The Grass is Always Greener…
Wait…we care about grass?
If my neighbor’s grass is greener than mine, all that tells me is that they’re using a ton of water and synthetic chemicals. Otherwise, we’d all have similarly hued grass. So is my neighbor opting to “outdo” us all with high water usage and poisons that season our water supply? Sounds like a one-two punch against the ingredients we all need to survive.
Personally, I’ll proudly take yellowing grass all day knowing how the greener grass is achieved. At least until the luscious day where my yard no longer contains grass (in the lawn sense, a tall bluestem is always welcome). The last nine years and two gardens have been active battlegrounds in my efforts to get rid of my lawn. C’mooooon clovers, do your thing while I install more garden beds.
But not that one neighbor down the street with his sprinkler system scheduled for a half hour every morning, even after it rained. The water will gather up all the toxins he sprayed yesterday and carry them off like cruise-goers to their next destination.
I know he’s staring at my clover-filled lawn and sneering at the dirty hippie at the corner. I am unbothered as I dig another hole for another native plant.
I try not to think of the many millions of other homeowners like that neighbor that are on the planet. I try not to multiply that by probable toxin use. Or arrive at a tragic sum that probably explains some of the high cancer rates.
“But sir,” I’d like to say to the neighbor, “is it really worth all that?”
The answer, of course, is no. But he’d supply an answer nonetheless, probably something like, “I take pride in my lawn.” But he’d be confused by my query. He’s never given it a moment’s thought. He’s never questioned it.
Who knows, maybe asking the question makes him more indignant about it. But maybe, just maybe, it embeds a kernel of discomfort that slowly wears him down. Maybe in a couple of years, he relents and starts to leave a little tall patch for the wildlife. We gotta start somewhere.
I started all in because I just don’t understand the appeal of a flat expanse of ecologically deserted monoculture. Especially when an alternative could be a tall, wavy, lush sea of life-filled prairie planting. Plus, once it’s established, the maintenance is easier, cheaper, and much more fun.
So why do we care so much about grass?
Simple answer: this is the long-standing expectation and the exploration into alternatives hasn’t fully taken off yet.
Complex answer including a very biased summary of a historical presentation on lawns from an episode of Gardener’s World (2021, season 4, presented by Advolly Richmond): It’s rooted in a system of oppression, and the keeping-up-with-the-Joneses trap that drives all unnecessary consumerism.
The episode explains that the British aristocracy of the Victorian Age are the geniuses who thought grass lawns were a good idea. I didn’t gather why, and I really couldn’t fathom it even if I were offered a decent explanation. Perhaps they needed a cricket pitch or a croquet field.
Regardless of the reason, they were able to achieve a lawn through sheer force of their pocketbooks. They could hire legions of garden laborers to spend time scything their vast grassy expanses. And so began the long, slow death of the British meadow and later the American prairies.
These short lawns became a status symbol. “Lesser folk” couldn’t afford such labor. So a lawn became yet another item on the list of have-nots for the poor and middle class.
That is, until the invention of the lawnmower. The upper crust and their dreamy, unattainable, boring monocultures were duped because now, if you could afford a lawnmower, you could have a lawn. Primitive and manual at first, they eventually gave way to powerful gas-powered machines that could mow anything down.
Unfortunately, the trend endured. So much so that it’s no longer a trend but an expectation and a default. HOAs across suburbia USA have included grass height in their by-laws. Neighbors judge each other for their grass status. And corporations have invented various poisons and toxins, relabeled them as “weed busters” and “grass food,” and have convinced us that we need them. Then, we allow our children and pets to run around on them.
It’s too bad the collective population of homeowners hasn’t cottoned on to the new fad of the British Elite: rewilding, sustainable growth, organic gardening, planting natives, regenerative food crops. Currently, it’s making its way into some pockets of society. But fingers crossed that this fad follows the same trajectory of popularity that grass did.
Maybe if it does, we start comparing the fullness of our prairie planting instead of the color of our grass. “The prairie is always more flowy in Karen’s yard.”
And maybe one day, as we drive through the Prairie Hills subdivision, we see actual hills of prairies where perfectly trimmed lawn once sat. When we step out of the car, instead of being greeted by an unnatural silence, we could exclaim, “the bees are really buzzing today!” A group of neighborhood kids would be chasing a frog with a magnifying glass. And later, at night, the fireflies would give us an incomparable light show. We’d be so rich.