 What is more idyllic for an American than kids playing on a hot summer day on the lawn whether it's running through a sprinkler Playing catcher tag or a backyard barbecue the stage where all of this is the historic anomaly known as the lawn This is the low-tech podcast Hello and welcome, I'm Scott Johnson from the Low Technology Institute your host for podcast number 51 on July 23rd 2022 coming to you at a low-tech institutes gardens in Cooksville, Wisconsin. Thanks for joining us today We're going to look at the history of problems with and alternatives to the great American lawn We'll also have a few updates around the Institute and don't forget to follow us on Twitter Our handle is at low underscore techno like us on Facebook Find us on Instagram subscribe to us on YouTube and check out our website lowtech Institute org there You can find our podcast as well as information about joining and supporting the Institute and its research Also some podcast distributors put ads on their podcasts unless you hear me doing the ad Someone else is making money on that advertising while all our podcast videos and other information are given freely They take resources to make and if you're in a position to help support our work and be part of this community Please consider becoming a monthly supporter for as little as three dollars a month through our patreon page Patreon comm slash low-tech Institute. Thanks to Ryan W. Who joined since the last episode if you'd like to sponsor an episode directly Please get in touch with us through our website lowtech Institute org Lawns are seemingly everywhere covering up to 2% of the Continental US's surface Recently people have begun to question the worth of this ubiquitous part of the American landscape So today we're going to delve into the history of lawns Briefly summarize the points against them and then go into alternatives that may meet your needs better than you might think So the word lawn comes from the same root as the word land and it referred to a clearing in a forest The word as we know it today as a kept area of crop grass dates to the 1700s From the medieval period onward lawns were really only found among Aristocrats who could either pay laborers to scythe the grass to an even shortness or have sheep rabbits or horses graze carefully over grassy areas to create so-called green carpets in the 16 and 1700s The European aristocracy began to cultivate lawns to emulate romantic Italian landscape paintings This allowed their opulent manor houses to be viewed in a large managed landscape scene By the 1800s the lawns had become a mark of wealth It was a form of conspicuous consumption having a lawn was basically to say that the owner was so well off that he and of Course most landowners were almost always men Could ostensibly waste a large area to maintain a cultivated decorative field in North America early European settlers brought grass and clover seed from Europe After they lost a lot of cattle sheep and goats to poisonous and less nutritious grass and forage That was already native to the east coast weeds were also brought over in ships mixed in the animals bedding fodder manure And even in the ship's ballast Some weeds spread ahead of human colonizers so quickly that when the Europeans moved into new areas They assumed that the imported weeds were natives here as well And I'll note that must have this history comes from Virginia Scott Jenkins book the Lawn a history of an American obsession The lawn as we know it today didn't develop until the late 1800s with the advent of the real lawnmower Reel you know the one with the set of blades that spins as you push it before that the closest approximation of a large area Of crop grass was a pasture or recently harvested field in the early 1900s Lawns were present but not as common as they are today as people either lived in built-up cities or rural areas The real home of the modern American lawn didn't come around until the suburban explosion after World War two in the pre-war Cities only the very wealthy had enough space for well-kept lawns in the smaller towns Most people grew gardens or used green spaces for keeping chickens or other practical purposes a bit of lawn could easily be kept with the Push real lawnmower and the lawns back then were not monocrops, but included dandelions clover and other ground cover It was only after the war with the expansion of largely white Middle-class suburbs and the keeping up with the Jones's mentality that the lawn started to become what it is today and A part of that is due to bomb factories, but we'll talk about that in a minute Over the last two centuries lawns have become such a ubiquitous part of the American landscape that they seem that they seem to have been around forever They're an outward sign of class and an immediate marker of whether or not a household is taking care of its property Just think of the social stigma of an unkempt lawn in the suburbs You can just imagine all the neighbors commenting to one another on what an eyesore and unmowed property is next to all the other cropped masterpieces It's been a part of our society for enough generations that it's become deeply embedded these types of Visceral beliefs are harder to shake than oh say cell phone use which has only been around for less than a generation For example when we moved into the house that is the Low Technology Institute here behind me in the garden It hadn't been lived in for two years and the people responsible for maintaining the house had let many parts of the house languish But a group of volunteers had kept the lawnmode that entire time Now there is a time and a place for social pressure to move people Towards right action, but there's also social stigmas and pressures that push us to do wasteful and downright terrible things Lawns are a class-based adoption of aristocratic ideals from the late Middle Ages. Is that how we want to be positioning ourselves for the future? We rarely question deeply embedded tropes of our society But the next time you see an unkempt lawn and feel a pang of discomfort stop and ask yourself What's causing you to think that way? It isn't logic Let's turn to some of the problems with lawns and we'll see why lawns just to make no sense at all And now this is not meant to be an indictment of lawns Many many people have pointed out the problems with lawns and spent a lot more time on the issue than I'm going to And I've listed some of them in the show notes But to summarize we can sort the problems into let's say six categories the first category of course is ecological Lawns do not appear in nature. Lawns are usually monocultures literally excluding any type of biodiversity Which is inherently unstable for the environment, but also the grass species itself if a single fungal variety could wipe it out It's also less useful for the fungi and animal life that live with the lawn Plus at least in the US the species that are used for lawns are non native and their cultivation reduces the prevalence of native grasses and plants The next category is water and depending on where you live watering your lawn might be a significant waste of a finite resource Americans average 12 inches of water on their lawns each year that amounts to 40 million acre feet to put that in perspective The USDA calculated that 83.4 million acre feet were used in agricultural irrigation in 2019 Needless to say wasting a third of irrigation on a crop that has no real utilitarian value should be seen as a problem a Quotation from the Washington Post sums it up nicely Other folks are ditching their lawns because of the amount of water they soak up nine billions of gallons of it per day according to the EPA think of the miracle that is the modern water supply pristine water pumped through hundreds of miles of Shiny state-of-the-art filtration systems and pipes treated with miracle chemicals that keep our teeth from falling out of our heads and Available on demand at the twist of a knob and then consider that we intentionally dump billions of gallons of that water out on the ground The next problem is chemical. I'll start with a short story Once upon a time before World War two lawn care handbooks suggested clover and chickens were a good way To maintain lawn fertility then the US created hundreds of bomb factories that turned atmospheric nitrogen into explosives using lots and lots of energy It turns out that explosive material also works as a fertilizer And so as the war ended and America experienced the baby boom a white middle class exodus to the suburbs and a strong economy The natural step was for the bomb factories to begin selling fertilizer to one of the biggest crops in the country Long grass now is argued that clover and other so-called weeds should be avoided in favor of chemical fertilizers Heck why not use chemical herbicides to kill those weeds indeed in 1999 55% of households applied insecticides and 74% applied fertilizer Studies show however that whatever you put on your lawn is also tracked into your home Dust on surfaces carpets and floors often contain dangerous chemicals directly linked to lawn care and their location in the house Makes them especially dangerous to young children crawling on the floor and pets For more on this see articles by Robinson Sharp linked in the show notes And then we have to consider the financial investment Americans spend 30 billion on lawn care each year which amounts to $750 an acre from purchasing fertilizers and other chemicals to poison Plants and insects to lawn care equipment that only gets used an hour a week The lawn is nothing but a hole in the ground that you can shovel money into if you own property with a lawn Chances are you're also paying to have access to parks where you can enjoy all the leisure benefits of a lawn without the expense Next up is labor the American Time Use Survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics says the average American spends 73 hours a year on lawn care And remember that this average includes everybody So for those who actually own and maintain a lawn that number is much much higher Since many others live in apartments without lawn chores and others are too young old or otherwise exempt from lawn work And a CBS poll found that 20% of people named mowing their least favorite chore and now I'm gonna get on to my soapbox and talk about fossil fuels the obvious culprit here with Fossil fuels and lawns is the mower because they don't have catalytic converters and run dirty Most mowers emit more in an hour than a car does driving a hundred miles Millions of tons of CO2 are emitted by lawn mowers perhaps Surprisingly leaf blowers are even worse because they are usually two-stroke engines and emit the equivalent of thousands of miles in a car with just half an hour of blowing a Second less obvious problem is fertilizer The 90 million pounds of lawn fertilizer applied each year produce twice that much carbon dioxide in emissions and Another study suggests that because not all fertilizer absorbed by the plants for each acre of lawn microbes convert extra fertilizer into a ton of Nitrous oxide which is a powerful greenhouse gas worse than CO2 But I can hear you asking doesn't the lawn absorb CO2 and the answer is sure But the care and feeding of a standard lawn mean it emits five to six times the amount of carbon that it absorbs I'm tempted to go on with the problems with lawns or go into more detail But others do it better and in a lot more depth I've linked to good articles in the in the show notes And what I really want to move on to is solutions because those are less often talked about What you can do with your lawn depends on a few factors first and foremost ask yourself What your end goal is do you want a lawn that looks like a lawn? But isn't grass do you want a place to spend that time outside with your friends and family? Are you looking to save time and money from maintaining a lawn or are you looking to make a statement against lawns? Or perhaps convert the lawn into something more functional like a like a garden Part of what you must prepare yourself for is not having a lawn and there will be people in your neighborhood Who don't like what you do no matter what you do no matter how nice it is they will not like it It's worth thinking carefully about why people have such deep-seated feelings about them and understand their point of view with a little compassion There's a lot to do with class social position social pressure American worth ethic and many other factors and most of your neighbors will not be at the same point You are in understanding lawns their social history and their ecological damage There's a saying in Japan that the nail that sticks out gets hammered down So if you choose to be the nail standing out on your neighborhood be prepared that not everyone will understand you might get hammered down And with all the options though, you're gonna have to be prepared for some growing pains Part of the allure of lawns is that you can call a company and have a living carpet of grass Delivered tomorrow as sawed the alternative that I'm going to propose are not that quick because they require new plants to germinate take root and grow or you'll have to build up new infrastructure But let's talk about my favorite part about all these ideas how to kill grass I used to work and mow lawns with a crew in high school. I mowed my childhood homes lawn I'm my in-laws lawn and many many others nothing gives me more joy than killing a lawn and putting in something else And of course, we're gonna talk about chemical free ways to do this Now solarizing is the best all-around option Solarizing uses the idea of a greenhouse to dry out and overheat weeds or in this case lawns a large sheet of clear plastic Something like that goes over a greenhouse is laid down flat over a lawn that you've previously mowed as low as you can put weights around the edges to keep it down and Ideally this would be after a few days of dry weather with a few days of hot clear dry weather in the forecast in Just a few days the sun will beat down on this covered lawn and heat the space under the plastic sheeting to well over 120 degrees this will fry the grass or weeds and leave you in just a few days with a dead patch However, if you're just putting in a few raised beds perhaps and want to keep grass walkways between them You can do the same thing with cardboard boxes cut open and laid flat on the lawn Usually two layers is best this cardboard is then covered with mulcher soil to build up the growing spaces The nuclear option if you want to create a truly dead space like a driveway or other dirt path is to use salt The ancient idea of salting the earth despite your enemies works well to kill lawn and other weeds Just look at the side of well salted walkways in the spring after the snow is gone where the grasses turn brown and died This will not work if you want to plant anything here in the next year or two not until the salt leaches out But it is very effective Let's say you want something that looks like grass, but doesn't require any maintenance Clover is really a great option because it only ever grows about six inches high So it never needs mowing it has pollinator friendly flowers and it feeds nitrogen into the soil So it never needs fertilizer So after solarizing you can just plant a monocrop of of clover you can even cut it occasionally and feed it to animals We did this was our house in st. Louis and I really really like the results The main downside though is that it doesn't take traffic. Well, so you'll have to create a path or use Or use it in areas that are not walked on very often You could also go for moss and shady areas or if you don't mind being in being very brutal about containing it Actually, the weed that most people hate called creeping Charlie also covers the ground really aggressively And this mint relative requires no mowing But if it does get into your garden area you are in trouble So use it very very carefully If you live in a dry environment look to native plants and ground covers that have evolved to live where you do now in the southwest Zero-escaping is a great alternative to a green lawn I'll talk about it a little later and I don't have much experience with this So you'll want to consult folks at your local nursery or in your local gardening group Now what if you have a space that's going to get more traffic Clover and other low maintenance ground covers usually aren't hardy enough So just commit to what you're using that space for if your backyard is primarily for entertainment and barbecuing with friends and family Consider making a large paver stone area to hold your grill fire pit and other outdoor spaces If kids play in the backyard consider creating a space covered in wood chips The easiest way to do this is to buy landscape fabric Mow your grass as low as possible and then smother it with the landscape fabric and six or more inches of wood chips a Stone or wood border will help keep things together Outside of these designated areas you can plant clover moss creeping charlie or whatever other ground cover has appropriate applications for your location I Know that some people enjoy lawn sports or just generally playing catch or throwing a frisbee on a lawn So consider moving these activities to publicly maintain lawns to minimize your own personal footprint If you absolutely must have your own space to do it find grasses that are drought resistant and adapted for your area I'm not going to get into the method of reseeding a lawn because that's not what I want to encourage But what I will suggest is that add a good amount of clover seed to whatever drought resistant local grass Seed you can find I know this sounds crazy But it was commonplace before World War two and all the bomb factories being converted to fertilizer factories Even if the clover won't reach its full potential because you're sometimes mowing it It still won't it will still pump a fair amount of nitrogen into the soil To avoid emissions caring for your small area of lawn switch to a real type push mower because hopefully is a small area you won't need a power mower for a smaller area and Some people like electric mowers, but this is probably a lot of embodied emissions To create an electric mower and the old-fashioned real mowers are a lot easier on the environment when they're produced and also when they're used or Learn to use a scythe although that does take a lot a lot of practice And do not water or fertilize this space. That's why you got the drought resistant variety of grass Remember and by adding clover seed this will add nitrogen the biggest change though will have to be mental You need to get away from the deep-seeded feeling that many Americans have about a manicured so-called beautiful lawn Let's say you want to be a little more radical and I already mentioned zero scaping which is turning a lawn into what most of us would Desert type landscape this involves lots of drought resistant native shrubs and succulents and gravel and stones as well as other low-lying vegetation to cover the ground This was once radical in the southwest, but is now increasingly common a lot of places have incentives for you to do this in More temperate areas of the United States turning your lawn into a prairie is a great alternative You'll want to consult with a prairie restoration outfit in your area as they'll know the best local native seeds and plants as well as methods In either case a small sign to indicate why your lawn looks different than everyone else's might go a ways to helping the shock value Someone might find in an otherwise manicured suburb Be sure to check with your HOA or local jurisdiction as some places have restrictions against thinking outside the box If you live in such an area This would be a good chance to raise awareness of the drawbacks of lawns and to agitate for change and Freedom to choose not to be so destructive just to have a green carpet in front of your house Another option is to create a garden where your lawn once dominated raised beds or row crops Are all great ways to utilize otherwise wasted space now while you might be tempted to do this in front of your house Next to the road to make a statement I would warn against growing any food within 30 feet of a roadway as a recent PhD dissertation at the University of Wisconsin Madison showed that the heavy metals and harmful chemicals and car exhaust Settle out onto the ground and the plants within a 30-foot radius of the side of the road So as much as I love seeing gardens in the front of people's houses the food there may be less than ideal Because all because of all the cars driving by and I guess this is why we can't have anything nice Front yards will be a good spot for pollinator plants or sacrificial garden crops to drop pests out of your garden In the backyard as I said before putting down beds is an easy way to kill grass either by Solarizing at first or covering it with two layers of cardboard and then compost and soil in the rows and wood chips between for pathways And I will mention although I don't always live up to the standard myself that the nicer you keep your lawn Alternative in the publicly visible areas the more likely your neighbors are to appreciate it and not notify the authorities about what you're doing It's a shame that people have to put up Sign saying no mo may to avoid fines People who don't mow their lawns should be thanked for reducing the amount of emissions or say they've saved by neglecting their lawns and Maybe if more people stopped taking care of their lawns well-kept alternatives will become even more attractive Lawns are an ecological catastrophe exacerbated by some feelings of conformity to some classist ideal It's such a publicly visible statement about ourselves and much of the US that it's very difficult to change people's minds about lawns By creating something new and different and in every respect better on your own property You can demonstrate to others that alternatives may actually be better than the status quo And now for a brief recap of something we've been doing here at the Institute last weekend We had a half a dozen people out to finish the wheat harvest and Threshold process some of the wheat and rye is great to see folks out here and get to talk about size Sickles moisture content seeding rates and all the ins and outs of growing your wheat At home you can check this out in our video series on YouTube We'll have parts two and three up on our YouTube channel soon But part one covering field preparation and seeding is already up Imagine turning your lawn into a wheat field that would certainly get the neighbors talking and probably would be quite an event as you harvest At the next summer We will be harvesting our flax and having our annual flax to linen events this fall for more details Be sure to sign up for our listserv which you can find on our website That's it for this week the low tech podcast is put out by the low technology Institute the show is hosted and co-produced by me Scott Johnson and co-produced and edited by Hina Suzuki this episode was recorded in the low technology Institute's gardens Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes Spotify Google Play YouTube and elsewhere We hope you enjoyed this free podcast if you'd like to join the community and help support the work we do Please consider going to patreon.com slash low tech Institute and signing up Thanks to our Forrester and land steward level members Maryland Skirpon and the Hambuses for their support The bill of technology Institute is a 501c3 research organization supported by its members grants and underwriting You can find out more information about the low technology Institute membership and underwriting at low tech Institute org Find us on social media and reach me directly. I'm Scott at low tech Institute org Our intro music was get evil off the album orphaned media by Haliza That song was in the public domain and this podcast is under the creative commons attribution and share like license Meaning you're free to use and share it as long as you give us credit. Thanks and take care