a difference.
Not Mowing, or Mowing Less Often
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Turf grass lawns are considered a monoculture, meaning they don’t provide much opportunity for insects to find habitat--so few other creatures find them enjoyable either. An expanse of turf grass is, in many ways, a barren wasteland in the eyes of wildlife--too exposed to cross, with few to no opportunities for food or shelter, leaving them exposed to blazing hot sun, freezing cold, or any predators that may be lurking nearby. A place to be avoided. The simple act of letting your grass grow unbothered gives a chance for wildflowers to grow, and for your grass to grow taller--providing more habitat for insects, which then provides more habitat to birds and other creatures that feed on said insects. Wildlife want nothing more than to skirt by unnoticed, so even leaving the grass tall along the edges of a fence or yard can help a little. Even restricting mowing to every other week, or at a higher blade setting, can be a huge help. If HOAs or city ordinances are fussy about lawn length in the front yard, you can likely still keep grass higher in the backyard. Or, you can create a ‘feature’ where grass is allowed to grow long in a specific area. If it looks purposeful, people are more likely to accept it. Not mowing under trees or close to shrubs not only leaves space for wildflowers to grow, but also means you don’t have to deal with mowing over bumpy roots and other difficulties. Cutting different areas at different times can be an option for letting grass grow long in some areas while still having available places for play and entertainment. I’ve seen some people plant flower bulbs when pulling up weeds, so in the future they'll bloom in early spring before mowing is usually necessary. This could be another fun way of adding biodiversity to a lawn without--or before you--begin mowing in spring.
Not worrying about mowing, or doing it less often, saves you in time, money, and energy. You won’t have to buy as much gasoline for your mower, and Saturday afternoons can be free to be enjoyed in other ways aside from being sticky and sweaty and covered in grass stains. In addition, you’ll likely be lowering your own carbon emissions!
If you do have to mow your lawn, I’ve got ways you can use your grass clippings to boost biodiversity later in the post series!
Not using pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, etc.
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One of the next-biggest non-actions you can do asides from not mowing is using fewer fewer to no herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides in your yard. This’ll easily allow for more biodiversity. Allowing more insects and a wide array of plants to thrive will feed back into the entire food chain in your area. In addition, these types of chemicals have been tied to algae blooms, death of beneficial insects, harm to birds, fish, and even humans. Soil is supposed to be full of fungi, especially fungal mycelium that essentially acts as a network for plants to communicate, share nutrients, and support each other--fungicide kills that, and typically makes all other lawn problems even worse in a negative feedback loop. It may take awhile to see the benefits of avoiding these chemicals, but once you see it, it really is astounding.
However! I can’t lie and say that there haven’t been points where I needed to use pesticides at some points in my gardening journey. In these cases, try to use products that are organic--like diatomaceous earth, neem oil, etc--and use them accurately, correctly, and sparingly. Follow instructions on how to apply them safely and responsibly--for example, on non-windy days and during times when bees and other pollinators aren’t likely to be out and about. With some pests (read: oleander aphids, in my experience), a simple jetstream of water is enough to force them off the plant where they’ll be too weak to get back. Eventually, you should have a balanced enough ecosystem that no one insect pest causes a major issue with the work you’re doing to boost biodiversity.
If you can bear to, try handling pests manually. Squishing pest bugs in your hand is a pretty foolproof way to get rid of some problems, or spraying them with a mix of soap and water can do the trick on some insects. Alternatively, picking them off your plants and into a bucket of soapy water is also a valid option. You’ve heard of baptism by fire, now get ready for… baptism by soap?
But also! Try reconsidering what you consider a pest! Tomato hornworms are hated by gardeners, for devouring the foliage of beloved tomato, pepper, and potato plants. But killing the tomato and tobacco hornworm means getting rid of sphinx moths, also known as hummingbird or hawk moths! Hawk moths are vital to the survival of many native plants, and are sometimes even the only species that pollinates them. If you can bear to, consider sacrificing a few tomato plants, or growing a few extras, so we can continue having these beautiful moths for years to come. After all, they may not even do significant damage to the plants!
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With that in mind, be friendly to your natural pest managers! Lacewings, ladybugs, praying mantises, wasps, birds, bats, and more will help manage pest populations in your environment! Encourage them by planting things they like, providing habitat, and leaving them be to do their work! Avoiding pesticides helps make your garden a livable environment for them, too!
Letting Weeds Grow
Many of the plants we know as 'weeds' are actually secondary succession species and native wildflowers. Milkweed was regarded as a noxious, annoying weed for a long time, and now people are actively trying to plant them after learning about the important role they play in our environments! Weeds are adapted to take over areas that have been cleared out of other plants after a disaster, so they're doing much of the initial work in making a habitat for other creatures. In fact, many of them will simply die back as the environment repairs itself.
An important thing to note is to please make sure that your ‘weeds’ are not invasive species. Work on learning how to identify native and invasive species in your area, and pull out what’s harmful to leave room for what’s good!
Don’t Rake (Or At Least Don’t Bag Your Leaves)
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Many insects overwinter in piles of leaves that we often rake away and bag up in the fall and winter. By doing this, we are actively throwing away the biodiversity of our neighborhoods! If you can, leave the leaves where they fall! 
If you do need to rake, put the leaves in places wildlife can still access it instead of bagging it up. Move your leaves into garden beds to serve as mulch, or along the edge of fences to rest while keeping egg cases and hiding bugs intact and free to release come spring.
Leave Snags Where They Are
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Snags are dead trees/dead branches on living trees. They provide an important wildlife habitat--many birds nest in them, or use them to seek cover from rain, and many insects will also live in snags (making them an additional food source for birds and other creatures). Tree cavities are used as nests by hundreds of bird species in the US, and many mammals use them as well, such as bats, squirrels, raccoons, and sometimes even bears. Some trees form cavities while they’re still alive, but in conifers they’re more likely to form after death. Crevices between the trunk of a dead tree and its peeling bark provide sun protection for bats and amphibians, and leafless branches make great perching areas for birds of prey to hunt from above. The decaying wood is home to insects and fungi, who then feed birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles.  Do check on the snags regularly to ensure they don’t serve a threat to any nearby structures, but whenever possible, leave them be! 
Keep Your Cat Inside
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If you have an outdoor cat, consider making the adjustments to have it be an indoor cat. If you have an indoor cat, keep it as an indoor cat. Free ranging cats impact biodiversity through predation, fear effects, competition for resources, disease, and more. Keeping little Mittens inside does a lot more to help than it may seem from the outside.
That’s the end of this post! My next one’s gonna be on things you can add to your space that aren’t directly related to growing plants. For now, I hope this advice helps! Feel free to reply with any questions, success stories, or anything you think I may have forgotten to add in! 
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hope-for-the-planet · 2 years
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In a major sustainability win, Las Vegas, Nevada has now outlawed "nonfunctional” grass turf.
Anyone familiar with this topic knows that grass lawns are a sustainability nightmare--they are essentially a monoculture of useless grass that demands huge investments of fertilizer, herbicide, and especially water to maintain.
Laws like this and other water conservation measures have allowed Las Vegas to decrease their per-person water use by around 50%. Hopefully, this law will pave the way for similar measures in other areas experiencing water scarcity. 
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prokopetz · 2 years
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Sometimes I think the real problem with lawn discourse on Tumblr is that its idea of what sustainable plant husbandry looks like seems to be informed by the assumption that everyone everywhere lives in California.
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whetstonefires · 2 years
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apropos of another weird anti-grass post is that one thing i feel like should be common knowledge, but know very well isn't, is that mowing your lawn is an act simulating the symbiotic relationship grass has with grazing animals.
like. grass is eaten by grazing animals; it's one of the primary foodstuffs of creatures with teeth and stomachs that are up to the job, because it's so plentiful. a cow is a grass-predator. you'd think that would make cow the enemy of grass.
but grass is optimized to be browsed and walked on. it absorbs that shit like it's nothing, up to the point that these activities start either damaging the root-mat or cutting back the new growth so early that the plant doesn't have enough leaves to eat with.
but the rivals of grass are not so much so optimized. most non-grass meadow plants that don't pretty much lie flat (i'm generalizing wildly here obvs) have stems they depend on, that can be snapped much more easily than the vascular systems of most grasses, especially short ones, and have to start all over again if you compromise the stem an inch off the ground.
and trees, whew. a tree sprout that gets bitten off is just done. it shot its shot.
which means that grass benefits from grazing animals about as much as those animals benefit from grass. they maintain each other.
grass doesn't grow because it inherently wants to be tall. it is, fundamentally, indifferent to tall. it wants sun access, so it can eat, and if it stops growing it'll be in the shade of everybody else, so it goes for it. if everyone is getting sheared off a little above the ground, grass is winning. because grass copes with that like a champion.
and grass-dominated meadow is absolutely a valid biome, and one of the most natural environments for humans.
so mowing a lawn in order to keep it conveniently walkable and mostly-grass is like. technically inferior to hiring some goats like the Mortifying Ordeal guy, if only that could be made a convenient routine transaction and if you were willing to endure the botanically desirable side effect of goat shit. but a perfectly reasonable maintenance method for a small patch of earth you aren't actively cultivating to any other purpose. and cultivating all land all the time is a dumb unsustainable goal and i don't like it.
mowing is fine. grass, ideally local grass, basically anywhere not a desert is splendid.
it's the poisons that are literally just an offense against man and nature.
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bobzillashiftwoods · 1 year
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sequ0iart · 2 years
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Pesticides
instagram | twitter | prints & merch
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frivolous-pastel · 9 months
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My next door neighbors are on an incline from me and run their sprinkler system enough that it's eroding part of my yard into my driveway
Meanwhile I have not turned my sprinkler system on since moving in and my grass is genuinely just as green as theirs
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forgotn1 · 9 months
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Every fucking night I have to listen to my neighbors over-water their 8'x9' oval of grass surrounded by bark mulch. Every time a car drives past I can hear the water in the road splashing up like it just dump an inch of rain.
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"OH man it sure is a nice day outside, I should mow my lawn and ruin it for everyone else."
"Hey are you mowing your lawn? Let me mow it immediately after you so nobody gets a minute of peace literally all fucking day"
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bermudianabroad · 2 years
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Me looking at the garden: beautiful, wild, a feast of visual delights.
My father looking at the garden: the leaves aren’t sYmMetRiCAL!! CHAOS! The LAWN must have STRIPES!!
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ecopunkfox · 2 years
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Close-ups of my lawn! Lots of good stuff! Lots of bad grasses too, but I try to rip up as much grass as I can, by now our strip of grass is noticeably wilder than our neighbors’, but we can’t stop the gardeners from cutting it or anything, we’re in a complex. Lots of good stuff though! Plantain, clover, dandelion, etc.
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iseldomunderstand · 3 months
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I had a very pleasant dream last night.
Me and my brother had rented a tidy house in a bright, sunlit city. The door to the house was in an old street where the sunbeams bounced off the walls of the buildings yellowed by time. I basked my face in the glow, feeling the pleasant warmth of the late afternoon on my face, delightful.
But once I entered the house, I saw its barren walls, a sharp white, almost as if bleached, and was greeted by one, then two, then a full swarm of wasps. Flying above me, buzzing menacingly, getting tangled in my hair. My brother, powerless, watched in horror.
I woke up, drenched in sweat, and looked in panic around my bed for some eventual wasp. Nothing was there. I usually keep my windows closed too, so I usually don't have any bugs in my home.
Much later in the day, when I came home with groceries, I saw the grass around my building had been mowed, and I remembered I woke up to the sound of a lawnmower. A faint low buzzing noise.
Curse lawn culture and its wasp nightmares!
They didn't even do a good job at it. Pitiful.
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fictionz · 7 months
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Some kinda mood this morning.
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arctic-hands · 10 months
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Oh fuck off. I hope this guy's lawn in particular crispifies
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jamisonpestandlawn · 1 year
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Get The Best Lawn Aeration Service In Bartlett
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In order to ensure the long-term health and sustainability of your grass, lawn aeration service is crucial. So if you are looking for the best lawn aeration service in Bartlett, then you should go with Jamison Pest and Lawn. We provide high-quality lawn care and pest control services in Bartlett, TN, and its surrounding areas. For more details, visit our website: https://bit.ly/3zQUTtO
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h3artstain · 1 year
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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!
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