#lawns

[typhlonectes]

Plant native plants, y’all!

#lawns #gardens #home and garden #gardening #native plants #ecology #environment #conservation #nature #outdoors

[headspace-hotel]

In the library I have been reading lots of books about pesticides and related topics. The library's physical print collection skews toward older books, so there are lots of books over 50 years old.

I will share the findings in subsequent reblogs, but for now I'll say this: Filmmakers and novelists working in the most gory, nauseating crevices of the horror genre could never dream something more twisted, disgusting and absolutely blood-curdling as a book about Turfgrass Lawns from the 1960's.

#lawns #kill your lawn #pesticides

[hometoursandotherstuff]

#lawns #environment #real housewives transylvania other stuff

[rebeccathenaturalist]

So, long story short--a Master Gardener who has been maintaining a native plant garden for years is now being harassed by a neighbor, with whom the city code enforcers sided, and she's facing daily fines if she doesn't turn at least half of her yard into grass lawn. Apparently the only plants that are allowed to grow higher than seven inches are those that are edible, useful, or decorative.

If you are at all ecologically aware, you know that grass lawns are essentially ecological wastelands. A monoculture of non-native grass, especially if it's sprayed with herbicides, fertilizers, and so forth, is not going to support much in the way of native wildlife. Moreover, it can be argued that native plants do fall under the allowable category of "useful" and "decorative", and some are even "edible."

The article above is dated from two days ago, but this apparently started last year. And I found an article in their local paper from this past July that says she's still fighting the city about it, plus it has a bunch of photos of her garden if you want to see what the fuss is all about. Do be aware that if you decide to contact the Prospect Code Enforcement Board, City Council, and/or Mayor with a polite note in support of her, the website only allows you to send five messages every hour and you can only message one person at a time.

ETA: I did hear back just now from one of the code enforcement folks, who says--in their words--"Prospect City asked Ms. McGrail to redesign her current plantings into a more attractive and organized layout with edged definitions to her plant beds and a more obvious ‘walking path’ in between with a more “lawn-like” appearance, using native and no-mowing options"

#native plants #gardening #native species #plants #flowers #botany #nature #wildlife #habitat restoration #environment #conservation #ecology #lawns #no lawns #food not lawns

[unbfacts]

#American #mow lawns #lawns #american lawns #country

[futurebird]

The latest video from "Crime Pays Botany Doesn't" is all about how grasslands fix carbon and the impressive root systems of perennial wild plants.

If you don't watch CPBD you should, it's your one stop show for all the botany you need to know!

#crime pays but botany doesn't #plants #grass #grasslands #lawns #no lawns #lawns suck #carbon fixing #climate change #botany #videos #Youtube

[omarapetirun]

Know what I did instead of a lawn? Micro clover and a tiny $3 bag of wildflower seeds meant to cover a 30m2 patch of land that I just threw all over my small front yard. It looked wild; the borage is self-seeding everywhere, and I have some very, very happy bees. Even some native ones have shown up and that's AWESOME! I'd never even seen native Aotearoan bees before! It's dying back now because we're well into autumn but that means the clover is taking over again and it smothers all the weeds that keep trying to come back through. It's low-maintenance, good for soil and bees, and I love standing on my front door step and seeing a little patch of rural thriving in my urban space.

#lawns suck #lawns #wildflowers #urban gardening

[thunderstruck9]

John Ziqiang Wu (Chinese, 1983), Home Stay With Kids Due To Covid-19, 2020. Watercolor and acrylic on paper, 10 x 14 in.

#john ziqiang wu #chinese art #window #street scene #cars #lawn #lawns #houses #suburbia

[tomorrowusa]

Large mammals such as elephants, whales, and tigers tend to get a disproportionate amount of attention when it comes to conservation. Birds and beneficial insects are often overlooked.

Northern Ontario residents are building bee hotels to attract them and to encourage them to produce more bees.

Bee my guest: Northerners build hotels for pollinators as spring unfolds

Lawns are one of the worst things for pollinators and birds. They encourage wasteful water practices and unnecessary chemical use.

Michael Pollan put it best...

"A lawn is nature under totalitarian rule."

It's time to help our airborne friends and overthrow the tyranny of lawns.

Natural looking green space may require a bit more effort at the start of the growing season but is a lot less work from week to week. It's worth it just to get rid of the noise pollution and fumes from lawn mowers.

Get your local municipal governments interested in supporting nature-friendly and climate-friendly landscaping practices.

#birds #bees #nature #bee hotels #north ontario #herbicides #pesticides #lawns #conservation #water use #nature under totalitarian rule #michael pollan #kill your lawn #monte wolverton

[dispatchesfromtheclasswar]

#class war #class warfare #classism #lawns #frontin' #high posting

[maggotsandcream]

Apparently I can make polls on my phone but not on my laptop? Anyways:

#plants #gardening #lawns #flowers

[wild-raven-and-crow]

My neighbors have removed the trees from around their houses to "open up the space" which means wild blackberries take over, so they start complaining about the blackberries, and then they hire people to get rid of those and have to mow grass which results in lawns that are never used. I'm just saying… maybe leave the trees?

#trees #trees and forests #green #original photography on tumblr #original photography #lawns #fuck lawns #I am allergic to grass you cretins #grass #maple tree #pnw #pnw photography #no lawns #grass eats weedkiller for breakfast #lawns remind me of cemeteries #but at least cemeteries have cool statues

[headspace-hotel]

A lot of people don't know about why lawns are so disliked outside of how they are a waste of water, so here:

carbon emissions put out by lawn mowers (and other devices like leaf blowers). Lawn mowers produce significantly more greenhouse gases per hour of use than cars, and majorly contribute to smog.

Fertilizers get into bodies of water and cause algae blooms, converting all the diverse water plants to homogenous green slime.

Pesticides kill fireflies, bees, and all sorts of other beneficial insects, and many can kill or harm fish, birds and even humans.

Herbicides can have negative effects on the wrong targets too, but they are also causing common agricultural weeds to evolve resistance faster, increasing our dependence on pesticides.

Watering lawns does waste a lot of fresh water.

Lawns replace areas that once could have contained 100+ plant species with monocultures of frequently invasive species. Butterflies can't find host plants this way. Bees can't find food. Thousands of insect species rely on specific plants for food, and no other plant will do. A huge amount of the land is taken up by these wastelands.

Lawns also create dead, compacted, lifeless soil that is hard to grow other things in or near. The root systems of turf grasses are not robust enough to allow water to penetrate in. No matter how much nitrogen and phosphorous you dump on a lawn, it will still be lacking in the organic matter needed to create lush, absorbent dirt.

Dirt is supposed to be full of fungal mycelium. Scientists have discovered recently that the vast majority of all plant species are dependent on a network of symbiotic fungi attached to their roots for 80% of their phosphorous needs and 90% of their nitrogen needs.

Yes, this means that when you put a fungicide on your lawn, you've just nerfed that plant's ability to absorb nutrients by up to 90%. And you've also devastated its ability to absorb water, because plants are partly dependent on their fungi to get water out of dirt.

But fungicide isn't the only problem. Every plant in a natural environment is attached to multiple species of fungus, and most fungi are attached to multiple species of plant (though some are specialists). Trees literally use this system to send nutrients to other trees. We discovered recently that trees in deserts in California can survive extreme drought because they're attached to fungi that can break down rocks and extract water from the rocks.

If you don't have a good variety of plant species and rotting leaves and sticks and stuff, it doesn't matter how much fertilizer you put on it, your soil isn't "healthy" because it's not alive.

Vegetation that has been cropped extremely short doesn't hold in water, so a heavily maintained lawn is likely unnaturally dry for your climate, and a flower or bush in the middle of a lawn without tall grasses, shrubs and weeds nearby is getting pounded by the sun much harder than it's meant to handle.

Yeah, gardening isn't hard, most native plants are falling all over themselves to grow, it's just that the standard suburban backyard is ridiculously hostile to life.

Of course at this point you may be wondering

"What do I do instead?"

Well, here you go:

Stop weeding, spraying and fertilizing. Seriously. Stop it!! Stop it!! Chemical intervention in your lawn traps you in a vicious cycle of creating problems that need to be solved with more chemicals.

"Weeds" are a perfect example. Plants commonly considered "weeds" are adapted to take over areas that have been cleared out of other plants. Many "weeds" are actively harmed by the fungi that other plants depend on, meaning they can ONLY thrive in disturbed or devastated areas. The harder you work to eliminate biodiversity in your yard, the harder nature is going to bomb your yard with weeds.

By the way, google the "soil seed bank." Seeds can stay dormant in soil for years or even decades. If you want a "weed-free" lawn, get ready to apply herbicides for the rest of your life.

Mow less often. You really can't go wrong with this one.

Don't try to grow grass where grass doesn't want to grow. Lots of shade? Try moss. Extremely dry? Try drought-adapted plants. See what wants to grow there and let it do its thing.

It's fine to have a lawn area that you actually use. But if no one walks or plays on a stretch of your lawn, it should be something else. A wildflower patch, a stand of prairie grasses, some large shrubs, a grove of trees.

By the way, the idea that shrubs or flower beds are higher maintenance than lawns is wrong. The neat thing about native species is that once they've gotten settled, you literally just do nothing.

People think flower beds are high maintenance because people almost always underpopulate them. They think that there should be big spaces of mulch in between each plant. In a full sun flower bed that's actually filled to capacity, you shouldn't be able to see the ground. If your plants aren't babies anymore and there's still space, more plants.

if you live in an area that was once forest, PLEASE, plant some trees, and not just one tree. Trees are somewhat like guinea pigs, actually, they don't want to be alone. They send each other nutrients through their roots and screen each other from wind damage.

By the way, the "mature spread" of a tree as told on websites means when you plant it by itself. Trees can generally be planted 6-10 feet apart and be perfectly happy, they'll just grow taller and straighter instead of spreading out. (Look at pictures of forests.) HOWEVER large trees like large oaks should really be 25+ feet from structures and septic tanks

(Trees pop up by themselves in lawns. Constantly. Search for them in a woodland biome and you will likely find baby oaks and maples and other cool guys.)

Trees introduce competition for light into the areas you plant them, helping eliminate the "weeds." You know how fast your lawn grows up and gets weedy when you don't mow it? Yeah, that's partly because it's getting a CRAP TON of sunlight dumped on it with reckless abandon.

A shade garden gets "weedy" WAY slower, and unlocks all sorts of gorgeous flowers that don't thrive in a full sun garden. Fallen leaves serve both as compost and mulch. If you live in the right area for it and have room, you cannot go wrong with trees.

#lawns #anti lawn #biodiversity #native plant gardening #reposts encouraged #gardening #plants

[bumblebeeappletree]

Today I'm walking you through some simple tips on how to turn your lawn or backyard into a productive vegetable garden to grow your own food!

Gardening Guide for Beginners:

http://robgreenfield.org/freeseedproj...

Robin Greenfield’s Guide to Gardening for Beginners in Orlando, Florida:

http://robgreenfield.org/grow/

Thank you to Live Like Ally Foundation for their partnership in making this video. To learn more about Like Like Ally Foundation visit: https://www.llafoundation.com/

"Like" Live Like Ally on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/livelikeally...

Follow @live_like_ally on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/live_like_ally

Meet Ally: • Positively Impact...

Filmed and edited by John VonMutius http://johnvonmutius.com

Robin Greenfield’s work is Creative Commons and this content is free to be republished and redistributed, following the terms of the creative commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 license. Learn about Creative Commons and see the guidelines here: http://www.creativecommons.org/licens...

—

Robin Greenfield is an activist and humanitarian dedicated to leading the way to a more sustainable and just world. He embarks on extreme projects to bring attention to important global issues and inspire positive change. 100% of his media income is donated to grassroots nonprofits.

His YouTube channel is a source to educate, inspire and help others to live more sustainable, equal and just lives. Videos frequently cover sustainable living, simple living, growing your own food, gardening, self-sufficiency, minimalism, off the grid living, zero waste, living in a tiny house and permaculture.

Find Robin Greenfield on:

Website: https://www.RobGreenfield.org

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/RobJGreenfield @RobJGreenfield

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RobGreenfield

YouTube: / robgreenfield

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobJGreenfield @RobJGreenfield

—

Help us caption & translate this video!

https://amara.org/v/C0JNV/

#Robin Greenfield #solarpunk #grow food not lawns #food not lawns #gardening #orlando #florida #USA #lawns #anti lawn #garden #food gardening #Youtube #alternative lawn #lawn alternatives

[rebeccathenaturalist]

In my attempts to encourage love for the unloved creatures of the world, my most recent Rainy Rambles highlights what's so marvelous about moles! Unfortunately a lot of people in my area and beyond exterminate them because of the mounds of dirt they leave on people's lawns, but that's just evidence that your local nature is doing its job in spite of your attempts to sterilize everything down to a bunch of fescue.

#moles #Talpidae #mammals #animals #wildlife #nature #native species #coexistence #gardening #lawns #conservation #ecology #environment #environmentalism

[turtlesandfrogs]

Very excited about this bowl:

These are seedheads from self-heal, Prunella vulgaris, from my yard. I like it because it's a very tough plant, pollenators like it, we're in it's native range, and it's quite adaptable.

A lot of my clients are moving away from monoculture grass lawns, and this plant is one that does well in lawns without irrigation or fertilizer. And, when it's in bloom, it's like the lawn is studded with amethyst. It's just gorgeous.

Anyway! Now I'm going to have a bunch of seeds to over sow lawns with to help along the transition toward a more environmentally friendly lawn.

#gardenblr #gardening #lawns #lawn alternatives #solarpunk gardening