Ditch Your Lawn! Save Money, Water & the Planet

What does your golf-course-like lawn really cost you? Not just in outlays for seed and a lawn service (if you go that route)? Even if you cut the grass yourself, you are paying for the fuel, maintenance and repair of the mower, as well as hidden costs to global health. It is all forcing more and more homeowners to consider alternatives to the grass monoculture and the chemical dependency that goes with it. This summer is a good opportunity to phase in those changes.

The EPA has finally made proposals to apply pollution controls to two-cycle engines in lawnmowers, both the riding and walk-behind types. It is hard for us weekend gardeners to comprehend the volume of pollutants emitted by machines that normally only run once a week. But according to the EPA, a mower can "cause more pollution in two hours than a car running for an entire year."

The reason for this is that the two-cycle engine is very inefficient, and oil often mixes in with the exhaust. The Sierra Club has stated that mower engines leave "as much as 30% of their fuel unburned." In a year when gas is topping $3 per gallon, that starts to hurt.

Because gas mowers account for 10% of summertime smog-forming emissions, the EPA proposes to reduce emissions by 35% - probably by adding a catalytic device to your mower. Under the same proposal, powerboat emissions would also be reduced by 70% by 2009. Although the mower restrictions will be phased in from 2011 to 2012 and will not be retroactive, it still forces homeowners to rethink their options.

What other expenses are generated in lawn upkeep? Water. Chemicals. Plant replacements. One inquiry to Yahoo was from a new homeowner expressing astonishment at how much water was used in a few days to establish a lawn and trees on a 3/4 acre lot: 9,500 gallons of water. Even an established lawn will drink up to 300 gallons in an hour of sprinkling. Second, out of a desire for a yard that looks like Augusta National, we pour chemicals on our lawns - which then run off into our lakes and rivers and back into our drinking water supply. Thirdly, your mower (or the kid who runs the mower) can damage the trees badly enough to force you to replace them. According to the Green Man, one of the top causes of tree mortality is injury to the trunk or surface roots, caused in turn by the mower.

There are many routes to a new ethic of lawn care. We can continue tweaking the mower. We can reject the chemical-dependent lawn in favor of natural remedies. We can plant less lawn and more garden, deck, or outdoor rooms. Or we can turn away from the modern golf-course aesthetic and seek a new one.

Tweaking the mower: reduce emissions from the gas mower, switch to an electric mower, try out a newfangled robot mower.

Natural lawn care: pull weeds by hand, adopt low-cost natural methods such as the effective program by Jerry Baker. Feed your grass on beer or ammonia, according to Baker. He also recommends a spring weed control tonic of dish soap, hydrogen peroxide, and instant tea. I had hide-bound neighbors one time who insisted that the very best way to get rid of the weeds in cracks between the sidewalk was to pour gasoline onto them. Wonder if they're open to other suggestions now.

Less lawn: put more of your yard into shade trees, native plants, ornamental grasses, ground covers like monkey grass, turn over space for other uses. Would you make use of a patio, dance floor, game area, or barbecue? Some types of native buffalo grass only get 4" to 6" high max, which really cuts down on the mowing, and you can probably handle that with a push mower. Areas in the Southwest could experiment with less water-dependent plants. A native cactus garden can have alot of variety. A Japanese-style raking garden of sand and stones can be a place of tranquillity and creativity.

Where did the aesthetic of the clipped lawn come from anyway? It came from the English. The country custom of allowing sheep to graze in the center mall resulted in a clipped green swath that became a fixture in landscaping forever after. It's OK, if you use sheep to mow instead of gas-guzzling power mowers.

Ironically, the English did not, up to that time, plant grass in their yards. Often a yard was all ground covers or herbs - different kinds of mint, sometimes chamomile. Think of lying in a bed of chamomile today and drinking in that apply scent.

Given the rising expense of maintaining a clipped lawn, and increasing pressures to reduce our carbon footprint, it is time to invent a new landscaping aesthetic that better fits the way we actually live today.