Submitted 5 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/9d377094-27f4-4537-9ad8-b2d77741f427.png
Source: https://www.crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt.com/kill-your-lawn
Look, this guy is a phenomenon and worth at least some of your time. Not just for the kill your lawn stuff, but for making botany actually interesting. There’s a whole-ass youtube channel that is sure to entertain if not educate.
His rambling podcasts are great.
I had a house with shrubbery growing around it. the roots were dense but light, so no real danger to the foundation. I had mentioned to my wife a couple times about removing the shrubs to replace them with flower beds with smaller shrubs to make it easier to maintain.
one day I came home from work and her dad and her had completely ripped up every shrub along the back of the house.
I was livid. I asked her what she was going to do next because money was tight. She shrugged and said we can save up to plant something for next year.
I explained to her that those shrubs were protecting the foundation from water egress and by removing them we would have water in the crawlspace. she dismissed me and said I was overreacting.
this was just as spring started. guess what happened next? yep, water started to seep into the foundation and the walls were clearly wet. I showed her, explained that in 5-10 years the mortar between the blocks would soften and begin to break down and fall apart.
for context, the house was built in the early 50s and the foundation was just raw concrete blocks without any moisture barrier. the shrubs had been there since the house was built (or at least very nearly the whole time). there was one corner that had a downspout that dropped right on top of the foundation that had some pretty bad spalling but was otherwise in perfect condition.
she listens to me now.
I don’t know what kind of logical fallacy it is in us humans, but we really think in the present that we live in a time where we’re above nature like that, as if there’s a solution to everything. And not to talk ill of you your wife, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she thought: “oh well, I’m sure we’ll figure something out before anything bad happens” once you told her. And maybe she just trusted that her father knew better, that’s also not out of the question.
One thing has always been true though: Don’t fuck with water. Just look at the Grand Canyon after all.
Roundup doesn’t want you to know this. In their eyes… Dandelions are weeds, which is such a sad opinion.
When dandelions pop up they let you know to start looking for morels in a week or so. Thank you dandelions.
Dandelions are awesome! You can make a salad of them with great health benefits and dandelion honey is also great! And the latex milk it has can be used to make rubber!
You can also make tea out of the leaves, root, and flowers (all together, or some combination of the three).
Dandelions have a lot of vitamin A and C, some B vitamins, calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron, copper, and zinc. It’s good for the skin, liver, and digestion. It’s a diuretic and can help with cramps.
!nolawns@slrpnk.net
Is there an alternative to grass that covers well, and doesn’t spread fast like an invasive plant?
I’ve read about clover but it does spread fast.
I love the university of Minnesota Bee Lawn page about some ideas. You can also buy pure flower seeds at Flawn
The spreading nature of clover is not overwhelming. I have it everywhere and doesn’t pass even the smallest barrier to my more traditional gardens. It weedy status is more marketing than factual
native grass, probably
Clover is honestly fine, its short so even if it spreads into your flowerbeds its not going to do any damage, in fact since its a nitrogen fixer it might even help, and insects like clover a lot more than grass
Unless you have really sandy soils. Then the rain mostly passes right through (ignoring all the parts that are paved - insta-flood!), and it’s just a situation with malnourished grass, probably more susceptible to “weeds”, and not a lot of organic matter to hold all that soil together.
That’s the thing missing from this image - it’s not just being more porous that makes larger plants retain water better, it’s that they’re a critical part in creating the conditions that produce more of that organic matter, getting that carbon (and a lot of other stuff) in the ground. It acts as a sponge, and in sandy soils that are too porous, it fills those gaps and acts as a binder.
eh, there’s a shitton of clay about an inch down here. turf ain’t the problem
Dandies eat clay for breakfast
you’re assuming soil with clay mixed in it. you would be wrong.
I thought that was a slur for a second.
Why is it someone hasn’t modified the dna of grass to give us one that has both deep roots and works like lawn grass on top.
As others have said, the size of roots is pretty directly tied to the size of foliage. Roots store energy(calories) in case something happens to the foliage or sunlight is low. The more energy they can take in, the more storage they need, as well as the stability that larger plants need from larger roots.
But how do you keep feeding the larger roots if the photosynthetic engines have giving them energy have been damn near removed?
Hm, this doesn’t fit. You are saying the roots store energy in case the foliage is lost, then saying the roots can’t exist without the foliage. Which is it? I get that they are energy storage. So the foliage in all plants must generate an excess of energy to fill the storage. That should mean that once the storage is full, extra energy can be spent to extend the roots, then fill with energy, rinse repeat.
Because releasing genetically modified organisms into the wild can have absolutely disastrous consequences on an ecosystem. I think there are cases where the benefits are worth the risks, but pretty lawn is not one of them. Might be nice in the future when we have a better grasp on what we’re doing.
Thats a great talking point, but it is BS. Humans have been genetically modifying organsims through selective breeding for millenia. Any animal or plant you eat is nothing like it natural origin.
I doubt think it’s a DNA problem, the amount of roots depends on the amount of leaves.
So keeping the grass short keeps the roots sorry as well
But why? Roots act as energy storage, so once full, grow more. Not full stop. That should lead to pretty decent roots.
There are prairie grass stains that have very deep roots. Not sure how they act as a replacement for typical lawns but they exist already
Because lawns are fucking stupid.
Context is important. I grew up on 5 acres of pretty wild land so the lawn around the house was anything but fucking stupid.
Have kids a place to play in view of the big windows in the house, was a very very small part of the overall land and have us room to play.
In more suburban or urban environments is a completely different discussion I will grant you
I was purposefully allowing my grass to grow because my area is in a severe drought and the herbivorous wildlife (groundhogs, rabbits, and deer) have slim pickings right now and they started coming onto my property to eat. I even leave the gates open to the fenced part when I’m not home so the critters can get in easier.
The other day my neighbor mowed half my yard without my consent because he saw a garter snake cross the road and go into my yard. I was, and still am, so pissed. He cut the grass down to the dirt. He didn’t even tell me after the fact. I had to go door to door asking my neighbors if they knew who tf touched my yard while I was out and about. My neighbor admitted to it when I got to his place to ask and had the audacity to get shitty with me about letting my grass grow.
I’ve had something similar happen too. There’s some shitty fucking people out there.
Right?? Like this neighbor seemed pretty damn cool until he pulled that shit. He lost a bunch of weight and he suddenly became the biggest dickhead on the planet…🙄
that’s so fucked up for them to do that
It really was. I had to pay my usual grass guy the price of a full cut to finish it, too. Apparently making the drive to my place for less isn’t worth it for him, which I totally understand. I could not afford a full cut on my own, so I had to borrow money from my mom. My usual grass guy is really great and he uses my yard to teach his kids yard work, so my mom didn’t mind helping me out.
Still super bummed about the wildlife needing food though. It’s super illegal to actively feed the wildlife where I live, so I can’t really provide for them.
Not shown: the limestone 16" down.
ITT lots of people who blessedly have no idea what an HOA is.
I think it’s a curse to know what HOA even are. Rest of the world is just normal.
Or we know all about them and avoid them at almost all cost.
Ur mom?
/j
Benefits of living in bumfuck. Though to be real, I’d never buy or build in a HOA. It’s a choice.
Instructions unclear: lawn covered in bricks and sponges now.
ClimateTown just did lawns the other day! www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLYMjPNppRQ
Relevant Climate Town-video which just dropped: nebula.tv/…/climatetown-americas-dumbest-crop/ / youtu.be/KLYMjPNppRQ
The shape of the roots of the shrubs is somewhat exaggerated. Many do go that deep, but they’re not that wide all the way down. There are only a few types that grow roots that look like that.
There are also deep root grasses if you want a lawn, but don’t want to ruin your soil.
Also, you can totally have a lawn. It’s a great place to Do Things in your garden, and it’s better than bricks or concrete. I can’t host a bbq in between the shrubs after all.
Just, turn the bits where you don’t Do Things into some other plant than lawn grass. At the very least you don’t really need those corners.
In my area we have communal lawns for lounging, soccer, etc. so that individual homes have smaller gardens, and areas not needed for human activity are allowed to grow wild while in season.
Right with ya, what I’m doing now. We have a tiny house on an 80’x200’ lot and the back 30’ was already left wild. LOL, now the whole backyard is an impassable mess. :)
I’m thinking clover next year if I can afford it. My 70s elementary playground was mostly clover and we beat the shit out of it, 3 times a day. (For you younger folks, “recess” was a time in the morning, at lunch and afternoon when we ran outside and did whatever the fuck we wanted.)
Ironically, they used to adulterate grass seed to clover to make it cheaper. Now we gotta pay a monstrous premium for clover seed. Go figure.
I have clover in an area where sometimes, maybe once-twice a week, a car parks. It doesn’t hold at all, I’ve been re-sowing it many times, even tried growing it in pots and planting once it matured.
There’s better ground cover that stands up to reasonable wear and tear from activities etc that also improves the soil, unlike standard grasses.
Wonder if this affects ground water as well
I know this is a meme, but shit like this is why I allow wild growth on my property. First year I owned my home the ground got muddy as hell from the new build since the ground was all dug up and tilled.
From the second year on I’ve only mowed a path for my driveway and the front walkway and the rest grows wild. Sweetgrass and other native plants anywhere from like 1 to 3 feet tall and the area is high desert (Colorado) so the “weeds” suck up any moisture they can get, no flood, no mud. It’s great.
I’ll never understand MFers in the rurals curating lawns.
Basically, it’s a flex. In order to have a perfect looking grass yard, you either need to kill all your free time to maintain it, or pay people a lot of cash to keep it tip-top. And the free time thing also requires money since you probably don’t have your life set up like that unless you’re paying for it somewhere else. Any other approach will yield mediocre results which will immediately mark you as unable to keep pace with your more monied neighbors.
Assuming you’re playing their game, that is. Which you clearly are not. Good job!
Totally different ecosystem here in NW Florida, but I am also getting great results. 75% of the yard hasn’t seen a lawn mower in 2 years, the 25% that has is still fairly wild. Lots of wild plants, lots of non-native but compatible plants, plenty of surface water. We planted a few “ponds”, 150G and smaller. Thought they would take a year or two to take off. NOPE. The 150G I buried last spring was teeming with life in 2 weeks. Maybe I cheated by throwing water plants, from the river and creek in there, along with their native mud. :)
We’re the only house in the hood with; frogs (deafening last spring), hummingbirds, pollinators of all sorts (forgot to make a bee hotel this year), dragonflies (hope to have shitloads when the adults come after 2-years underwater), fewer mosquitoes, butterflies, can’t remember what all.
The insect population is worse than it was 4 short years ago, drastically worse. That scares me more than anything I’ve seen. Even in the hundreds of acres surrounding the hood, not much, not like it was. Hoping I can turn things around in my tiny part of the world.
How do you deal with native fauna that lives in wild vegetation? Mosquitoes, flies, ticks, etc.?
Mosquitos hardly exist in much of Colorado, so that probably helps them.
I live in a decidedly different environment, but have also let my yard go to native plants (the HoA is mad, but the state passed laws protecting my native plant yard so they can get fucked) and it took a couple years for there to be a bug balance.
I had a ton of aphids the first year, but the second year the aphid wasps and lady bugs knew where I lived to handle them.
Nature will balance itself if possible
It essentially all takes care of itself, it’s a whole ecosystem. There’s no standing water for mosquitos thanks to the foliage. There’s also lizards, the occasional frog, birds. The deer eat some of the taller stuff. Even with the deer, there’s at least one mountain lion in the area I’ve seen, which I presume helps keep the population reasonable. I dunno, it doesn’t really need any tending, other than to clear a path where I need.
Aside from that, my neighbor has pine trees, and occasionally pine cones take root and need their root- balls shoveled out. That’s the only big maintenance because I don’t want the big trees on my property. I wouldn’t mind, but for two things:
They always seem to root down near the road on my driveway path or walk-down.
I have solar panels and can’t have them growing up on the southeast side side of the house, and that’s where they tend to fall.
Besides that, I have to knock down the occasional wasp nest (paper wasps) on the house, but if they nest away from the house I leave them alone. It’s all minimal maintenance. If you let nature do its thing it tends to find a balance. Humans are the ones usually screwing it up.
Moskitos live anywhere there is stale water, so either clean it or have it wild enough that other insects outcompet them.
Put your compost pile somewhere you don’t walk past a lot, because that’s where flies congregate.
Ticks aren’t that mobile, they need some animal to carries them there.
I love natural growth and we have plenty around (PNW), but that invasive Himalayan Blackberry is constantly creeping back out of the wild edges. We’ve done well enough pushing it back, but it is so pervasive and the animals help spread the seeds. That and the other noxious weeds (Scotch-broom, thistle, tansy, etc) have us quite busy doing our best to remove and keep out. It’s like spitting into the wind if the other land-owners around don’t do it as well. Oh well.
We also planted tons of native “deer-resistant” plants. They love it. I call it deer salad.
if the other land-owners around don’t do it as well
My fight with fire ants in the South. Insect populations have tanked over the last 4 years, but the fire ants are on the rampage in the surrounding forest. I poison my neighbor’s yards, it’s still a non-stop fight.
For any Southerner’s coming along; I don’t use any insecticides or herbicides except hydramethylnon. Yeah, it costs more, but a little dab’ll do ya. Amdro is a popular brand name, not sure who else uses it.
If this isn’t the most relatable thing that’s (kinda) specific to me
We tore our front lawn out this summer. By the time we were working in July the (clay) soil under the sod was brick hard for 18 inches before it got workable again.
The yard is now 70% native and the area with high sun is drought tolerant. It’s only been a few weeks and already the pollinators are here in force and there’s a pair of morning doves that come by to hang out most mornings.
Mine yard is about the same, I’d guess 75% native, wild as hell, can’t walk in a lot of that.
What surprises me is how fast the insects and animals came back. I’m nowhere near the insect population of 4 years back, can’t fix that by myself, but it’s way better.
Plus lawns are typically domed up to avoid sogginess, causing tons of runoff into the storm drains (including runoff from sprinklers). It’s lunacy.
I work in municipal government, and I have very strong feeling about leaf blowers.
All these assholes blowing all the great fertilizing trulimmings and dirt off their lawn and into the street to clog up the storm drains.
My father, and mother after he died, spent 40 fucking years raking the leaves from under the shrubs and throwing them away. Our house was surrounded by lush bushes, entire house, entire back yard. Took little me and dad 4 hard hours to trim all that.
Got back from taking botany related classes in college. Tried to explain that bagging the lawn clippings and raking the leaves would kill everything. She wouldn’t hear it.
Anyway, dad’s dead, mom’s dead, entire fucking yard is dead. Lost it all but some barely hagin’ in there grass. It’s a fucking desert.
Old lady on the corner religiously rakes and burns her leaves, goes after it like it’s her fucking job. We got a max of 2" of topsoil in NW Florida, max. Her entire lot is nearly all sand.
Bro if ur using a leaf blower to remove leaves from your lawn and not from your driveway you gotta be extra special
Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Better idea, aerate it. There are loads of tools for that