My 15 Years of Ranting about Lawn Replacement and Lawn Care

My (former) back yard in 2006.

The Unlawning Begins

It didn’t take much research through my 15 years of posts here on GardenRant to confirm that my top target has been lawns. Not because I’m a fan – au contraire – but because lawns take up SOOOO many square miles in the U.S. and their care is, I’ve always asserted, the biggest source of environmental harm that homeowners do in their yards.  I figured if there was less lawn and less of the kind of lawn care promoted by Scotts Miracle-Gro, the improvement could be huge.

So back in 2007 I began “My Quest to be Lawn-Free and Mower-Free,” motivated by environmental concerns, sure, but at least as much by curiosity and the desire for stories to tell on this blog. Also, mowing my hilly back yard was a real pain.

Posing in my newly lawn-free back yard in 2009, photo by Rob Cardillo for Organic Gardening Magazine. Can’t believe I dressed this way for a magazine spread!

“I’m finally killing my lawn! Okay, now what?” came next. Organic Gardening Magazine reported on the project, with photos by Rob Cardillo.

Lawn gone!

The Search for Plants to Replace Lawn 

My former front yard, with lawn.

For my tiny, flat front yard I experimented with “Stepables as Lawn Replacement” (coincidentally, around the same time that Amy Stewart blasted the company in “Hey Stepables! Here’s how to market to bloggers.”)

With Stepables. (The current owner has replaced the lawn here.)

I traveled to the Scott Arboretum to see their impressive examples of lawn alternatives. I explored meadows as a lawn replacement and nixed it as an option for small properties in “Do people really want meadows on their quarter-acre lots?”

And in 2012 former GardenRant blogger Evelyn Hadden’s book Beautiful No-Mow Yards was published, with my very own on the cover – a BIG thrill! I reviewed it in “Beautiful  No-Mow Yards is just what American Gardeners Need.”

I went so far as to question whether the revered Frederick Law Olmsted could be called a conservationist, given his love of lawn and huge influence in the spread of lawns across the U.S.

Bad and Better Lawn Care

Any reporting on harmful lawn care practices and products begins with the ones marketed and sold by Scott Miracle-Gro, which I summarized in this post, in which I nervously avoided saying anything that might get me sued by the notoriously litigious company.

However, Espoma, the maker of organic lawn-care products, took no prisoners in their brutal take-down of Scotts Miracle-Gro.

Another blog post praised my (former) town for outlawing lawn pesticides.

I bashed About.com’s lawn care advice as “pro-Scotts” and “pro-Big Box.”

For better lawn-care practices I heralded the work of Cornell and their message of “Do less!”

Paul Tukey’s SafeLawns.org prompted two favorable blog posts -“SafeLawns.org Announces Organic Trials on National Mall” and “Organic Lawn Care Trial in  Washington DC.”

And I blogged about the University of Maryland’s sustainable turfgrass test beds.

I reported that in Europe lawns are less pervasive, especially where there are no front yards.

That Time I Advocated for Lawn 

Poorly maintained border has now been returned to lawn.

Most recently in this post and this post I risked censure by the avid (sometimes rabid) lawn-haters when I advocated returning a perennial and shrub border to lawn. Sometimes lawn IS the right plant/right place, right? And as long as the lawn care follows Cornell’s advice to “Do less!” I’m fine with it.

My 15 Years of Ranting about Lawn Replacement and Lawn Care originally appeared on GardenRant on June 25, 2021.

The post My 15 Years of Ranting about Lawn Replacement and Lawn Care appeared first on GardenRant.

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