Want a green lawn? Get rid of it!

I'm at my parents' house in South Dakota this month and though the area has received a lot of rain this spring and summer, I'm still amazed by how much time people spending watering their lawns in this fairly dry region. Apparently it's an issue across the country. From a PDF called Water Efficient Landscaping on the EPA website:

Of the 26 billion gallons of water consumed daily in the United States, approximately 7.8 billion gallons, or 30 percent, is devoted to outdoor uses. In fact it is estimated that the typical suburban lawn consumes 10,000 gallons of water above and beyond rainwater each year.

This site offers some good tips for efficient indoor and outdoor water use, including:

Water the lawn only when needed
Step on the grass; if it springs back up when you move your foot, it does not need water.

Don't water in the heat of the day Watering in the morning or early evening when it's cooler and calmer will reduce the amount lost to evaporation.

Mow as infrequently as possible Mowing puts the grass under additional stress that requires more water.

But lawns are more than just water hogs. Beyondpesticides.org (a site I admit I know nothing about), reports that American dump 90 million pounds of herbicides alone on their lawns and gardens each year. According to the site, many of those pesticides are known carcinogens; have been linked to birth defects and asthma, developmental delays, and other health effects in children; have been tied to cancer in pets; are toxic to wildlife; and contaminate groundwater, among other things.

So checked out an article called "Organic Lawn Care for the Cheap and Lazy" (my kinda article!). A few of their great tips:

Mow the grass higher
The shade of tall, dense grass turf will prevent essential light from reaching most weeds and, will aid in the destruction of new baby weed seedlings (such as the notorius dandelion). Tall grass is healthier and can use the extra sugar to make rhizomes (more grass plants) thus thickens the turf.

Leave the clippings on the lawn
They add organic matter and nutrients back into the soil and to prevent moisture from evaporating.

Water less
Same tip as above, but from the standpoint of lawn health, watering less will force your grass roots to go deep into the soil. Deeper than most weed roots.

Fertilize organically, if necessary
If your lawn needs fertilizer, sprinkle a little Ringer lawn fertilizer in the spring and fall. Why this brand? Well, there is nothing scary in the ingredients list; the stuff looks like rabbit food; and it works great.

Have the pH of your lawn tested
Dandelions love a pH of about 7.5. Grass loves a pH of about 6.5. So if your pH is 7.5 or higher, your grass will probably never beat out the dandelion. Lower the pH to 6.5 and your grass has the advantage!

All those are great ideas, but there's yet another problem--lawn mowers can produce about as much air pollution in one hour as a car would in four. And that's not counting the noise pollution. We can reduce the emissions by mowing after noon (something about the chemical reactions with the emissions and sunlight), switching to an electric or man-powered mower, mowing less often, and raising the blade on the mower.

But it seems there's got to be something easier. Then I started thinking about a piece Michael Pollan wrote in 1989 for the NY Times about the American lawn and its relationship to culture and nature. He writes that America's 50,000 square miles of "unbounded democratic river of manicured lawn" homogenize the landscape the way fast food chains do and gives a brief history of lawns in America. He describes how the neighbors ostracized his family one summer when his father decided mow their suburban lawn and therefore not to conform to suburban norms. Pollan then writes about his own boredom with the monotony of mowing and of the lawn itself, how he sees the lawn as a sign of man's dominance over nature, and eventually he concludes that when it comes to lawns, less is more, and for native plants, more is more. Aha!

So I was pleased to see an article by Cathie Draine in a local paper encouraging people to seed their lawns with native grasses that need fewer pesticides and fertilizers because they are adapted to the local pests and soils and that also store and filter water more efficiently. Just as importantly, she gives step-by-step instructions for how to reduce the size of one's lawn.