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Comment by Xss3

10 days ago

I would love to live in a neighborhood full of meadow style gardens, where native plants are allowed to flower and feed bees, with bug habitats instead of neatly cut astroturf looking golf green lawns chock full of pesticides.

I can't understand the people that think the artificial look holds any beauty whatsoever.

9 comments

Xss3

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c22  10 days ago

The artificial look visibly demands a large amount of ongoing maintenance and thus acts as a convenient display of excess spending power. It's like the peacock's tail for capitalists.

  • kulahan  10 days ago

    This is true for a highly attractive wild lawn as well. When things grow truly wild, they're all competing and none do fantastically. If you've got a beautiful yard full of happy native plants, you've likely done some serious work, even if you're just out-competing the invasive plants.

    That being said, a yard of native plants can still do more good than a yard of grass. Grasses are cool and come in many other forms though, and can be extremely resistant to drought. Native grasses often have much deeper roots, or even taproots sometimes.

    • Xss3  8 days ago

      I let thistles, ragwort, clovers, and other flowering native "weeds" grow tall and flower fully, let the grass seed at knee height before cutting it each year, keep some deadfall around, and pile sticks along the fence line. Its still perfectly navigable. The grass is flattened under foot.

      When cutting i use a scythe and sheers to minimise the amount of caterpillars etc. getting killed.

      For my protected potted/bedded plants i use a variety of natural methods to keep aphids and snails at bay, and they work brilliantly. Bait plants (some weeds fill this purpose too), Neem oil treatment, nematodes, and more.

      The amount of life, happy bugs, birds, bees, etc. i find thriving, and the variety, fills me with far more joy than the equivalent of giving my garden a bowl cut.

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