a few blocks away, idiots have astroturfed their front lawn because… they’re morons. We live in Seattle, one of the greenest, easiest climates to grow what-fucking-ever - zeroscaping, green lawn, there’s plenty of rain for doing whatever.
They laid down astroturf. It’s so fucking stupid.
Huh, TIL about xeriscaping
That will look fine out west. Over here in the midwest it would look like Jurassic Park after a year. I’d rather mow a lawn then pick weeds ad infinitum.
I have a beautiful grass and clover lawn in MN. It hasn’t been much harder to get growing than typical grass. Xeriscaping isn’t typically what it’s called here the midwest
Where do you get clover seed? I can’t find it locally.
My local garden shop has it.
But if you are ordering online I use Flawn. They also do other bee lawns and other plants. I had used their English daisy and Self-heal with some success. It takes some time to flower so hard to tell if my sowing are slow bloomers or didn’t germinate.
chuckles in deep south
If I let it grow, my yard would look like a jungle within a few years…
Hell, there’s grass and stuff growing in the little narrow spot between my house and garage that is well over waist high now because my riding mower won’t fit there, and my push mower is dead and buried.
Oh, and one of my trimmers won’t start, and the battery powered one has a broken clutch and won’t spin the head.
And any money I could’ve spent to fix either has been going to the daughter who graduated high school last Tuesday.
That bit of growth happened in less than a month by the way. I used that battery trimmer there about a month ago and was on the process of using it around the rest of the house when it just … stopped. I haven’t had the time or inclination to take it apart yet. The gas one? The pull start won’t even turn the engine, just freewheels. That’s what I get for letting some kid “work on it” to replace a fuel line… When he put it back together it never worked again.
Sigh.
Do you need to water your lawn much? If not you already have a “xeriscape” by definiton anyway
I have not ONCE ever watered my lawn. I will let it turn brown, I don’t care.
I’d hate for there to be nature out in nature!
🎵 We’re not going to make it!
No! We’re not gonna make it!
We’re not going to make it, anymoooore! 🎵
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAQ8OCPwyo4
POTUS made this a banger.
Hehe had the same thing pop into my head
Unregulated capitalism
I guess its easier for kids to play on plastic than cactuses
you ever been on one of those plastic lawns in the hot summer? They will blister your bare feet.
Tbh you were on some cheap shit. Good fake stuff feels mostly fine even down in the US south.
If you don’t live in an actual desert, there’s probably some local plant you can use as a groundcover which will cushion your kids when they fall. In my area for instance carex pansa (sand dune sedge) is popular. You might be growing some local sedge or ground over now, only you think of it as a weed. The first thing to do is to stop thinking of a uniform surface as the goal. Think meadow rather than lawn. If you painted a picture would you have a swath of flat green without nuance? Even if your kids are playing sports out there, so you need to trim it to a few inches all over, it’s still better for the environment to use native plants. And even tolerate the non-natives like dandelions rather than spread poison. Obviously you don’t want poison ivy or puncturevine, anything that can harm your kids.
Yeah I share the house with the in laws so dont have complete control.
My mother in law wanted turf installed in the front after we installed a fence to keep anyone from parking on the yard (father in law) but it was way too expensive for the nice stuff,so father in law came in quick and had some guys install a lawn for cheap. He was excited for a lawn since the start, on move in day he got two lawn mowers even though it was all dirt.
At least I was able to get a big barrel and water pump so showed them how to use laundry water to water the lawn so we haven’t actually had to use the sprinklers at all so far. I’ve been wanting to find something that I could sprinkle seeds around to get it to be more California summer resistant. At least the kids really like it, and the dogs go nuts when we hangout in the front with them because they can run along side anyone that walks by sniffing their butts
Fair enough. If your house has the water heater far from the bathroom you can also collect a few gallons of the “waiting for hot water” at the tub spout. I don’t have a yard but I have a big balcony garden using that water. Maybe do native flowers around the edges since FIL will mow short anything on his turf
Fr some people want to use their backyard for more than just looking like a fine botanical garden.
Edit: fuck plastic
Fake grass kind of sucks to play on tbh. Plenty of low height ground cover plant options to use instead, including grasses.
I grew up in wild places and it was really good there’s options for ground cover other than grass there’s things to do with ground other than just cover it
geez or just plant like clover or oregano or something. There’s plenty of excellent options between shitty British grass and shitty plastic garbage
I was thinking of throwing some money out to people that could help me change my lawn to native plants. I’m sick of Kentucky bluegrass and the amount of water I waste on it.
You use water for you lawn? Just don’t do that is a starting point.
Not gonna lie, you’re right … I’ve been stopping. I only recently bought my house and it was my brother’s old house and he was watering it a lot, but at least he’s been doing it at night. The weeds on my lawn are greener than the grass itself which is what changed my mind …
Grow the “weeds” instead if they are doing well.
If you’re gonna microplastic, might as well be microplasticmaxxing.
Is it worse? It’s lower maintainance and water consumption, no? I’m not defending natural grass, which has zero benefits, but is this worse than that?
And yes, I’m aware that other landscaping options are better.
It’s worse, far worse. Many species of Solitary Bees burrow into the ground, an average of 15cm / 6 inches into the ground. Landscape cloth or plastic ‘astroturf’ when installed will block last years bees from emerging, and prevent any bees that survive from depositing their larvae, thus breaking the life cycle of those bees.
Got sage flowering in my garden currently and getting quite a few bees.
Took a picture of them so I can show future generations what bees were.
Ah okay, that makes sense
If it’s “natural” grass, as in, the grass is native to that area, and it doesn’t have to be watered or manicured, then it won’t have zero benefits. But I imagine you’re talking about lawn grass, which despite being alive isn’t particularly natural.
I don’t know about artificial turf, but I imagine it’s not great for surface water. Does the water get soaked into the ground properly, or does it generate runoff?
Soak into the ground means surface water is slowed down. It means surface water can make it down to the water table.
Not soak into the ground means quick moving runoff that can strip nearby land.
With house foundations and roads, and even lawns, and so on, we keep reducing the area where water can properly soak into soil. Our soils suffer. Our water tables suffer.
Ironically we got ourselves a robot to solve this problem.
This is why some houses have gravel yards with random plants.
Some climates make trying to keep manicured grass green a waste of water.
I live in a rainforest and don’t fuck with grass, it’s dumb
I mean, how many people do you know that actually do this? I’ve seen ONE in my lifetime.
It’s so fucking tacky
