Can You Live Without a Lawn?
In a typical suburban home, the lawn consumes more water than just about anything else. A thousand square foot lawn watered for fifteen minutes, three times a week uses about 5,400 gallons of water per month.
In desert climates, lawn is especially inappropriate. Albuquerque, NM averages less than nine inches of rainfall per year, but Kentucky bluegrass requires fourty inches or more to stay green and healthy. It is one thing to have a lawn where water is plentiful, such as Seattle where the yearly rainfall is over thirty seven inches. It is quite another to divert precious resources just to feed your lawn.
It is not just about the water.
US home owners apply some sevently-eight million pounds of insecticides, herbicides and fungicides to their lawns annually. The Audubon Society estimates that seven million birds die each year because of exposure to lawn pesticides.
We have an idealistic image in our society of the white picket fence and green, immaculate lawn. But we should really wise up and realize that this is not the best choice for all areas. It is better to design your yard with local plants that are right for your climate.
It can be a huge job to convert your lawn to a less thirsty collection of plants. But you don’t have to do it all at once if you don’t want to. It’s okay to let your lawn go. Slowly replace your lawn with plant beds and rocks. Over time you will have a yard that not only saves you water and money, but requires a lot less maintenance.
As a family project, we removed our front lawn and replaced it with a dry river bed of rock, a few large boulders and about 2 dozen plants. We did the whole project over a 4 day weekend and have got very positive feedback from neighbors and passerbys. Al sprinklers were either capped or replaced with multioutlet drip emitters so all plants are on a drip system now. We placed a weed barrier down over the entire area before planting and then covered it all with a shredded wood mulch. About $2000 in materials and truck rental to haul all of the grass and dirt, from river bed excavation, to the landfill. Waiting for water bill to see if we notice a difference but other major points for me are 1) no more mowing; 2)no more fertilizing; and 3) no more weeding.
Now, about that backyard; when is the next long weekend?
Slash