How Does Your Garden Grow?
Yes, a garden to replace a pristine pesticide-laden green lawn. A garden that not only is beneficial for you and for every living thing, but one that also supports our natural world in so many ways.
“IF ANY INDIVIDUAL CAN BE said to have invented the American lawn, it is Frederick Law Olmsted. In 1868, he received a commission to design Riverside, outside of Chicago, one of the first planned suburban communities in America. Olmsted’s design stipulated that each house be set back 30 feet from the road and it proscribed walls.”
—Michael Pollan, “Why Mow? The Case Against Lawns,” New York Times Magazine; May 28, 1989.
When I was young, I used to marvel at those pristine green lawns I saw at the houses of the wealthy. I viewed it as a sign of success and health. I was taken in by the ads in those glossy magazines that I read or browsed while waiting at the doctor’s or at the dentist’s offices. I was taken in and mesmerized by the connection it made between a sanitized version of beauty and what success entails. A large green expanse of grass sans dandelions was a sign, a clear symbol of success and, no doubt, of beauty.1
Dandelions, after all, symbolized an invasion, an invasive species, a sign of failure and, moreover, perhaps a sign of impending poverty, if you will. Dandelions, grass that was “long” and any other display of unkemptness also showed an inability to maintain order, allowing chaos to reign. The sustained ad campaign over the years has worked. I see it in this neighbourhood of modest houses.
I posted this on Notes two weeks ago, or so, and I am citing my own posting for those who did not see it, and for reasons that will soon be clear:
A lawn-care service company (now, that is a mouthful) is across the street right now using a gas-powered leaf blower to blow leaves off the lawn onto the road. This is done weekly. The purpose, I guess, is to have a unnatural pristine law, to be admired, but not to walk on. This is on top of the gas-powered mower they use to keep the grass at a height of one inch (2.5 cm). In my case, I rarely cut the grass; I would never hire a lawn service company and I certainly would not blow leaves onto the road with that horrid invention, the gas-powered leaf blower. Who here thinks such noisy contraptions ought to be banned and all users, if caught with one, immediately sent to Purgatorio to one of Dante’s Circles. I have not decided which as of now. I mean, this is serious business.
And, an hour later, at my next door neighbour’s house another lawn-services company was spraying some pesticide on the lawn. I decided to question the young man, diligent in his service to destroying the environment, what exactly he was spraying on my next door neighbour’s lawn. The conversation went something like this:
Hi there, I live next door. Can you tell me what are you spraying on the lawn?
A pesticide. It is organic.
Will it harm birds and squirrels?
It’s organic. It’s Fiesta. It will dry in a couple of hours.
Well, that might be. I have a bird; and there are lots of birds and squirrels here. I hope it doesn’t harm them. This is my concern.
[He looks at me blankly. No response as he methodically cranks the yellow hose back into the pickup truck.]
Breaking the silence, I decide to give him some advice.
You should not be doing this. Find a better job.
He looks at me, seems like he is about to say something, but does not. He drives away, likely to the next job.
This is what many people have done for decades, continue to do today and, most important, consider it an absolute necessity to have a perfect-as-possible emerald green lawn. The idea of a green lawn started in England and France in the 1700s. U.S. President Thomas Jefferson brought the idea to America and employed it in his estate in Monticello in 1806, which also had a two-acre vegetable garden, still in use.2 Yet, most people still used their yards as a garden to grow vegetables. By the 1870s, however, the idea of having a pristine front lawn became more normal, aided in part by the world’s fair in Philadelphia, in 1876, celebrating the U.S.’s centennial. It was, however, chiefly a part of the ways of the wealthy class, those who had country estates.3 Also relevant was Frederick Law Olmsted’s “commission to design Riverside, outside of Chicago,” which was the first suburb in the United States.
Yet, it would take another 75 years, after the Second World War and the building of suburban communities, when the green front lawn became synonymous with middle-class life and making it in America. A green front lawn sends a signal that “you have arrived.” And the more pristine it appears, the more green it is, the more you have “arrived.” This message, 75 years in the making, is now deeply ingrained in our society. It has become part of Home Ownership Associations (HOA), which have lists of what a homeowner under their jurisdiction can and cannot do. Leaving grass unattended is a big no-no. There has been push-back, though, as some state legislatures have enacted laws to reduce the restrictive powers of HOA.4
Maine was one of the first to roll back the powers of HOAs, saying the homeowners have a right to plant gardens for food.5 So, there have been real legal and social obstacles, but local and regional governments are, in the face of water shortages, overuse of pesticides (are they really pests?) and the necessity of rewilding, giving the rights back to individual homeowners. What is old can be new again. There are now good reasons to return to the pre-lawn era, to gardens, to not use too much water or pesticides. We have known of the dangers of, for example, pesticides since Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962).6 Speaking of water use, about 15 percent is dedicated to lawn care in America.7 As droughts and water scarcity becomes more common in parts of America, citizens will have to reconsider how much water ought to be used for their lawns. Perhaps none. Perhaps a lawn will not be viewed any longer as a necessity.
Change in thinking is always difficult. We tend to all be creatures of habit. There are benefits to the change, however. Rewilding and going natural with a garden of plants rather than a lawn is better for your health, the health of your front and back yards, and for our Earth. Modern Human History is rife with mistakes, and failures to recognize reality, even when it is staring us in the face. Humans are slow lumbering creatures, with limited intelligence and awareness. We are arrogant and full of pride. Even so, despite such obvious obstacles, we can learn, the scales can be removed from our eyes. I return to the article that Michael Pollan wrote 35 years ago for The New York Times Magazine:
Gardening, as compared to lawn care, tutors us in nature’s ways, fostering an ethic of give and take with respect to the land. Gardens instruct us in the particularities of place. They lessen our dependence on distant sources of energy, technology, food and, for that matter, interest.
For if lawn mowing feels like copying the same sentence over and over, gardening is like writing out new ones, an infinitely variable process of invention and discovery. Gardens also teach the necessary if rather un-American lesson that nature and culture can be compromised, that there might be some middle ground between the lawn and the forest—between those who would complete the conquest of the planet in the name of progress, and those who believe it’s time we abdicated our rule and left the Earth in the care of its more innocent species. The garden suggests there might be a place where we can meet nature half way.
This was true then; it is undoubtedly true today. Perhaps more so, if this is possible. I will end with a video on the principles of rewilding on a larger scale, which does have its critics and controversies, which in some cases are valid and require further discussion and study. Even so, I would watch this video.It is called For more wonder, rewild the world (2013), with George Monbiot, who explains the cascading overall beneficial effects of rewilding. I think you will find it as enlightening as I did.
Happy gardening, everyone.
Merci et à bientôt
Born at 315 ppm
Now at 425 ppm
Mother Jones: “Since the post–World War II rise of suburbia, the great American lawn has beckoned with the promise of a grassy, orderly Eden surrounding a single-family fortress. For just as long, lawns have been sending bees and other pollinating critters the opposite message: Buzz off.
“That’s because the very essence of a lawn (closely shorn, uniform, weed-free) leaves little room for the sustenance that pollinators depend on—pollen and nectar from a variety of flowers. Residential landscaping contributes to an alarming ecological crisis: a steep decline in the health of pollinating animals, whose services provide one-third of the food we eat.”
Monticello.org: “The vegetable garden evolved over many years, beginning in 1770 when crops were first cultivated along the contours of the slope. Terracing was introduced in 1806, and by 1812, gardening activity was at its peak. The 1,000-foot-long terrace, or garden plateau, was literally hewed from the side of the mountain with slave labor, and it was supported by a massive stone wall that stood over twelve feet in its highest section. One contemporary visitor remarked on the dramatic "sea view" across the rolling Piedmont countryside.”
[…}
“The garden today, however, is only an interpretation of the original. Modern tools, such as rototillers, are utilized to ease the maintenance of the garden. Organic fertilizers, natural pesticides, and irrigation are used to preserve the varietal collection. Nineteenth-century techniques -- the use of brush for the staking of peas, the manuring of perennial vegetables, the construction of composted hills for squashes, melons, and beans -- are utilized when appropriate.”
National Gallery of Art: While turf was most likely cultivated in some fashion during colonial times, it was not until the last quarter of the 18th century that garden descriptions and other landscape writing registered the common practice of planting lawns, particularly among the larger gardens of the colonial elite.
Washington Post (Michael J. Coren): “As homeowners make eco-friendly additions, they’re encountering opposition from HOAs, sometimes in violation of state law. Texas joined Florida, Maryland, Colorado and other states to block HOAs from banning some low-impact landscaping such as drought-resistant xeriscaping, rain gardens or native plant gardens. If you want to install EV chargers at home, Hawaii, Oregon, Florida, Colorado and California have your back.
“Power is shifting back into the hands of property owners now that state legislators have begun rolling back decades of escalating HOA restrictions. But many members of HOA boards don’t know these provisions, or ignore them.”
Universal Rights Group: “On 2 November 2021, in a significant development for the promotion and protection of economic, social and cultural rights (ESCRs) in the United States, voters in Maine approved an amendment to the state Constitution that recognizes the right to food. The amendment, which 60% of Mainers voted in favor of, declares that ‘all individuals have the right to grow, raise, harvest, produce and consume the food of their own choosing for their own nourishment, sustenance, bodily health and well-being.’ This is a major step for a US state, given the country’s historical reticence to recognising ESCRs (the US is notably not party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)). Despite the lack of recognition of the right to food at the national level, state-level legislation gives Americans some level of autonomy when it comes to food policy.”
Time Magazine: “Since then, pesticides and other lawn treatments have evolved, with newer, safer products. Yet much of what people apply in backyards today still contains potentially harmful chemicals. These toxicants have been linked to cancer and other maladies in people and pets. Nutrient runoff from yards can also have adverse impacts on the environment.”
EPA: “The average American family uses 320 gallons of water per day, about 30 percent of which is devoted to outdoor uses. More than half of that outdoor water is used for watering lawns and gardens. Nationwide, landscape irrigation is estimated to account for nearly one-third of all residential water use, totaling nearly 9 billion gallons per day.”
Rachel Carson's book made a big impression on me too, and we're growinging a food forest using permaculture principles.
They say that if dandelions didn't grow everywhere, they'd be considered a superfood. I pick and eat the leaves and have them as part of my breakfast every day.
Interesting post, and video by Monbiot. I think rewilding is generally a good idea as long as (1).Rural economies are not destroyed, with people driven into the cities to eke out a poor living; (2).The rewilded areas are held in common for all, and not owned by billionaires for their private trekking adventures; and (3).The rewilding process is done competently (the example of Yellowstone seems to show it was).