Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Concern about lawns has sparked a great deal of debate, creative
thought, and neighbor-to-neighbor strife. In 1991, a savvy group of gradu-
ate students and faculty from Yale University's School of Forestry and En-
vironmental Studies joined their colleagues in the School of Art and
Architecture to consider how Americans could redesign their lawns. The
resulting book details the history of lawns and charts a plan for those who
wish to follow the i rst commandment. Lawn owners can increase bird use
of their turf by reducing its extent, bordering it with shrubs, shading it
with trees, mowing it with hand- or electric-powered machines, and skip-
ping the fertilizers and pesticides. Doing this produces what the students
and faculty refer to as a “Freedom Lawn.” The plant composition of such
lawns diversii es into a rich mix of grasses, forbs, and l owers pollinated
and grazed by native, benei cial insects, which in turn are eaten by birds
and other animals.
The less often a lawn is mowed, the more likely it is to be used by an array
of animals. A less-disturbed lawn will attract goldi nches to ripe dandelion
seeds, provide nest sites under tussocks for juncos and sparrows, and harbor
frogs, turtles, and small mammals such as moles and voles. Spending less time
and money on lawn maintenance may allow homeowners to relax and enjoy
nature in other ways, such as bird feeding.
But adopting a Freedom Lawn is risky business. Those who do so buck a
multinational industry heavily invested in producing seed, sod, fertilizer, pes-
ticide, irrigation and lawn equipment, and service for those twenty-six mil-
lion American homes that contract out their lawn care. But the pressure to
conform is often more immediate. Neighbors who tolerate shaggy lawns are
often thought of as laggards, negligent of their civic duty. As Michael Pollan,
author of
The Omnivore's Dilemma,
notes: “That subtle yet unmistakable
frontier, where the crew-cut lawn rubs up against a shaggy one, is a scar on
the face of suburbia—an intolerable hint of trouble in paradise.”
