The Dead Lawn Society

Is it ok for people that just don't believe in lawns to join, even if they don't have one to get rid of? :0)

you betcha Zhinu, become an example for the neighborhood. !!! My volunteer desert sunflowers grew tall enough this summer to provide a screen for the neighbors to look at, so they don't have to shudder at the unkempt appearance of my yard.
LOL

Oh zhinu! You don't have a lawn??? Sounds to me as if you are ahead of the game!

Yes and she's young too I think. We need about a thousand like her to ease Generation X into the garden.
;)

Well, I'm 26, and I do believe that lawns are about the stupidest thing we as a culture have embraced. But, I can't say I'm ahead of the game by not having a lawn, I live in a second story apartment. I'm working on "landscaping" my porch. Making as close as possible to a container Permaculture garden.

Yea!
sidney

Hey - I'll gladly join the "Anti-Lawn" club. I've never understood the appeal. Around here we call them "Lawn Nazi's" - lol!!! They mow twice a week, weather it needs it or not, use so many chemicals/fertilizers that they actually have birds dropping dead, & water-water-water, even when drought conditions are in effect.

I find it rather sad & anal behavior myself.

Do I have a "lawn" growing around my house? Sure - but it's a mix of grass & - oh heavens!! - some weeds, gets absolutely nothing applied to it, & gets mowed once or twice a week during the growing season. It's always green, soft underfoot, & I can't possibly imagine a bigger waste of time than changing the status quo.

I totally forgot about this old thread on "suburbanites"-
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/457031/

I just ran across an interesting article-
http://www.usatoday.com/life/2002/2002-04-12-landscaping.htm

Thanks Lauren,
;)

I am a member of the "lawn shrinkage factor". Each year I lose about 600 to 800 square ft of lawn to raised beds. Just think soon I will be able to sell the lawn mower and get a chipper shredder. The perfect lawn is "next door". Advantage of raised bed vs Lawn: Pulling weeds, less water, more variety, more activities for the gardener, no pressing boredome of mowing 3 times a week in June, Sell the airator, Lawn sweeper, rake, spreader, thatcher, mulching mower, lawn vaccum, end weed killer, Sell sprayer, and more importantly MORE COMPOST! Oh that also justifies the purchase of a greenhouse to cover more lawn and raise more perenials. Right honey!

You're welcome Sugababy!

Sofer, you have some of the most beautiful gardens I've ever seen. You people out west really have some beautiful lands.

I just found this old thread with new life...
I been losing about 500 sq ft per year of my lawn (250 in front and 250 in back last year) for the last 3 years. I'm doing the 'tree island' thing right now, (I only have about 1/3 acre with about 40 mature oaks to play with) eventually I will just have mowed paths!
PS I love the Dead Lawn Society.

This message was edited Mar 4, 2006 2:07 PM

Welcome to the newest members of the "Dead Lawn Society". Big round of applause for Sofer and branches!

Wonderful to see this thread pop up again..
Sofer, I would have guessed you preferred plants over a lawn.. and you listed several as yet unmentioned benefits of the smaller lawn area.

Spring must be approaching... people are beginning to rethink the LAWN thing again... How fun.. We have had such a dry winter here that i'm afraid a lot of my non-natives may have 'bit the dust' .. more room for natives. LOL

Local newspaper says our mountains that feed our streams in this valley are at only 60 percent of 'normal' precip for the winter... and on top of that a fair part of it has evaporated into these last few storms of winds from AZ .

I predict more lawn reduction valley wide this year. And yet our swiftly doubling population is coming from non desert areas and have yet to absorb the reality of it. Can only hope. /;-)~Blooms

In most of the more nicer neighborhoods around here the lawns are minimal if any. Most of the yards are wooded. These are newer houses, not old established neighborhoods. A lot of new homeowners are deciding not to clear cut thier lots anymore before building a home. It certainly does look more tranquil. If it weren't for an overhead powerline running right through my front yard, I would plant more trees and ditch all of the grass.

equil I'm honored by someone so garden smart to like my gardens. Thank you. But wait till I show you guys my meadows this spring. God really out did me and made a beautiful mix there. I do love His gardens also. This is indigenous plants ala Kodiak. Last summer on pillar mountain.

My friend Betty remarked last week as we drove 15 miles across the North Carolina countryside. "They gripe and gripe about water use, don't wash your cars, don't water your yard and don't take but 2 minute showers, but they throw up houses non-stop and you know these folks in these $300,000. homes don't think that pertains to them."
They also have huge yards that must look pristeen. I can say that red clay does hold water very well.
Sidney

The name Dead lawn society has such negative connotations.

I tend to think of my non-traditional lawn as alive with critters and plants and stuff. I tend to view the traditional lawn those monocultural toxic waste lands are dead - not my yard that is alive with flowers and bugs and birds and grasses etc.

I would like to join your club but only if you consider changing the name.

I think it was a spin off of the "Dead Poet's Society".

Well, my lawn is dead, I killed it [with Wilbur's help] and Mother Nature was filling it in. I really don't see the negative conotation at all. It's in the indigenous plants thread because lawn grasses are NOT indigenous, if that's as clear as mud? As is our wont to do, we were having fun with the concept... and were also serious with the idea.

YOU could start a new thread titled 'lawn alternatives' and that would draw a whole new crowd. We have so many new forums and threads I don't know just where to steer a newbie on this one.

BTW Welcome to DG JoePye... as lovely an indigenous plant as ever grew on my sister's farm back east.
Bit tall for a lawn tho. LOL ~Blooms

I found another interesting link-
http://www.plantnative.org/how_intro.htm

just had a quick look at it, nice site.... gonna make a good evening's read Thanks for finding it for us...

I've found that leadwort gets nice and thick and is green all summer long into late fall when it turns reddish. BUT then it is just dead looking all winter. Which of late years has had no snow to hide under.

In another week I'll be at the local native plants nursery looking for some things that REALLY belong here. Altho, even the natives out in the surrounding lands are in trouble on availlable rain [as there isn't any] I will have to water a little to get them started. ~Blooms

I was driving kids to school this morning and photographed three newer homes over by me. I am no longer alone in not extending lawn to the curb.

Here's the first lawnless house I photographed that was completed last fall. Look close and there is a house back there. I didn't go all the way up their driveway but from where I stood it did appear there was about 10' or so of something around the footprint of their home but it is some sort of tall grass-

Here's another home that is currently under construction. I spoke to the people who will be living in this house and they have no intentions of having any more lawn than what is necessary to have a picnic table and a few seating areas for chairs-

Here's a classic home where the owners had cleared everything from their property to build last year. They only have about two acres but they bulldozed literally everything. Looks pretty nekkid doesn't it?

Forgot to mention that the trees over to the left of that property are Black Locust and Buckthorn as well as a few other species showing up in the distance on the other side of the road that can not be seen from this photo. That's all they left because they are a corner lot and evidently they wanted some privacy from the road. They had mature Oaks on the property before they "beautified" it and created their lawn.

Here's an area on my property that I just love that was left natural. It is in the middle of the wetlands. It's a little naturally occurring pond complete with a little island in the center. It looks pretty enshrouded in fresh fallen snow. The area has not been cleared of invasive species yet. I'm getting there, slowly but surely.

Very pretty Lauren I love it.
Those idiots that made lawn are everywhere, so at least you have 2 that didn't.
Sidney

What a shame to loose Oaks and keep black locust... the one locust i have tries yearly to propagate itself in my gardens... they get a coupla feet tall before I see them in amongst my perrenials.

If my house hid in the woods like that I'd never cut another tree... I'm beginning to feel plantings of any kind eat my time with their care.
~Blooms

They just think differently than you and I. They haven't had exposure to some of the issues as have you and I. One thing is for certain, the odds of any of the people around here with lawns ever having read any of the links contained in this thread are like zilch, nadda, and zip. I don't think people realize the money they can save by ditching their landscapers and going au naturelle. I guess they like buying and maintaining very expensive riding lawn mowers and spending about an hour and a half to two hours riding around on them once a week from about May 1st to October 1st. Or better yet, paying a service to do it for them which will cost around $100 a week in this area for about 1.5 acres of lawn.

Seriously, sometime in the 1940's we were all sold a bill of goods that perfectly manicured lawns were the way to go. We grew up on early readers of Dick, Jane, Sally, and Spot and that's what we all know. Some people will always be hung up in that era. You also have to understand that there are many communities that disallow anything but lawns for the sake of "property values". Try to let your lawn go above 6" in one of these communities and you risk the lawn police coming out and citing your for not cutting it. There are people battling all over the place to turn their lawns into what joepyeweed has and they lose the battle left and right but... some win much to the chagrin of their neighbors. I should go and take a photo of a home that won a 3 year legal battle smack dab in the middle of a Northshore community a few miles from the Courthouse. It cost them about 10k in legal fees but they won and now there are a few others who have ditched their lawns thanks in part to this family. I feel for the people who want to elliminate their lawns in favor of the Prairie look or the No-Mow Lawn who can't because of ordinances. Seems as if raised beds are more tolerated particularly if they contain herbaceous perennials.

I can see the Black Locust although it is very weedy but I can guarantee they don't know that Buckthorn is on the State hit list.

Hey Blooms, those woods in those photos are loaded with invasives but the Oaks are still standing and I spotted some nice Pennsylvania Sedge! There's work either way in the beginning. This look will ultimately be reduced to "weeding" at some point in time where a lawn will go on being a maintenance hog.

I live in a suburb with roughly 80' x 210' lots. I've redone my entire back yard, killed all the non-native grass, and put in shrubs, trees, and perennials to attract birds and butterflies [about 70% plants native to North East US]. I tried seeding Buffalo Grass [ a cultivar supposedly good here] on the remaining 40% of the back yard, and after a 2 year battle with 3' high weeds, I have something I like, a multi-cultured grassy lawn, but I'm wondering if any of you can tell me what I have? Buchloe dactyloides is only supposed to be 3-6" tall.

Here's a picture of a clump about 8" tall.

Here's a 16-18" tall area.

Here's a 26-28" tall clump that's under a Niger seed feeder. Niger is supposed to be sterilized, but perhaps it's not?

and finally, here's an overview of about half of the lawn.

I am so glad someone breathed life into this thread. This is one of my all time favorites.

Birdman, please do your best to get close up photos of your grass. If anyone is going to be able to get you an id they are going to need to see close ups of the following:Auricles A pair of claw-like projections at the juncture of the sheath and blade of certain grasses.
blade
prominent veins
node
collar
ligule
midrib

Grasses are real hard to id for many people.

Equilibrium - thanks so much! love your nom de plume
Did I mention I want to kill my front lawn, 12 yd. x 22 yd., and put in native grasses? More later.

Here's the best I could do. Let me know where I can improve the pics. I clearly have lots to learn about grass.

1st five are the 8" grass, [most likely to be Buffalo?]

Grass photo 1a


This message was edited May 17, 2006 10:21 PM

grass photo 1b

This message was edited May 17, 2006 10:22 PM

grass photo 1c

This message was edited May 17, 2006 10:23 PM

grass photo 1d

This message was edited May 17, 2006 10:23 PM