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@@Vv-ys4vw Climate change is a complex web of numerous contributing factors, all of which we have to tackle if we’re going to avoid impending ecological catastrophe and build a more sustainable world. One of the biggest contributors is capitalism, and OCC points this out in his other videos (not to mention the fact that the settler colonialism critqued in this video is deeply intertwined with capitalism), but white, suburban “lawn culture” is clearly an important aspect too. Don’t get so caught up in your anti-capitalist activism that you fail to recognize other social/environmental ills. As for what I’m hoping to replace my lawn with, to be quite honest, the answer is nothing! I’m trying to transform my backyard into a more natural space that isn’t so wasteful. I don’t need a perfect lawn when I have the natural world right outside my door!
Someone has been seeing some tweets from Lee Carter 😏 Or perhaps you both red the same article or watched the same clip🤔 Or maybe it's a happy coincidence in timing 🤷♂️
At 8:41 there is a scene with a specific picture of american suburbs i have seen a lot of times already. What is the history behind it as its used so often?
The best thing is that most lawns are literally useless. No children play on it, no adults sit or lay on it, nothing. It is literally only used for aesthetic reasons. Especially front yards are absolutely useless.
There was another video about this, someone did an informal study where they just walked around suburbia and counted how many people were actually using their gardens, in like an entire neighborhood where thousands lived they only ever saw a couple of children outside at most. They compared it to inner cities where the playgrounds were almost always filled with children and adults, and it's obvious when you think about it, playing with your siblings gets boring eventually but playing with other kids is way more fun. Similarly the reason why adults would hang out, outside is mostly if they're meeting other adults and you do that at a park not on your lawn.
I've never mowed my lawn. When I fist moved to my house I planted the front yard in sunflowers. People loved them and no one complained. Unfortunately while they look great in spring and summer it turned into a dead tangle of weeds in the Fall and winter. This year I built raised garden beds and planted miniature fruit trees and berry bushes. It needs some refining to look good but it makes great use of all the sun it gets. Hopefully it inspires others. The county recently passed a law forbidding HOAs and local governments from punishing people for having eco-friendly landscaping.
What kind of person wants to put a 75 year old lady in jail because she didn't mow her lawn??? Also wow definitely an interesting topic that I knew nothing about, awesome video!
Some people are just buttinskies. But also, as long as the lawn is seen as the standard, people do have to worry about what a neighbor with an space that's seen as unkempt is doing to their property value. Some people would be fine letting their neighbors be, but if they plan to sell their house some day, they're caught up in the system, too.
I grew up in a house in California. My mother replaced all the "regular" lawn grass in our front yard with two types of native California grasses. They were decently pretty, but their big advantages were that both species were drought tolerant and fire resistant. Kind of important factors for California. My mom explained to most of the neighbors what she'd done and most of them approved, in part because it was during a time when water rationing was being implemented in our county. However one neighbor decided that because our lawn wasn't a "proper" lawn that he would do his best to get my mother into trouble. So he called the cops on her. Multiple times. And each time they said she needed to uproot her grass because they said her lawn was a fire hazard, because she wasn't watering it enough. During a water ration. And each time my mother had to patiently explain to them that her grass was native grass approved by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife for private planting AND that said native grass was the fire resistant and therefore the opposite of a fire hazard. And that the reason why she wasn't watering as much as a normal lawn was because these plants were drought tolerant AND they weren't SUPPOSED to be watered as much as non-native grass. Whereupon the cops of the day would sheepishly say that it was probably okay and then leave. Until an entirely different set of cops would pop up a month later with the same spiel. Eventually it stopped but it was honestly one of the most absurd things we ever had to put up with. The fact this one neighbor got into his head that everyone was supposed to conform to what HE thought a proper lawn should be, never mind that said lawns were and still are water guzzlers and that's idiotic when you're living some place where water is at times a fiercely scarce commodity
I'm a forest technician. I started earthing up my lawn when we moved here 20 yrs ago and it was war with the city and my neighbours, now they are up to speed and I am left alone! Great article, feed the bees! 😘
Next I would expect you and your neighbors to require that EVERYONE "earth up their lawn," whatever that means. Thus are fashions imposed upon others that have different values.
We planted raspberry bushes in my front lawn, they immediately start to spread out on their own and if you go look you can see all kinds of bees there pollinating the flowers, bees which weren't there when we had just grass before. In the future I would like my whole lawn to be a big garden
Raspberries are a nice choice because they're at least hardy and spread freely even if their yield is poor, and as you say they feed bees. They might spread more than you want but you can always cut them back to the edge of your path.
I keep a lot of Raspberry canes too. I planted Thornless Blackberry, Tayberry and Loganberries among them. I know people like to grow them in patches, but I regulate mine into parallel rows so the long fruit canes can be tied to form tunnels (makes picking fruit much easier for little me. Under these tunnels, I am gradually planting Bluebells to take advantage of the light shade. They are fantastic for bees at the start of the season, and will compete very successfully with other weeds and grass.
@@fhm21 nah there are laws and regulations for pretty much every single smallest thing you can think of, but neither draconian, nor actively enforced most of the time.
The megadrought in the West right now is incentivizing people to do something other than have a lawn next to their homes. For years, a lot of the many suggestions have revolved around replacing them with native plants that use *much* less water. Now, that push is acceleratiing. I think there is real opportunity to turn a bad situation into something good.
I’m in Utah, and yes there’s a big push for water conservation. However, 81% of the water in Utah is used by agriculture operations, the vast majority of which is alfalfa. Cattle feed. Every lawn in the state could disappear overnight and it would barely make a dent in the water problem. Just some food for thought.
@@16vjohnny finally someone with logic.... Same could be said about EVs.... Everyone in the world could have an ev vehicle right now But only a small percentage of CO2 emissions will be depleted. You got country's like China and industries like the Airline industry are the the biggest emitters of CO2. but right now they are unregulated.... But everyone keeps insisting you must buy an EV to save the planet.......
@@MiguelGarcia-vj7oo EVs definitely aren't the only answer but, according to the EPA, transportation makes up 30% of emissions with 82% of that from road vehicles. Switching from gas to EVs centralizes the issue and allows for a reduction of emissions by changing how the power is generated.
The usual excuse is protecting property values. “How will I be able to sell my house for 300% what I paid for it if it’s next to that untrimmed slum house of yours?! I’m calling the cops!”
Because of sprawl and social injustices and inequality, I have to bike 8 miles round trip to access my 100 sq. ft. of community garden. There are literally thousands upon thousands of sq. ft. of useless grass in the fiefdoms of the $1 million homes to the east of my 650 sq. ft. apartment. But I cannot use them because they are defended by threat of police violence, and thus I am forced into wage labor for my food, just like the peasants long ago.
I love it when quality RUclips creators make videos I want to make, so that I don't have to. Great work here. One thing that really needs to go away is setback requirements: the requirement that houses are set back a minimum distance from the street. Setbacks, if used, should be a meter or two, not the 10 to 20 meter setbacks that are common today in American and Canadian suburbia. There's no reason to have such mindless and obsolete regulations on our books that force people to maintain massive front yards.
That would be fine if you live in a place were there were no cars. The houses across the street from me were pretty close to the road to begin with but they came through and made the road a 4 lane now the road is about 12 feet from the houses. A few years ago a truck went through a house and killed a person that was chillin on the couch.
I hate mowing the lawn, a lot, but it's just so ingrained into our culture... It's not fun, especially when it's hot out... Another reason why I'm starting to hate my suburban life.
I’m always amazed by this phenomenon in America about your pristine lawn at the front. Just rip it up put in wildflowers, and a few evergreens for the winter. Job done.
Great video overall, I appreciate what you presented and it makes good sense to me. In reality what became the "lawn" goes back hundreds of years earlier. Going back a bit farther than the point at which you started, in medieval times, the trees and brush was cut down around castles as a measure of military defense. With no foliage cover, your attackers had much more trouble to sneak up on you to sack your castle. This was the dawn of the "lawn".
As someone who absolutely despises having to mow a lawn, especially as I continue to become less physically capable of doing so, I really appreciate this video. The lawn is the most vapid, pointless, and wasteful thing people can have on their property. I only do the bare minimum to keep the back yard from growing out of control, and I don't bother watering or fertilizing it. If I have the money to do so one day, I want to rip up my entire back yard and replace it with a garden and/or a meadow of native wildflowers.
You also highlight another reason why lawns are bad, it's an enormous labor burden to place on disabled people just to fit in to the rest of society. It's similar to how autistic and ADHD people are forced to spend enormous amounts of energy on hiding their true selves to avoid discrimination. So I think we can very much see this as another aspect of ableism.
Cut it once or twice a year, start of spring & start of september. That way you'll benefit wildflowers and pollinators without it becoming overgrown or unmanagable. Best to check locally for cutting timing but it shouldnt be too far off
"The lawn is the most vapid, pointless, and wasteful thing people can have on their property." But of course you would never think about telling your neighbors what they can and cannot have on THEIR property.
You don't have to wait to have the money to do thr entire thing all at 1 time. Start small. With vegetables that you eat most of. Then when you harvest those, you will be able to save just a little bit more money. Which you can use to continue growing your garden. After a while, you will see. You eventually tore up your whole yard and replaced it with the garden you wanted. But you didn't have to wait to do it all at once. Best of luck on you endeavors and I hope you a happy gardening.
Consider turning some of it into a garden! As a guy who has to bike 8 miles round trip just to access 100 sq. ft. of community garden, I wouldn't feel so resentful of the useless manicured lawns of the $1 million homes if I saw more people using their space wisely by gardening!
@Pat B well for one thing, some of us have dogs. And for another, ticks and mosquitos carry diseases and wild animals can be dangerous. And cutting the grass is relaxing and physically active and requires discipline. It's nice being able to look outside and think that you actually out in work to do something and to make it how it is. Imo, the psychological benefits as well as physical health benefits make it worth while. And if you have tall grass with dogs, you're just asking for them to get a heart worm or a tick.
@@awesomedavid2012 the “psychological benefits” of having a manicured lawn isnt a valid excuse to wreak havoc on our local environments. Besides whats more rewarding: fostering natural beauty and biodiversity- or wasting your life away to maintain a piece of land you rarely use? Also we wouldn’t have such a large tick problem if we hadn’t disrupted our natural ecosystems in the first place- many native animals eat ticks, if we had a better relationship with them- our tick woes would go away
@Pat B cats can survive in the wild. in fact many have. we didn’t domesticate them lol, they just took advantage of the mice that ate our grains and we just made sure they didn’t die. dogs on the other hand for the most part will die out, but some packs will interbreed and create mutts that can survive in the wild :) it’s happened in america and there are some wild dog packs in south east america.
That is an interesting topic! Thank you for this video! Here in central Europe it is becoming more and more popular to have a garden made of concrete and stone! The people build a massive driveway out of concrete for their SUV and the front yard is simply made of gravel. Sometimes there is a single bush or small tree in the middle and that`s it! There is nothing green, just grey. And some people use chemicals to stop weeds growing through the gravel... Is this a topic in the US as well? Our garden is a little bit "oldscool", we have a lot of trees, bushes and fields where flowers for the insects are growing. So all in all it is very colorful and wild, just some small bits of lawn inbetween to walk on easier. People need to know, that a garden does not need to be perfectly clean. It is better for nature to have some wild areas and hedges, where animals can nest and find food. Greetings from Germany!
I never understood how these dead gravel and stone gardens became a trend in the first place. They are so lifeless, boring and empty, oftentimes literally the only living thing in them are a few conifer bushes. Even a lawn is probably be better for the environment compared to a gravel layer. I really hope natural and wild gardens with lots of different plants growing freely become a trend again, they look better, are much better for nature and insects, and can provide food if edible plants are planted.
In 2008 I was living in Stockton, CA in a gated community (where my girlfriend at the time and her ex had bought a house). In that community if one did not keep the lawn well cared for--which of course in the summer meant irrigating it--the HOA would fine you. Meanwhile in nearby Fresno farmers did not have enough water to grow food. Good old human irrationality.
@@firearmsstudent My (now ex) was already separated from her husband and I was staying in the house that they had bought before I met her. Yes, it was odd, but we made it work.
I live in the Czech Republic and in the last couple of years it became really popular both in the public and private spaces to get rid of the lawns in favour of flowering meadows. You only need to cut it 2-3 times a year, it supports insects etc. This was enabled by some companies coming up with new seeding mixtures and it being recommended in media as a way of adapting to the climate change.
The reason why I like this man's approach more than anything else is that he recognizes that you can't just be like "you are doing bad so do what I say". He really takes the time to present alternatives and understand the incentives of the way our economic system works and unless you change those incentives you're not really going to get any kind of real change.
We refuse to put anything but maybe a little solid fertilizer on our lawn every year. We are also slowly replacing the lawn with native plants that grow freely. I love it. Less watering. Less maintenance. Less money spent trying to make it "look nice". All I do on the non-grass areas now is pull a few weeds every so often. And it looks beautiful.
@@normandy2501 European cities always develop like that. If you want to live in a house, you can live more at the edge. If you want to live "in" the city you move to hotspots. Leads to more diverse neighboorhoods as well: 2 house appartment, just a single house with a market close by, an appartement in the city close to office jobs and shops.
@@normandy2501 i thinks its so unfair for many americans! I have seen the statistics on how the few gets everything. Your government have all the resources they could dream of so its not a question that they should help poeple, but they dont. Really hope the situation of your country changes soon. I hope its better with Biden over Trump at least. Easy for me to say but i know no other way. Try to be the force that invites more democracy to america. Good luck❤
@@normandy2501 No one is trying to abolish single-family dwellings or saying you can't have privacy. But you should know that city taxpayers are paying for your suburban idyll via federal and state grants for roads, sewers, and utilities. American suburbs do not currently support a large enough tax base to pay for themselves. That seem fair to you?
If you're talking about peat moss then that takes decades to provide ecological value. Not feasible for land which gets developed, demolished, and redeveloped relatively often. We should seek to preserve existing peat bogs, which sequester a large proportion of carbon, and choose suitable plants for our gardens.
@Blue Plumbob Opinions can be changed. Imo clover looks amazing especially when it's flowering. Plus there are micro clover varieties that don't grow as tall so those would help with automatic pest control by not giving them too much of a habitat.
I replaced my lawn with UC Verde Buffalo Grass. Its a very draught tolerant grass that's been bred specifically for southern California. I absolutely love it, and you can leave it unmowed if you like.
Own a scythe, I’ve mowed once in the last month. I love living in the country for this reason. Use to live on a corner lot in the middle of the city. I had 2 front yards and no back yard. Worst decision of my life. My lawn was useless. Kids couldn’t play in it due to the location and lack of any fence to keep them safe from traffic. Mowing every week taking 15-30mins of my time (thankfully it was a small lawn.) we actually spend time in our lawn here, which ends up keeping the grass shorter where we are. It’s not mowed so short so it doesn’t come back so tall or very fast. I trim my grass little bits at a time now and only when I start to notice certain plants are seeding that I don’t want in my yard. Their clippings get added as mulch or get thrown on a compost. Front yard is now a massive garden, something I believe everyone should at least try once.
They, like Vox, just make me feel guilty for things I never did, just cause I'm white. We need to stop making everything race based. I know that's what happened but can't we just let it go and move forward? Stop finger pointing and work together to find a solution
@@coastaku1954 that is the whole idea of this video, to bring attention to u but first they have to tell u the history of how it started....then it’s easier to fix from their ...aleast u know the history of lawn in America and the bad effect on climate change and ways u can correct it ... If their are video calling out corruption in developing countries and climate issues around the world why can’t video be made about countries like America
I had to go to Environmental Court in the '90s. in Little Rock AR. I didn't even know that there was an Environmental Court. I lived on an acre of rocks and natural grasses, wildflowers, and trees. It wasn;t groomed enough, the complaint was from a neighbor who was OCD about his manicured lawn.
I live in the Netherlands, we have so much rain that lawns are advised to garden owners over hard surfaces so that the rainwater can seep into the earth instead of going down the drain. Moreover, I love gardening and there is a lawn in my garden, which I like and which is quite useful to me. I largely agree with your point of view, but I am not going to get rid of it and turn my garden into some stone desert. But I do have some advice, that makes owning a lawn far less of a waste. Mow the lawn so often, that you do not have to collect the cut grass. On average this means cutting the grass twice as often as you usually do. The cut grass will be so small, that it will disappear into the lawn and will act as nutrient for the grass. This way you can keep your lawn healthy indefinitely without adding fertilizer. Odd as it may sound, this does not require extra work. If you mow your lawn without a grasscollector on it, you do not have to stop every few meters to take the collector off the mower, take it to your "green" container to empty it and walk back to attach it to your mower again. Bottom line: you will not exhaust your soil, you will not polute your soil with fertilizer, you will not be dumping tons of healthy green material over the years and you will save some money on fertilizer and garbage disposal. Finally, I collect rainwater from the roof into several barrels, so that I do not need drinking water from the tap to spray the lawn in case a drought.
I love my lawn, tall fescue in particular. No chemicals are necessary if you put in a little work to make it a good thick turf. I enjoy it’s beauty when I come home after work, and looking out my front picture window on the weekend. I find it relaxing, and maintenance is almost Zen.
Taking care of my house I live in with my family is one of the most meditative things for me. Your home is your sanctuary, take care of it, and reap the benefits. Plus, not taking care of your lawn and area around your home invites spiders, critters, etc.
Only reason I want a yard is because I want a garden. I want fresh fruits and veggies, as well as just something for me to do. I like gardens. Lol. Also trees. Lots of trees. Nice shade perfect places for tree swings or tires. Lol
seriously, i want a property with lots of land so i can make it into a forest and live in the middle of it. i’d love to have a stream or pond to add to the greenery.
@@coagulatedsalts4711 trees take decades to grow like that, we have a set of 2 decade old spruce trees up here in Canada and they only recently grew past 6 feet tall
We should be allowed to plant almost anything on our own property, imagine if everyone who can started growing their own food and it didn't have to be trucked in from far. it would be awesome.
The Corporations that our government bows to don't want that as it would cut into their profits(some of which they use to pay people to keep their golf course lawns green).
@@marvinbrickhouse9122 everything except my front yard is planted, here in Quebec Canada in most parts of it you are not allowed to have a garden in your front yard
@@marvinbrickhouse9122 lemme tell you about a lil' authoritarian organization called the "Homeowners Association" or HoA--basically a bunch of people who get to decide everything about what you can do with YOUR property. often the rules are stodgy and dated, and cover everything from minimum sqft of front lawn, to outdoor furniture and what color your house can be. regressive conservativism at its finest.
@@marvinbrickhouse9122 every neighborhood i lived in in the US has hoA telling you what to do with your house's outside appearance and one thing is you cant grow food and once they even said we couldnt plant a tree in the front
in 2018 I ripped up both my back and front lawns and replaced it with ground cover plants and flowers. My neighbours thought I was crazy, but who cares? my daughter loves seeing the bees buzzing around and pollenating.
When i lived in the states, i was so dumbfounded by the whole lawn thing... Like... It s literally wasted space that gives you extra work for no reason.. All my suggestions as to what we could do with the space were shut down (like put up a swing for the kids or flower beds etc) because "what would the neighbours think?" :/
I used to hate how my mom always grew vegetable garden in our yard instead of just growing grass but adult me is so thankful for the fresh food I get from that garden. And this video just made it even more better.
I wish I could put this on my social media, I live in a indigenous community in northern NYS and I don’t mow my lawn and I always hear about from everyone but I think this video might change a few people in my communities mind especially the part about colonialism
Start by leaving the edges of your property natural. It will provide a natural screen from the neighbors and provide food and shelter for bees, butterflies and other insects and small animals. Plant some flowering bushes and flowers and reduce the lawn space considerably. Add a big flower or vegetable garden and reduce the lawn even more.
I just got more into gardening, and while working on something, I accidentally cut a wire that's used for my family's lawn mowing robot. Now, after this video, I wonder what could have been if we just got rid of it. I'm in Europe, so the thing about indigenous plants isn't that big of a worry, but we have quite a large property and using more of it as a vegetable garden would be very cool.
I have never fertilized or watered my lawn. Sure it has weeds but I don't care, it's probably good for the insects. But I do cut it, I don't want snakes and ticks.
Yup, ticks are the reason we don’t keep long grass around the house. Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever are not something I want to experience.
@Town Crazy I keep hens as pets and because I think the egg industry is cruel but it's true that I don't save money by having them, especially because I don't really treat them like livestock. they dig up the grass for dust baths more than they forage for bugs too.
AGREE! The other day I found myself mowning lawn at my grandparents vacation house. And the whole time I was thinking how many insects have I killed and how many animals had to be displaced for the ORIGINAL forest-remowal that this lawn succeeded upon...
One addition to this video about the lawn would be kids: i have read in multiple articles that kids who grow up with a lawn are less comfortable with nature. I dont really know the details, but i have seen many talk about it
i'm not sure if it's that significant or not, it might just be a correlation. because richer suburban kid won't really choose naturewalk as their pass time of choice
When I let my lawn go a bunch of different weeds, flowers, and other plants take over and get out of control fast. It's only an annoyance because the borough I live in will massively fine me for not mowing regularly.
As a guy who runs a lawn care business, 90% of the area i maintain is not used AT ALL other than to sit there and look like lawn. Even more pointless is when people buy steep, wooded lakefront property that is not suitable for turf in the slightest and obsessively try to turn it all into suburban style lawn. It's a real problem that is viewed as a good thing.
The reason I've heard cited most often (I once worked as a health inspector for a rural area but got my hands-on training in a large city) is that it provides rat harborage. Which it does, but probably not nearly as much as rundown tenement basements do. Lately I've been having some success convincing my neighbors not to spray weedkiller for that monoculture grass look; explaining how much healthier the soil/vegetation biome is with a natural mixture of "weeds" among the grass. Actually I'm surprised they've listened; maybe we are finally learning a little bit.
awesome video. i remember a college professor talking about exactly this a few years ago. growing up in Seattle in the 80s, i remember my neighborhood having all these bare lawns. even as a kid i realized it was kind of desolate. one house at the corner suddenly filled every square inch of their corner yard with diverse plants and trees, as well as solar panels on their roof. the neighbors all thought they went a little overboard. but now, decades later, diverse gardens are the norm all around Seattle. though that corner house still has the densest garden i've ever seen. walking around the neighborhoods all around Seattle and admiring the gardens is one of my favorite things to do when i return home. however, if you go to some of the new Seattle suburbs, it's pretty sad how they're still in the "destroy the forest and build a development with no tree" trap. they had a golden opportunity to build a new house surrounded by mature trees. here in Korea, it's a totally different story, as most people don't have a chance to own their own house. the majority live in highrises or small apartment buildings. at least we're surrounded by green small mountains everywhere. but thinking back to Seattle, mentalities have changed over the years, and hopefully your video nudges a few more people in the right direction. ;-)
My backyard is large, but not useless. We keep geese, chickens a tortoise and a rabbit as pets. They roam free during mid spring to early autumn, grazing the grass and browsing on shrubs, fertilizing it, produce eggs, and generally maintain it. We have some fruit trees, thick undergrowth, and some wild-ish looking overgrowth with the shrubs and trees. There are different species of grasses, clovers, dandelions, and more. We never use insecticides or herbicides. I will never allow it. Spiders, wasps, beetles and other invertebrates are extremely abundant. All of the livestock and pets care for the yard completely. We never mow, we just water it occasionally for the primary grazers, and that's it. This is all in an urban backyard. Compared to all my neighbors, our yard doesn't look nearly as neat and managed, but I love it that way! I watch native birds eat from the fruit trees, nest in the vegetation, and I try my best to keep away invasive pests like starlings and house sparrows. We get more insects, flowers, and a healthier, more colorful look to the yard than any surrounding lawns and yards. I wouldn't have it any other way. If I could replace all the plants with only native ones, I would immediately, but sadly, I cannot. I'm trying to see if I can remove my front lawn and replace it with a more productive environment. There are a few bushes and fruit trees there, but it's not enough. It's small, but still has too much useless grass. I think a lawn is fine only when it's used productively. If you have a resource, sustainably take advantage of it. Don't waste it.
Best video I’ve ever watched. Been doing it to my acre for almost 35 years now. Released 75 monarchs and a few dozen silkmoths into the wild every year.
Yes, yes, YES! Wonderful message! And my own personal battle. Slowly changing a quarter-acre Sydney (Australia, the other colonial project with so many issues alike to the U.S & Canada) rental's front and back yard from imported grass to endemic natives, food, and exotics that work with the climate add to native habitat and don't compete with the former. It's horrifying how degraded suburban soil is, especially in places like mine; rentals, no gardens, mow to up-keep, cheaper end of the spectrum. It's a slow process, and possible with almost no money, but it still sad to know we could have avoided all this. While the southeast in the U.S. braces for a heatwave, in six months it will be Sydney's turn for almost 50 degrees celsius days. Lawns do nothing really to help with that. Trees, & particularly stratification, are the answer! Also to water conservation & soil erosion! #RipUpTheLawn
Here's a fun idea, you could ask your community for B role of the cities they live in, they could submit it over the reddit maybe. Anyone in city X could you film some static B role of your busses/ houses? Then on the bottom left of the video, you could do a shout out thanking your community for sharing this.
While that's a great way to organically (pun intended) foster a sense of community, unfortunately the varying quality and style of the footage would impact the slick presentation this channel is known for.
It wasn't just the paintings they were influenced by. Castles have to have a killing field a certain distance around the castle was cleared as part of the defensive system in order to protect the castle and occupants and the look of it is appealing and it caught on.
I got cited by my city last week for not maintaining my lawn well enough. The stated issue was that I was degrading my neighborhood's appearance and value. Why didn't the lady's neighbors just do a good deed and mow her lawn for her, if they cared so much?!
I agree 100%. As I was mowing the lawn, the repeated thought in my head was "this is really a useless grass that bears no crop/fruits". I'm considering multiple alternatives. Also, I think the act of making such a content and enlightening people with it truly is American thing. Can you imagine doing this in China or Russian-monitored Internet space there?
However all that is much more labor intensive than a 45 minute walk with a rechargeable lawnmower every three weeks. Zero lawn landscapes are often much much more work. Even bare dirt or gravel in a rainy area requires tending. When I was a little kid, my grandmother had a very small front lawn (15 minutes to mow with a nonmotorized pushmower) and a large rear yard of dirt. She spent hours manually raking weeds out of the dirt and fixing water erosion and potholes. The gardens of camellias and azaleas that surrounded the dirt yard took hours of her time every day, keeping vines and thorns out. If you live at the sand beach, on a rocky mountain or in the desert, then non lawns are easier... However if you have soft soil and rain nothing is easier than an unbroken lawn... Except pavement. Be thankful your landlord has easy tend ground cover like grass.
@@beth8775 in non snake areas. Quite a hazard and surprise to your kids or wife coming through the yard to find a pigmy rattler. Wildflowers are best in remote areas of your property or unused borders not visited by foot. Even burbs harbor critters. Always keep growth down to an inch or two within 20' of the house or you'll find a coiled guest sleeping on your front mat one day... ask how i know.
i personally think that growing a field of lavender or some other nice flower or tree like an orange or lemon tree would look nicer, provide shade and help local insects and use potentially less water
Such a great video, thank you for putting this together! I bought a house last year and have been slowly working on digging up the grass to replace it with native plants and a veggie garden :)
Thank God I was born with things like RUclips, Nebula and Curiosity Stream as an 18 year old; I'm learning so much invaluable information before I even move out and go in my 20s Incredibly thankful for all the videos you guys make~ c:
I always hated having to maintain the lawn as a young adult and resented what an utter waste of good green it was. If I had my own space with a lawn I would focus on making it a safe harbor for indigenous flora and fauna and treat as a space to give back to nature.
For those unaware this is what typically happens. In the US. 1. Code enforcement is contacted or otherwise made aware of the unmowed lawn. 2. After about a week code enforcement will leave a notice on the home. 3. Code enforcement will continue to try and reach the home owner until a predetermined date that was written on the first and all notices. 4. Code enforcement turns the information in the the city clerk and another group decides if it's necessary to place a lean on the property. Some cities will mow the lawn and place a lean for the cost. Others may have standard fees that they use to lean the property. 5. If the property continues to violate code it will all happen again, normally no more than twice. 6. If the home owner has failed to mow the lawn AND pay the lean placed on the property the Sheriff's department is contacted to perform the arrest. And it goes on from there in the legal system. Typically they are arrested for violating the lean. So there was very likely a ton of information already given to the lady in this story to encourage her to mow the lawn. Many cities also have lawn mowing services for the elderly, it's just not cheap and not really meant for continuing services. Mowing lawns sucks but there is always more to the story.
i know him personally and i don’t think he would ever want to be regarded as a “hero” or to be idolized in anyway. rob is also all about personal consumption and usage while OCC tries to encourage community building for change and the importance of organized people power to dismantle systems of oppression
Here in Las Vegas NV, local government has banned new lawns, and the water company offers cash incentives to current lawn owners to convert to desert landscaping (aka xeriscaping.) This same government imposes fines on home owners who just stop watering the lawn to allow native plants (aka weeds) to grow in place of grass.
I currently live in someone else's home and its my job to cut the grass. Now I have even less desire than normal to do so. I wonder what else I could plant instead given the shade... hmm. Time to look up growing zones.
What I remember musing is how video game designers take what are basically shape primitives (cubes etc.) and try to make them look more varied and natural, whereas in real life people take varied, natural and interesting hedges and shave them into precise cubes etc.
I am not American and it always blew my mind how much they loved to mow or have lawns. I always thought it was entirely useless and I am wrong because more than useless, it is harmful!! We are doing so many things wrong in the world... we need to fix that.
I got rid of my grass lawn about 2 decades ago. In my backyard I mostly grow crops with fruit trees,plants and shrubs to lessen my dependency on going to the grocery store. In my front yard I have trees, shrubs and flowers for the pollinating bees and fertilizing birds. I try to coexist with nature . I don't have a motor vehicle which pollutes instead I either ride bicycles or ebikes mostly for my transportation needs. Sometimes I do need items that I can't carry on my bikes so I do have some goods delivered directly instead.
I have a 1/2 acre yard with a grass lawn with white clover, and it is crawling with honey bees, bumble bees, worms, and butterflies, . I also have a large vegetable garden, herb garden, 20 different fruit trees, 20 different nut trees, a few flowering trees, 100's of different bushes, tons of flowers, and about 100 different berry bushes and berry/fruit vines. No chemicals used on the lawn or foliage, only sprinkled with compost, compost tea, Tagro, Azomite, and sometimes organic fert., and ALL weeds are picked by hand. I do water in July and Sept., but live in Western Washington. I would replace the lawn with something else, but the amount of time i spend just on up-keep, of the current yard, is all i can handle. Everything i plant has a purpose, either; food for me, birds, humming birds, squires, butterflies, lady bugs, or bees. I plant tree's in areas that will shade the parts of the lawn that need watering, so that i can cut down on, or eliminate, the watering. Lawns are not themselves a bad thing, it all depends on how you maintain them, where you live, and if you grow other plants along side them. I really enjoy living in a park, that i have made, and being able to walk around and eat different fresh fruits, berries, and vegetables right off the vine.
Why do they use pesticides? I have a small lawn in Europe and I've never used pesticides. I water the grass maybe 2 times a year, so it can get brown in the summer. It's not as neatly kept short as some other lawns and it has some other plants growing between the grass, so I get to have some flowers in springtime. If you're not obsessed with keeping your lawn perfect, then it can be a low maintenance ground coverage, that doesn't do any harm to anyone or nature.
One thing that was not mentioned about not mowing lawns ticks and mosquitoes are a very big problem that is actually pretty good reason to keep your lawn mowed but if there is a way to avoid that and not have to mow your lawn I'm all for it
In my neighborhood, we have a law that we must keep lawns under 8". This is mostly to protect property value and keep mosquitos and other pests from breeding there. If you fail to upkeep, the city will now it for you and then fine you. If you don't like that, neighboring cities have different rules and are easy to move to. Gerry Suttle was issued a notice for her more than 18" grass, then was issued a court date, then missed that court date and had a warrant issued. Four local boys now mow her lawn for her.
This is so true, think about how helpful that space could be to plant bushes and plants that help animals and pollinators. Planting native trees and plants could help to actively repair ecosystems
I have a front ‘lawn’ that is about the size of a putting green. The rest of the yard is for food. When I tell people what I grow, they think I have a giant farm. The lot is only about a quarter acre with a house in the middle… Peaches, pears, plums, figs, apples, oranges, lemons, limes, grape fruit, tomatoes, melons, to many herbs to list… honey bees (5 hives) potatoes, etc… in back yard. Blue berries, strawberries, elder berries, raspberries, black berries… side yard. I only use eatable bushes like rosemary for landscaping… The odd thing, I live in a home owners association area. Few people have noticed because of the planting disguise 🥸
I am from Europe and this annoys me a lot. In many cases, people have an empty lawn and they plant poisonous shrubs around it (e.g., to get a bit of shade). So, you have a bit of space and you put literally nothing in most of it and then, instead of a shrub that has edible berries, you planted one that is useless to you and if you have small children, it is actually a problem? And as a bonus, you have to actually invest time and money to take care of the empty space you have... I understand that people don't want to grow food like tomatoes, because that takes a lot of time. But a shrub with edible berries? Around where I live, you just dig a hole, put the small shrub you bought in that hole, cover the rest of the hole with some soil and depending on the weather, you might want to pour a little bit of water in there. That's about it. Granted, in some cases it might take time for the shrub to start growing and producing food. And you might put a little bit of thought into what kind of shrub is best suited for your location (though, the people at the "shrub shop" will help you with that). And, yes, because of our dumb activities, you might need to water it a little once or twice a year. But other than that, it produces delicious eco-bio-homegrown berries. And, if your kids come from the garden saying they ate some berries, you can just smile, instead of panicking, trying to induce vomiting and calling the ambulance... What's worse, I see this "regularly moved grass with some poison shrubs" kind of approach in many public spaces. And I am not talking about parks where the grass is meant for people to sit and lay on. But rather just some empty space next to buildings, that no one uses.
i signed up for nebular and have to say nebular needs a lot of work. my only choices are a tiny window or full screen viewing. it has no recommendations and the entire social aspect is gone as it lacks comments. but my biggest gripe, it has a really tiny subset of creators compared to youtube on it.
Bought my first home a few years back and have shaved my lawn like 3x yrly max. I shave around all the pretty weeds and bushes that grow and have enjoyed a plethora of life in my backyard.
I only mow my massive 1 acre lawn every 2 weeks during the summer for 2-3 hours on a riding mower and it may be hard but I like it. My maintenance on it is only mowing now. No special sprays or watering. Just mowing. Native lawn species grown on it and the rain for watering is awesome. I also have wild fields in my backyard and which I want to keep open so native meadow plants and animals can live in it too. When and if I get a bush hog, I’ll mow those fields once a month and every so often to keep the field trails open.
💡 Do you have a lawn? What would you want to replace it with?
👍 Consider commenting and liking the video!!! It really helps this video beat the pesky algorithm!
🔗 Help OCC make more videos by signing up for Nebula using this link: go.nebula.tv/occ
Not one word about the capitalists you only attack "white suburbanites" whatever that means
@@Vv-ys4vw Climate change is a complex web of numerous contributing factors, all of which we have to tackle if we’re going to avoid impending ecological catastrophe and build a more sustainable world. One of the biggest contributors is capitalism, and OCC points this out in his other videos (not to mention the fact that the settler colonialism critqued in this video is deeply intertwined with capitalism), but white, suburban “lawn culture” is clearly an important aspect too. Don’t get so caught up in your anti-capitalist activism that you fail to recognize other social/environmental ills.
As for what I’m hoping to replace my lawn with, to be quite honest, the answer is nothing! I’m trying to transform my backyard into a more natural space that isn’t so wasteful. I don’t need a perfect lawn when I have the natural world right outside my door!
Someone has been seeing some tweets from Lee Carter 😏
Or perhaps you both red the same article or watched the same clip🤔
Or maybe it's a happy coincidence in timing 🤷♂️
At 8:41 there is a scene with a specific picture of american suburbs i have seen a lot of times already. What is the history behind it as its used so often?
Replacing a large portion of it with native plants, trees, and shrubs for native pollinators, birds, etc and honestly... less maintenance! 😂
The best thing is that most lawns are literally useless. No children play on it, no adults sit or lay on it, nothing. It is literally only used for aesthetic reasons.
Especially front yards are absolutely useless.
There was another video about this, someone did an informal study where they just walked around suburbia and counted how many people were actually using their gardens, in like an entire neighborhood where thousands lived they only ever saw a couple of children outside at most. They compared it to inner cities where the playgrounds were almost always filled with children and adults, and it's obvious when you think about it, playing with your siblings gets boring eventually but playing with other kids is way more fun. Similarly the reason why adults would hang out, outside is mostly if they're meeting other adults and you do that at a park not on your lawn.
@@Tyler-zw4kq how private can a lawn really be? Anyone can still see what you’re doing
@@Tyler-zw4kq So why not just get rid of front lawns and keep small backyards?
Don't worry. capitalism and the free market solve everything!
@@Tyler-zw4kq Replace them with food gardens, native flowers, trees, grasslands...literally the things recommended in the video.
I've never mowed my lawn. When I fist moved to my house I planted the front yard in sunflowers. People loved them and no one complained. Unfortunately while they look great in spring and summer it turned into a dead tangle of weeds in the Fall and winter. This year I built raised garden beds and planted miniature fruit trees and berry bushes. It needs some refining to look good but it makes great use of all the sun it gets. Hopefully it inspires others. The county recently passed a law forbidding HOAs and local governments from punishing people for having eco-friendly landscaping.
Good idea is to moved lawn when grass start blooming.
USA passed this law? I cannot seem to find it anywhere.
@@wednesdaysbliss1 No, the local county
@@jennifers7412 my b, I read COUNTRY 🤣
@@wednesdaysbliss1 if only it was country. like Big HOA would ever let that happen.
What kind of person wants to put a 75 year old lady in jail because she didn't mow her lawn??? Also wow definitely an interesting topic that I knew nothing about, awesome video!
probably Republicans, if i’m being perfectly honest lol
A Home Owner's Association. I bet her house is regulated by an HOA.
Well y'know cops
Some people are just buttinskies. But also, as long as the lawn is seen as the standard, people do have to worry about what a neighbor with an space that's seen as unkempt is doing to their property value. Some people would be fine letting their neighbors be, but if they plan to sell their house some day, they're caught up in the system, too.
Its not the cops. Its the lawmakers,
I grew up in a house in California. My mother replaced all the "regular" lawn grass in our front yard with two types of native California grasses. They were decently pretty, but their big advantages were that both species were drought tolerant and fire resistant. Kind of important factors for California.
My mom explained to most of the neighbors what she'd done and most of them approved, in part because it was during a time when water rationing was being implemented in our county. However one neighbor decided that because our lawn wasn't a "proper" lawn that he would do his best to get my mother into trouble. So he called the cops on her. Multiple times. And each time they said she needed to uproot her grass because they said her lawn was a fire hazard, because she wasn't watering it enough. During a water ration.
And each time my mother had to patiently explain to them that her grass was native grass approved by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife for private planting AND that said native grass was the fire resistant and therefore the opposite of a fire hazard. And that the reason why she wasn't watering as much as a normal lawn was because these plants were drought tolerant AND they weren't SUPPOSED to be watered as much as non-native grass.
Whereupon the cops of the day would sheepishly say that it was probably okay and then leave. Until an entirely different set of cops would pop up a month later with the same spiel. Eventually it stopped but it was honestly one of the most absurd things we ever had to put up with. The fact this one neighbor got into his head that everyone was supposed to conform to what HE thought a proper lawn should be, never mind that said lawns were and still are water guzzlers and that's idiotic when you're living some place where water is at times a fiercely scarce commodity
Sounds like your mother was doing a lot of educating, I hope some of the officials went home and rethought their own landscaping a little bit
I'm a forest technician. I started earthing up my lawn when we moved here 20 yrs ago and it was war with the city and my neighbours, now they are up to speed and I am left alone! Great article, feed the bees! 😘
Next I would expect you and your neighbors to require that EVERYONE "earth up their lawn," whatever that means.
Thus are fashions imposed upon others that have different values.
We planted raspberry bushes in my front lawn, they immediately start to spread out on their own and if you go look you can see all kinds of bees there pollinating the flowers, bees which weren't there when we had just grass before. In the future I would like my whole lawn to be a big garden
Raspberries are a nice choice because they're at least hardy and spread freely even if their yield is poor, and as you say they feed bees. They might spread more than you want but you can always cut them back to the edge of your path.
I keep a lot of Raspberry canes too. I planted Thornless Blackberry, Tayberry and Loganberries among them.
I know people like to grow them in patches, but I regulate mine into parallel rows so the long fruit canes can be tied to form tunnels (makes picking fruit much easier for little me.
Under these tunnels, I am gradually planting Bluebells to take advantage of the light shade. They are fantastic for bees at the start of the season, and will compete very successfully with other weeds and grass.
My wife and I did it, people always compliment us on our garden!
You can always add clover seed to your grass as well. It is much more drought tolerant than typical grasses, and bees love it too.
Very nice
Getting arrested for not mowing your lawn:
only in the Land Of The Free!
So much freedom
So happy to live in Germany Right now. We don’t have such a law.
Living in America 🎶🎶🎶🎶 the next line should says: Only if you cash and good lawyer man!!!!
@@timjesse8432 you have many other draconian laws. Germany is notorious about rules and order and looking from afar it scares me.
@@fhm21 nah there are laws and regulations for pretty much every single smallest thing you can think of, but neither draconian, nor actively enforced most of the time.
The megadrought in the West right now is incentivizing people to do something other than have a lawn next to their homes. For years, a lot of the many suggestions have revolved around replacing them with native plants that use *much* less water. Now, that push is acceleratiing. I think there is real opportunity to turn a bad situation into something good.
Xeriscaping is the right way.
the uptights will try to stop a meadow with these repressive laws
I’m in Utah, and yes there’s a big push for water conservation. However, 81% of the water in Utah is used by agriculture operations, the vast majority of which is alfalfa. Cattle feed.
Every lawn in the state could disappear overnight and it would barely make a dent in the water problem.
Just some food for thought.
@@16vjohnny finally someone with logic.... Same could be said about EVs.... Everyone in the world could have an ev vehicle right now But only a small percentage of CO2 emissions will be depleted. You got country's like China and industries like the Airline industry are the the biggest emitters of CO2. but right now they are unregulated.... But everyone keeps insisting you must buy an EV to save the planet.......
@@MiguelGarcia-vj7oo EVs definitely aren't the only answer but, according to the EPA, transportation makes up 30% of emissions with 82% of that from road vehicles. Switching from gas to EVs centralizes the issue and allows for a reduction of emissions by changing how the power is generated.
I thought Americans were all about freedom. Why are they butting their noses into other peoples gardens?
The usual excuse is protecting property values. “How will I be able to sell my house for 300% what I paid for it if it’s next to that untrimmed slum house of yours?! I’m calling the cops!”
They also outlawed sliced bread once. Need I say more?
Because of sprawl and social injustices and inequality, I have to bike 8 miles round trip to access my 100 sq. ft. of community garden. There are literally thousands upon thousands of sq. ft. of useless grass in the fiefdoms of the $1 million homes to the east of my 650 sq. ft. apartment. But I cannot use them because they are defended by threat of police violence, and thus I am forced into wage labor for my food, just like the peasants long ago.
because you can't shoot up the grass in a lawn with ar15
@Adora Tsang freedom is not an illusion in USA. Freedom is nonexistent.
I love it when quality RUclips creators make videos I want to make, so that I don't have to. Great work here.
One thing that really needs to go away is setback requirements: the requirement that houses are set back a minimum distance from the street. Setbacks, if used, should be a meter or two, not the 10 to 20 meter setbacks that are common today in American and Canadian suburbia. There's no reason to have such mindless and obsolete regulations on our books that force people to maintain massive front yards.
That would be fine if you live in a place were there were no cars. The houses across the street from me were pretty close to the road to begin with but they came through and made the road a 4 lane now the road is about 12 feet from the houses. A few years ago a truck went through a house and killed a person that was chillin on the couch.
I hate mowing the lawn, a lot, but it's just so ingrained into our culture... It's not fun, especially when it's hot out... Another reason why I'm starting to hate my suburban life.
@@krystelhardesty9960 sounds like you got a car problem
So..... you want everywhere humans live to look like a Brazilian slum.
@@weldcerts yes, because there is no in between. It is either big lawns or Brazilian slum. There are no other options
I’m always amazed by this phenomenon in America about your pristine lawn at the front. Just rip it up put in wildflowers, and a few evergreens for the winter. Job done.
Great video overall, I appreciate what you presented and it makes good sense to me. In reality what became the "lawn" goes back hundreds of years earlier.
Going back a bit farther than the point at which you started, in medieval times, the trees and brush was cut down around castles as a measure of military defense. With no foliage cover, your attackers had much more trouble to sneak up on you to sack your castle. This was the dawn of the "lawn".
So, it's an element of the "Castle Doctrine?"
As someone who absolutely despises having to mow a lawn, especially as I continue to become less physically capable of doing so, I really appreciate this video. The lawn is the most vapid, pointless, and wasteful thing people can have on their property. I only do the bare minimum to keep the back yard from growing out of control, and I don't bother watering or fertilizing it. If I have the money to do so one day, I want to rip up my entire back yard and replace it with a garden and/or a meadow of native wildflowers.
You also highlight another reason why lawns are bad, it's an enormous labor burden to place on disabled people just to fit in to the rest of society. It's similar to how autistic and ADHD people are forced to spend enormous amounts of energy on hiding their true selves to avoid discrimination. So I think we can very much see this as another aspect of ableism.
@@hedgehog3180 i have those mental health issues i agree and you make a good point
Cut it once or twice a year, start of spring & start of september. That way you'll benefit wildflowers and pollinators without it becoming overgrown or unmanagable. Best to check locally for cutting timing but it shouldnt be too far off
"The lawn is the most vapid, pointless, and wasteful thing people can have on their property."
But of course you would never think about telling your neighbors what they can and cannot have on THEIR property.
You don't have to wait to have the money to do thr entire thing all at 1 time.
Start small. With vegetables that you eat most of. Then when you harvest those, you will be able to save just a little bit more money. Which you can use to continue growing your garden. After a while, you will see. You eventually tore up your whole yard and replaced it with the garden you wanted. But you didn't have to wait to do it all at once.
Best of luck on you endeavors and I hope you a happy gardening.
We have not mowed our lawn in over a year. Now we have a lovely meadow that animals and bugs thrive in.
Consider turning some of it into a garden! As a guy who has to bike 8 miles round trip just to access 100 sq. ft. of community garden, I wouldn't feel so resentful of the useless manicured lawns of the $1 million homes if I saw more people using their space wisely by gardening!
@Pat B well for one thing, some of us have dogs. And for another, ticks and mosquitos carry diseases and wild animals can be dangerous. And cutting the grass is relaxing and physically active and requires discipline. It's nice being able to look outside and think that you actually out in work to do something and to make it how it is.
Imo, the psychological benefits as well as physical health benefits make it worth while. And if you have tall grass with dogs, you're just asking for them to get a heart worm or a tick.
@@awesomedavid2012 the “psychological benefits” of having a manicured lawn isnt a valid excuse to wreak havoc on our local environments. Besides whats more rewarding: fostering natural beauty and biodiversity- or wasting your life away to maintain a piece of land you rarely use? Also we wouldn’t have such a large tick problem if we hadn’t disrupted our natural ecosystems in the first place- many native animals eat ticks, if we had a better relationship with them- our tick woes would go away
In my house we have little duckies who hide in the long grass
@Pat B cats can survive in the wild. in fact many have. we didn’t domesticate them lol, they just took advantage of the mice that ate our grains and we just made sure they didn’t die. dogs on the other hand for the most part will die out, but some packs will interbreed and create mutts that can survive in the wild :) it’s happened in america and there are some wild dog packs in south east america.
That is an interesting topic! Thank you for this video!
Here in central Europe it is becoming more and more popular to have a garden made of concrete and stone! The people build a massive driveway out of concrete for their SUV and the front yard is simply made of gravel. Sometimes there is a single bush or small tree in the middle and that`s it! There is nothing green, just grey. And some people use chemicals to stop weeds growing through the gravel... Is this a topic in the US as well?
Our garden is a little bit "oldscool", we have a lot of trees, bushes and fields where flowers for the insects are growing. So all in all it is very colorful and wild, just some small bits of lawn inbetween to walk on easier. People need to know, that a garden does not need to be perfectly clean. It is better for nature to have some wild areas and hedges, where animals can nest and find food. Greetings from Germany!
I never understood how these dead gravel and stone gardens became a trend in the first place. They are so lifeless, boring and empty, oftentimes literally the only living thing in them are a few conifer bushes. Even a lawn is probably be better for the environment compared to a gravel layer.
I really hope natural and wild gardens with lots of different plants growing freely become a trend again, they look better, are much better for nature and insects, and can provide food if edible plants are planted.
In 2008 I was living in Stockton, CA in a gated community (where my girlfriend at the time and her ex had bought a house). In that community if one did not keep the lawn well cared for--which of course in the summer meant irrigating it--the HOA would fine you. Meanwhile in nearby Fresno farmers did not have enough water to grow food. Good old human irrationality.
Why was your girlfriend at the time buying a house with her ex? It seems... odd.
@@firearmsstudent My (now ex) was already separated from her husband and I was staying in the house that they had bought before I met her. Yes, it was odd, but we made it work.
Avoid HOA’s like the plague. Nothing but a bunch of Karens with the power to ruin your life.
I live in the Czech Republic and in the last couple of years it became really popular both in the public and private spaces to get rid of the lawns in favour of flowering meadows. You only need to cut it 2-3 times a year, it supports insects etc. This was enabled by some companies coming up with new seeding mixtures and it being recommended in media as a way of adapting to the climate change.
can you tell me what kind of seeding mixtures they use?
The reason why I like this man's approach more than anything else is that he recognizes that you can't just be like "you are doing bad so do what I say". He really takes the time to present alternatives and understand the incentives of the way our economic system works and unless you change those incentives you're not really going to get any kind of real change.
We refuse to put anything but maybe a little solid fertilizer on our lawn every year. We are also slowly replacing the lawn with native plants that grow freely. I love it. Less watering. Less maintenance. Less money spent trying to make it "look nice". All I do on the non-grass areas now is pull a few weeds every so often. And it looks beautiful.
Why -Lawns- *Entire* Suburban Dystopia has to be eliminated would be a way understandable thumbnail tittle
@@normandy2501 Preach I wholeheartedly agree with your mixed areas with transportation friendly structure would be the most fit solution
@@normandy2501 European cities always develop like that. If you want to live in a house, you can live more at the edge. If you want to live "in" the city you move to hotspots. Leads to more diverse neighboorhoods as well: 2 house appartment, just a single house with a market close by, an appartement in the city close to office jobs and shops.
@@normandy2501 i thinks its so unfair for many americans! I have seen the statistics on how the few gets everything. Your government have all the resources they could dream of so its not a question that they should help poeple, but they dont.
Really hope the situation of your country changes soon. I hope its better with Biden over Trump at least.
Easy for me to say but i know no other way. Try to be the force that invites more democracy to america. Good luck❤
@@normandy2501 Families with children also live in cities. Mandatory single-family zoning is what causes transportation nightmares in the first place.
@@normandy2501 No one is trying to abolish single-family dwellings or saying you can't have privacy. But you should know that city taxpayers are paying for your suburban idyll via federal and state grants for roads, sewers, and utilities. American suburbs do not currently support a large enough tax base to pay for themselves. That seem fair to you?
Can we talk about moss lawns? I heard they might be pretty good.
I don't think that would work on a bigger scale, because mosses normally need shadow and very wet soil.
Clover is also great
If you're talking about peat moss then that takes decades to provide ecological value. Not feasible for land which gets developed, demolished, and redeveloped relatively often.
We should seek to preserve existing peat bogs, which sequester a large proportion of carbon, and choose suitable plants for our gardens.
@Blue Plumbob Opinions can be changed. Imo clover looks amazing especially when it's flowering. Plus there are micro clover varieties that don't grow as tall so those would help with automatic pest control by not giving them too much of a habitat.
That’s what I’m currently letting my Lawn convert to.
I replaced my lawn with UC Verde Buffalo Grass. Its a very draught tolerant grass that's been bred specifically for southern California. I absolutely love it, and you can leave it unmowed if you like.
Buffalo grass is fantastic, especially planted en masse!
Own a scythe, I’ve mowed once in the last month. I love living in the country for this reason. Use to live on a corner lot in the middle of the city. I had 2 front yards and no back yard. Worst decision of my life. My lawn was useless. Kids couldn’t play in it due to the location and lack of any fence to keep them safe from traffic. Mowing every week taking 15-30mins of my time (thankfully it was a small lawn.) we actually spend time in our lawn here, which ends up keeping the grass shorter where we are. It’s not mowed so short so it doesn’t come back so tall or very fast. I trim my grass little bits at a time now and only when I start to notice certain plants are seeding that I don’t want in my yard. Their clippings get added as mulch or get thrown on a compost. Front yard is now a massive garden, something I believe everyone should at least try once.
OCC does a great job presenting and revealing the significance of these overlooked problems... Huge thumbs up
This is not overlooked. It was just a problem never got enough attention. Our home doesn’t have a lawn. It’s replaced by some trees and vegetations.
They, like Vox, just make me feel guilty for things I never did, just cause I'm white. We need to stop making everything race based. I know that's what happened but can't we just let it go and move forward? Stop finger pointing and work together to find a solution
@@coastaku1954 that is the whole idea of this video, to bring attention to u but first they have to tell u the history of how it started....then it’s easier to fix from their ...aleast u know the history of lawn in America and the bad effect on climate change and ways u can correct it ...
If their are video calling out corruption in developing countries and climate issues around the world why can’t video be made about countries like America
The TruGreen ad before the video was a nice touch.
Probably because people just dont go outside enough. Lawns are absolutely useful as a playing ground. Its like a mini-park.
"Keep off the grass."
I had to go to Environmental Court in the '90s. in Little Rock AR. I didn't even know that there was an Environmental Court. I lived on an acre of rocks and natural grasses, wildflowers, and trees. It wasn;t groomed enough, the complaint was from a neighbor who was OCD about his manicured lawn.
I live in the Netherlands, we have so much rain that lawns are advised to garden owners over hard surfaces so that the rainwater can seep into the earth instead of going down the drain. Moreover, I love gardening and there is a lawn in my garden, which I like and which is quite useful to me. I largely agree with your point of view, but I am not going to get rid of it and turn my garden into some stone desert. But I do have some advice, that makes owning a lawn far less of a waste. Mow the lawn so often, that you do not have to collect the cut grass. On average this means cutting the grass twice as often as you usually do. The cut grass will be so small, that it will disappear into the lawn and will act as nutrient for the grass. This way you can keep your lawn healthy indefinitely without adding fertilizer. Odd as it may sound, this does not require extra work. If you mow your lawn without a grasscollector on it, you do not have to stop every few meters to take the collector off the mower, take it to your "green" container to empty it and walk back to attach it to your mower again. Bottom line: you will not exhaust your soil, you will not polute your soil with fertilizer, you will not be dumping tons of healthy green material over the years and you will save some money on fertilizer and garbage disposal. Finally, I collect rainwater from the roof into several barrels, so that I do not need drinking water from the tap to spray the lawn in case a drought.
I love my lawn, tall fescue in particular. No chemicals are necessary if you put in a little work to make it a good thick turf. I enjoy it’s beauty when I come home after work, and looking out my front picture window on the weekend. I find it relaxing, and maintenance is almost Zen.
exactly, a video made by a renter
Taking care of my house I live in with my family is one of the most meditative things for me. Your home is your sanctuary, take care of it, and reap the benefits. Plus, not taking care of your lawn and area around your home invites spiders, critters, etc.
Only reason I want a yard is because I want a garden. I want fresh fruits and veggies, as well as just something for me to do. I like gardens. Lol. Also trees. Lots of trees. Nice shade perfect places for tree swings or tires. Lol
lawns/yards are good if used as biodiverse gardens
seriously, i want a property with lots of land so i can make it into a forest and live in the middle of it. i’d love to have a stream or pond to add to the greenery.
There is a wonderful channel called eatyourbackyard. Check it out
@@coagulatedsalts4711 trees take decades to grow like that, we have a set of 2 decade old spruce trees up here in Canada and they only recently grew past 6 feet tall
@@loganthegoldenheron8786 It does depend some on the type of tree and the climate. Apple trees, for example, grow much faster than your spruces.
We should be allowed to plant almost anything on our own property, imagine if everyone who can started growing their own food and it didn't have to be trucked in from far. it would be awesome.
The Corporations that our government bows to don't want that as it would cut into their profits(some of which they use to pay people to keep their golf course lawns green).
@@marvinbrickhouse9122 everything except my front yard is planted, here in Quebec Canada in most parts of it you are not allowed to have a garden in your front yard
@@marvinbrickhouse9122 lemme tell you about a lil' authoritarian organization called the "Homeowners Association" or HoA--basically a bunch of people who get to decide everything about what you can do with YOUR property. often the rules are stodgy and dated, and cover everything from minimum sqft of front lawn, to outdoor furniture and what color your house can be. regressive conservativism at its finest.
@@marvinbrickhouse9122 every neighborhood i lived in in the US has hoA telling you what to do with your house's outside appearance and one thing is you cant grow food and once they even said we couldnt plant a tree in the front
@@marvinbrickhouse9122 yea thats how it should be but its not our reality 🤷♂️
in 2018 I ripped up both my back and front lawns and replaced it with ground cover plants and flowers. My neighbours thought I was crazy, but who cares? my daughter loves seeing the bees buzzing around and pollenating.
When i lived in the states, i was so dumbfounded by the whole lawn thing... Like... It s literally wasted space that gives you extra work for no reason.. All my suggestions as to what we could do with the space were shut down (like put up a swing for the kids or flower beds etc) because "what would the neighbours think?" :/
I used to hate how my mom always grew vegetable garden in our yard instead of just growing grass but adult me is so thankful for the fresh food I get from that garden. And this video just made it even more better.
I would of loved that
I wish I could put this on my social media, I live in a indigenous community in northern NYS and I don’t mow my lawn and I always hear about from everyone but I think this video might change a few people in my communities mind especially the part about colonialism
It's crazy. In Poland you can have whatever plants on your parcel
You WILL eat the bugs, you WILL live in a pod, you WILL own nothing and you WILL be happy
Start by leaving the edges of your property natural. It will provide a natural screen from the neighbors and provide food and shelter for bees, butterflies and other insects and small animals. Plant some flowering bushes and flowers and reduce the lawn space considerably. Add a big flower or vegetable garden and reduce the lawn even more.
I just got more into gardening, and while working on something, I accidentally cut a wire that's used for my family's lawn mowing robot. Now, after this video, I wonder what could have been if we just got rid of it. I'm in Europe, so the thing about indigenous plants isn't that big of a worry, but we have quite a large property and using more of it as a vegetable garden would be very cool.
I have never fertilized or watered my lawn. Sure it has weeds but I don't care, it's probably good for the insects. But I do cut it, I don't want snakes and ticks.
Yup, ticks are the reason we don’t keep long grass around the house. Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever are not something I want to experience.
Same
@@naddarr1 It wasn't even legal to own hens in my town until we brought it to the local government 3 years ago, and we can't legally let them range.
@@naddarr1 get gunnie hens they love ticks ,
@Town Crazy I keep hens as pets and because I think the egg industry is cruel but it's true that I don't save money by having them, especially because I don't really treat them like livestock. they dig up the grass for dust baths more than they forage for bugs too.
AGREE! The other day I found myself mowning lawn at my grandparents vacation house. And the whole time I was thinking how many insects have I killed and how many animals had to be displaced for the ORIGINAL forest-remowal that this lawn succeeded upon...
Front yard gardens and returning the areas around our homes to native grasslands sounds like heaven to me
One addition to this video about the lawn would be kids: i have read in multiple articles that kids who grow up with a lawn are less comfortable with nature. I dont really know the details, but i have seen many talk about it
i'm not sure if it's that significant or not, it might just be a correlation. because richer suburban kid won't really choose naturewalk as their pass time of choice
@@aronseptianto8142 tru. I live in suburbs. But since they dont have any meaningful wildlife we go to the mountains and various other parks outside.
Turn your lawns into permaculture food forests, wildflower meadows and native plantings
Reject your HOA
Grow corn on your front lawn
When I let my lawn go a bunch of different weeds, flowers, and other plants take over and get out of control fast. It's only an annoyance because the borough I live in will massively fine me for not mowing regularly.
At least here in vegas they want to ban ornamental grass
On a serious note, after watching: What did I just watch? American suburbia seems so alien to my innocent European mind. What went wrong?
It's America... Everything there looks alien for everyone except for Americans...
@@googleprofiel6814
American suburbia was loosely inspired by British estates, so its not that alien.
I guess you would like "Not Just Bikes" videos on this exact topic ;)
The United States is a land where everyone is trying to emulate rich people despite the damage it causes to others and themselves.
"What went well" would be a much shorter list.
As a guy who runs a lawn care business, 90% of the area i maintain is not used AT ALL other than to sit there and look like lawn. Even more pointless is when people buy steep, wooded lakefront property that is not suitable for turf in the slightest and obsessively try to turn it all into suburban style lawn. It's a real problem that is viewed as a good thing.
The reason I've heard cited most often (I once worked as a health inspector for a rural area but got my hands-on training in a large city) is that it provides rat harborage. Which it does, but probably not nearly as much as rundown tenement basements do. Lately I've been having some success convincing my neighbors not to spray weedkiller for that monoculture grass look; explaining how much healthier the soil/vegetation biome is with a natural mixture of "weeds" among the grass. Actually I'm surprised they've listened; maybe we are finally learning a little bit.
awesome video. i remember a college professor talking about exactly this a few years ago.
growing up in Seattle in the 80s, i remember my neighborhood having all these bare lawns. even as a kid i realized it was kind of desolate. one house at the corner suddenly filled every square inch of their corner yard with diverse plants and trees, as well as solar panels on their roof. the neighbors all thought they went a little overboard. but now, decades later, diverse gardens are the norm all around Seattle. though that corner house still has the densest garden i've ever seen. walking around the neighborhoods all around Seattle and admiring the gardens is one of my favorite things to do when i return home.
however, if you go to some of the new Seattle suburbs, it's pretty sad how they're still in the "destroy the forest and build a development with no tree" trap. they had a golden opportunity to build a new house surrounded by mature trees.
here in Korea, it's a totally different story, as most people don't have a chance to own their own house. the majority live in highrises or small apartment buildings. at least we're surrounded by green small mountains everywhere.
but thinking back to Seattle, mentalities have changed over the years, and hopefully your video nudges a few more people in the right direction. ;-)
It's nothing more or less than a change of fashion.
My neighbor mowed my lawn while I was away one weekend, lol. I thanked her!
This script was perfect!! Great framing, no inflammatory language, perfect touch of stats, showed sources, and solutions
Yep, super enlightening right?
My backyard is large, but not useless. We keep geese, chickens a tortoise and a rabbit as pets. They roam free during mid spring to early autumn, grazing the grass and browsing on shrubs, fertilizing it, produce eggs, and generally maintain it. We have some fruit trees, thick undergrowth, and some wild-ish looking overgrowth with the shrubs and trees. There are different species of grasses, clovers, dandelions, and more. We never use insecticides or herbicides. I will never allow it. Spiders, wasps, beetles and other invertebrates are extremely abundant. All of the livestock and pets care for the yard completely. We never mow, we just water it occasionally for the primary grazers, and that's it. This is all in an urban backyard. Compared to all my neighbors, our yard doesn't look nearly as neat and managed, but I love it that way! I watch native birds eat from the fruit trees, nest in the vegetation, and I try my best to keep away invasive pests like starlings and house sparrows. We get more insects, flowers, and a healthier, more colorful look to the yard than any surrounding lawns and yards. I wouldn't have it any other way. If I could replace all the plants with only native ones, I would immediately, but sadly, I cannot. I'm trying to see if I can remove my front lawn and replace it with a more productive environment. There are a few bushes and fruit trees there, but it's not enough. It's small, but still has too much useless grass. I think a lawn is fine only when it's used productively. If you have a resource, sustainably take advantage of it. Don't waste it.
Best video I’ve ever watched. Been doing it to my acre for almost 35 years now. Released 75 monarchs and a few dozen silkmoths into the wild every year.
Yes finally someone who also wants to remove lawns
Yes, yes, YES! Wonderful message! And my own personal battle. Slowly changing a quarter-acre Sydney (Australia, the other colonial project with so many issues alike to the U.S & Canada) rental's front and back yard from imported grass to endemic natives, food, and exotics that work with the climate add to native habitat and don't compete with the former. It's horrifying how degraded suburban soil is, especially in places like mine; rentals, no gardens, mow to up-keep, cheaper end of the spectrum. It's a slow process, and possible with almost no money, but it still sad to know we could have avoided all this. While the southeast in the U.S. braces for a heatwave, in six months it will be Sydney's turn for almost 50 degrees celsius days. Lawns do nothing really to help with that. Trees, & particularly stratification, are the answer! Also to water conservation & soil erosion! #RipUpTheLawn
Yeah I don’t take care of my lawn, just need a garden now
Still got to take care of your garden too
Here's a fun idea, you could ask your community for B role of the cities they live in, they could submit it over the reddit maybe. Anyone in city X could you film some static B role of your busses/ houses? Then on the bottom left of the video, you could do a shout out thanking your community for sharing this.
While that's a great way to organically (pun intended) foster a sense of community, unfortunately the varying quality and style of the footage would impact the slick presentation this channel is known for.
@@deus_ex_machina_ You need to have more faith in people.
It wasn't just the paintings they were influenced by. Castles have to have a killing field a certain distance around the castle was cleared as part of the defensive system in order to protect the castle and occupants and the look of it is appealing and it caught on.
I got cited by my city last week for not maintaining my lawn well enough. The stated issue was that I was degrading my neighborhood's appearance and value. Why didn't the lady's neighbors just do a good deed and mow her lawn for her, if they cared so much?!
I agree 100%. As I was mowing the lawn, the repeated thought in my head was "this is really a useless grass that bears no crop/fruits". I'm considering multiple alternatives.
Also, I think the act of making such a content and enlightening people with it truly is American thing.
Can you imagine doing this in China or Russian-monitored Internet space there?
I'd rip out my lawn in favor of trees and indigenous plant life, but I can only afford to rent
However all that is much more labor intensive than a 45 minute walk with a rechargeable lawnmower every three weeks.
Zero lawn landscapes are often much much more work. Even bare dirt or gravel in a rainy area requires tending. When I was a little kid, my grandmother had a very small front lawn (15 minutes to mow with a nonmotorized pushmower) and a large rear yard of dirt. She spent hours manually raking weeds out of the dirt and fixing water erosion and potholes.
The gardens of camellias and azaleas that surrounded the dirt yard took hours of her time every day, keeping vines and thorns out.
If you live at the sand beach, on a rocky mountain or in the desert, then non lawns are easier... However if you have soft soil and rain nothing is easier than an unbroken lawn... Except pavement.
Be thankful your landlord has easy tend ground cover like grass.
@@STho205 Wildflowers and shrubs can be far less maintenance than grass.
@@beth8775 in non snake areas.
Quite a hazard and surprise to your kids or wife coming through the yard to find a pigmy rattler. Wildflowers are best in remote areas of your property or unused borders not visited by foot. Even burbs harbor critters.
Always keep growth down to an inch or two within 20' of the house or you'll find a coiled guest sleeping on your front mat one day... ask how i know.
i personally think that growing a field of lavender or some other nice flower or tree like an orange or lemon tree would look nicer, provide shade and help local insects and use potentially less water
i can already hear the 9 year olds showing this video to their moms as an excuse to not mow the lawn
based 9 year olds??????????
Thank you for this video. In Pennsylvania where I live I've never watered or fertilized my lawn and it stays nice
Such a great video, thank you for putting this together! I bought a house last year and have been slowly working on digging up the grass to replace it with native plants and a veggie garden :)
We're in the same boat, but I'm opting to smother patches of grass rather than dig (my back can't handle the digging).
Thank God I was born with things like RUclips, Nebula and Curiosity Stream as an 18 year old; I'm learning so much invaluable information before I even move out and go in my 20s
Incredibly thankful for all the videos you guys make~ c:
Except when those resources are filled with political agendas. Like this video.
I always hated having to maintain the lawn as a young adult and resented what an utter waste of good green it was. If I had my own space with a lawn I would focus on making it a safe harbor for indigenous flora and fauna and treat as a space to give back to nature.
For those unaware this is what typically happens. In the US.
1. Code enforcement is contacted or otherwise made aware of the unmowed lawn.
2. After about a week code enforcement will leave a notice on the home.
3. Code enforcement will continue to try and reach the home owner until a predetermined date that was written on the first and all notices.
4. Code enforcement turns the information in the the city clerk and another group decides if it's necessary to place a lean on the property. Some cities will mow the lawn and place a lean for the cost. Others may have standard fees that they use to lean the property.
5. If the property continues to violate code it will all happen again, normally no more than twice.
6. If the home owner has failed to mow the lawn AND pay the lean placed on the property the Sheriff's department is contacted to perform the arrest.
And it goes on from there in the legal system. Typically they are arrested for violating the lean. So there was very likely a ton of information already given to the lady in this story to encourage her to mow the lawn. Many cities also have lawn mowing services for the elderly, it's just not cheap and not really meant for continuing services.
Mowing lawns sucks but there is always more to the story.
If this is interesting to you, please watch the playlist about suburbia by eco gecko. Extremely interesting
Lawns are excellent pollution scrubbers and grass clippings are some of the very best compost components for growing food. This video is BS.
Rob Greenfield should have been included as an example. Hes a hero.
i know him personally and i don’t think he would ever want to be regarded as a “hero” or to be idolized in anyway. rob is also all about personal consumption and usage while OCC tries to encourage community building for change and the importance of organized people power to dismantle systems of oppression
I’ve known intuitively all my life that lawns are odd, backwards things. Always glad to have that suspicion confirmed yet again.
Here in Las Vegas NV, local government has banned new lawns, and the water company offers cash incentives to current lawn owners to convert to desert landscaping (aka xeriscaping.) This same government imposes fines on home owners who just stop watering the lawn to allow native plants (aka weeds) to grow in place of grass.
If I ever move into a house with a lawn I’m going to replace it with something like clovers.
@ Calculator
Who says I was pushing my ways onto others.
I currently live in someone else's home and its my job to cut the grass. Now I have even less desire than normal to do so.
I wonder what else I could plant instead given the shade... hmm. Time to look up growing zones.
We need a video on why asphalt must die!
Why? We need something to make roads out of. Less carbon than concrete. Cheaper. Its basically a waste product. Its endlessly recycleable.
I was hoping you were going to bring up moss lawns as an alternative. I am disappointed that you did not
What I remember musing is how video game designers take what are basically shape primitives (cubes etc.) and try to make them look more varied and natural, whereas in real life people take varied, natural and interesting hedges and shave them into precise cubes etc.
The quality reminds me of johnny Harris, great job
I recommend you watch the video on Johnny Harris' work on the Tom Nicholas channel.
I am not American and it always blew my mind how much they loved to mow or have lawns. I always thought it was entirely useless and I am wrong because more than useless, it is harmful!! We are doing so many things wrong in the world... we need to fix that.
I got rid of my grass lawn about 2 decades ago. In my backyard I mostly grow crops with fruit trees,plants and shrubs to lessen my dependency on going to the grocery store. In my front yard I have trees, shrubs and flowers for the pollinating bees and fertilizing birds. I try to coexist with nature . I don't have a motor vehicle which pollutes instead I either ride bicycles or ebikes mostly for my transportation needs. Sometimes I do need items that I can't carry on my bikes so I do have some goods delivered directly instead.
This is why so many people don't take this seriously.
?
@@dropyourself You will own nothing and be happy with it.
@@livingexcuse3767 The less I own, the happier I get. Owning stuff is a burden.
@@canuckprogressive.3435 Thats fine, you are still going to be forced to pay for it anyway.
I have a 1/2 acre yard with a grass lawn with white clover, and it is crawling with honey bees, bumble bees, worms, and butterflies, . I also have a large vegetable garden, herb garden, 20 different fruit trees, 20 different nut trees, a few flowering trees, 100's of different bushes, tons of flowers, and about 100 different berry bushes and berry/fruit vines. No chemicals used on the lawn or foliage, only sprinkled with compost, compost tea, Tagro, Azomite, and sometimes organic fert., and ALL weeds are picked by hand. I do water in July and Sept., but live in Western Washington. I would replace the lawn with something else, but the amount of time i spend just on up-keep, of the current yard, is all i can handle. Everything i plant has a purpose, either; food for me, birds, humming birds, squires, butterflies, lady bugs, or bees. I plant tree's in areas that will shade the parts of the lawn that need watering, so that i can cut down on, or eliminate, the watering. Lawns are not themselves a bad thing, it all depends on how you maintain them, where you live, and if you grow other plants along side them. I really enjoy living in a park, that i have made, and being able to walk around and eat different fresh fruits, berries, and vegetables right off the vine.
Why do they use pesticides?
I have a small lawn in Europe and I've never used pesticides. I water the grass maybe 2 times a year, so it can get brown in the summer. It's not as neatly kept short as some other lawns and it has some other plants growing between the grass, so I get to have some flowers in springtime. If you're not obsessed with keeping your lawn perfect, then it can be a low maintenance ground coverage, that doesn't do any harm to anyone or nature.
Hardly anyone here uses pesticides on lawns because there's no reason to. I have no clue what this guy is on about.
One thing that was not mentioned about not mowing lawns ticks and mosquitoes are a very big problem that is actually pretty good reason to keep your lawn mowed but if there is a way to avoid that and not have to mow your lawn I'm all for it
In my neighborhood, we have a law that we must keep lawns under 8". This is mostly to protect property value and keep mosquitos and other pests from breeding there. If you fail to upkeep, the city will now it for you and then fine you. If you don't like that, neighboring cities have different rules and are easy to move to. Gerry Suttle was issued a notice for her more than 18" grass, then was issued a court date, then missed that court date and had a warrant issued. Four local boys now mow her lawn for her.
if you are playing cities skylines, you usually place hundreds of trees as decoration
not leaving a single bit of space around public spaces un-treed
this became hysterical when a Toro lawnmower ad popped up in the middle of this
Lost my grandma's home 3 years ago worth £549,000, guess what, I just bought it back today guys🎉🎉🎉🎉
Congratulations Daniel 🍾🥂 Familiar with the pain of losing a home. I lost mine and never got it back.
Congrats mate 🎉
So much memories packed up in one house, I couldn't live with myself losing mine. Congratulations Danny!! Great job
You did well...how did you get it back?
Thanks guys😍😍❤️❤️🙏I feel so happy
This is so true, think about how helpful that space could be to plant bushes and plants that help animals and pollinators. Planting native trees and plants could help to actively repair ecosystems
Exactly also imagine how much your house would be worth if you have garden beds and bushes and plants with native trees
I have a front ‘lawn’ that is about the size of a putting green.
The rest of the yard is for food. When I tell people what I grow, they think I have a giant farm.
The lot is only about a quarter acre with a house in the middle…
Peaches, pears, plums, figs, apples, oranges, lemons, limes, grape fruit, tomatoes, melons, to many herbs to list… honey bees (5 hives) potatoes, etc… in back yard. Blue berries, strawberries, elder berries, raspberries, black berries… side yard.
I only use eatable bushes like rosemary for landscaping…
The odd thing, I live in a home owners association area. Few people have noticed because of the planting disguise 🥸
We have the same laws in Russia about moving lawns. It’s because in case of a fire it will spread much faster if there is high grass :///
I am from Europe and this annoys me a lot. In many cases, people have an empty lawn and they plant poisonous shrubs around it (e.g., to get a bit of shade).
So, you have a bit of space and you put literally nothing in most of it and then, instead of a shrub that has edible berries, you planted one that is useless to you and if you have small children, it is actually a problem? And as a bonus, you have to actually invest time and money to take care of the empty space you have...
I understand that people don't want to grow food like tomatoes, because that takes a lot of time. But a shrub with edible berries? Around where I live, you just dig a hole, put the small shrub you bought in that hole, cover the rest of the hole with some soil and depending on the weather, you might want to pour a little bit of water in there. That's about it. Granted, in some cases it might take time for the shrub to start growing and producing food. And you might put a little bit of thought into what kind of shrub is best suited for your location (though, the people at the "shrub shop" will help you with that). And, yes, because of our dumb activities, you might need to water it a little once or twice a year. But other than that, it produces delicious eco-bio-homegrown berries. And, if your kids come from the garden saying they ate some berries, you can just smile, instead of panicking, trying to induce vomiting and calling the ambulance...
What's worse, I see this "regularly moved grass with some poison shrubs" kind of approach in many public spaces. And I am not talking about parks where the grass is meant for people to sit and lay on. But rather just some empty space next to buildings, that no one uses.
i signed up for nebular and have to say nebular needs a lot of work. my only choices are a tiny window or full screen viewing. it has no recommendations and the entire social aspect is gone as it lacks comments.
but my biggest gripe, it has a really tiny subset of creators compared to youtube on it.
We have all this space for growing food and we just... Use it for random grass?
I knew my lawn was racist.
Bought my first home a few years back and have shaved my lawn like 3x yrly max. I shave around all the pretty weeds and bushes that grow and have enjoyed a plethora of life in my backyard.
I shaved my lawn once. Never again. It was itchy for over a month.
I only mow my massive 1 acre lawn every 2 weeks during the summer for 2-3 hours on a riding mower and it may be hard but I like it. My maintenance on it is only mowing now. No special sprays or watering. Just mowing. Native lawn species grown on it and the rain for watering is awesome.
I also have wild fields in my backyard and which I want to keep open so native meadow plants and animals can live in it too. When and if I get a bush hog, I’ll mow those fields once a month and every so often to keep the field trails open.