Would you get rid of your lawn if it was allowed?
 

This is not new info, but grass lawns are a detriment to the environment as a whole:

"According to the EPA, we use 580 million gallons of gas each year, in lawnmowers that emit as much pollution in one hour as 40 automobiles driving— accounting for roughly 10 to 18 percent of non-road gasoline emissions.

We also dump roughly 10 times more fertilizer on our lawns than on crops, notes Columbia’s Earth Institute. These fertilizers and the 67 million pounds of pesticides with which we drench our lawns ever year degrade, releasing compounds like nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 298 times more potent than CO2. Potential damages from agricultural fertilizer runoff alone were estimated by one study to cost $157 billion annually.

We’ve managed to make grass do the opposite of what photosynthesis is supposed to accomplish. A recent study out of Appalachian State University pegs our lawns’ carbon footprint at around 25 million tons annually.

It gets better. All America’s farmland consumes 88.5 million acre feet of water a year. Lawns, with a fraction of the land, drink an estimated two-thirds as much. Most municipalities use 30-60 percent of drinkable water on lawns."

What will they find to worry about next?
I like grass, so stuff the Columbia Earth Institute!

Growing grass in FL is nothing but a waste of time and money....ya can't grow grass on a sand dune!!

I like a grassy lawn, especially right after it’s been mowed and trimmed.

It is, and I have

I sort of think that all those statistics may be exaggerated a tad, but if they were all true...I love the well kept lawns and yards here. I would not do away with green lawns and lovely trimmed bushes. Since Henry does the trimming and I don't have to.

If getting rid of my lawn would benefit mankind, I would drop it like a bad habit.
I want to add in here, that if we would stop thinking of ourselves so much and consider what would be best for all, this would be a better world. Just because we Villagers can afford to pay high prices for water, don’t forget those less fortunate on the outskirts of our paradise. If my plush lawn is taking away their drinking water, then I will go Arizona rock yard.

Lawns are not a natural occurrence. They're completely man-invented. Grass is natural - lawns are not. If I could afford to gut it and replace it with a variety of native plants, stones, and potted plants, I would. Green lawns just look silly to me, I'll never "like" them no matter how pristine and how perfectly someone cares for theirs.

Well said. I agree. I have a lush green pretty lawn, but would prefer a natural look. Just not so sure the OLD GUARD of The Villages old-timers would embrace the idea of natural yards.

Some day, we will be the OLD GUARD. And then "we can be the change."

Bingo! Please hurry, I’m in my 70’s now. LOL

If we didn't have lawns or green spaces can you imagine how much hotter it would be here? Just take a golf cart ride around Court Yard Villas

Green spaces are great. Lawns are not the best green spaces. For some of us, they're pretty lousy green spaces. I'm partial - as I said already - to native plants, rocks, and potted plants. Plenty of greenery. Grasses - carefully placed and contained, and allowed to grow tall as grasses do when people aren't busy mowing them down to a couple of inches.

Tall lush green plants, wildflowers, herbs, shrubbery, and a couple of somewhat short shade trees that need only occasional pruning and no significant maintenance.

These things CAN grow in Florida, you just need someone to actually start growing it.

I like the innovation, of owners with the curved driveways, right through the lawn, hehe... Leaves only a small patch of grass or rocks for the weeds to grow..

I would go for less grass (the upkeep as age) but personally I like the greenery of it. Grasses were put here for a reason, as were the trees etc....but that's my opinion.

I swear I love you, but the temp difference would be zero.

I like my small lawn in my back yard and so do the birds.

Prior to living here we were in Tennessee. I never watered my yard at all and none of our neighbors did either. We lived in 4 different neighborhoods and I did not see one yard being watered. I lived in Iowa for a number of years and no one there watered their lawns either so where are all these lawns located that are using so much water? I believe there is a bit of exaggeration with these number thrown out by the EPA.

The few Florida Gardens I have seen round TV, are not so much 'natural,' more like...... 'out of control.'
Giving up using plastic bags will do more good for the enviroment, than stopping watering your lawn!
....and yes we have!

My reason for ditching the lawn is because I consider lawns unattractive and artificial-looking. By artificial I mean that literally, not figuratively. They look like under-trimmed astroturf. And they might as well be, for all you can do with them, which is absolutely nothing. They serve no function at all, and they require a lot of maintenance. You can't pick up a patch of St. Augustine or Zoysa and stick it in a vase to decorate the dining room table. You can't pluck a few blades to crumble into your pasta sauce.

Unfunctional green stuff on sand is as attractive to me as mildew stains on the ceiling is to pretty much everyone.

If there were no lawns where would all the dogs poop?

Up north I love going barefoot in our blue grass lawn. 1/2 acre of perfectly trimmed lawn, that is so soft. Watered 3 times a week for 20 minutes per zone. Water bill for June, July, August is $93.

Here you can’t go barefoot cause the grass is crunchy, and then there is the possibility of fire ants. Friends have a CYV with up scale man made turf. It was not cheap, even has various height grass, to look very realistic. I would love to do the same.

But it isn't taking away their drinking water.

You do realize taste is subjective and many would find your method of “ decorating” your yard ugly. To each their own.

I think lawns are lovely. I don't like a bunch of junk in people's yards. And junk strewn around trees that some think are lovely. I think what people find beautiful is very interesting and very personal. I think some people have more or less innate visual taste. And some have very little affinity for what is beautiful at all, or clean, or orderly.


beautiful lawns in florida - Bing images


Junk in yards with weeds. - Bing images


I think people who campaign against nice lawns are not so much environmentalists but perhaps allergic to the work and effort it takes to maintain a beautiful home and yard.

If you're against lawns the Lofts at Brownwood will be ready soon.


Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

Yes, I realize that. This thread seems to be an exercise, a "what if" scenario. You can keep your lawn if you like, but if we were allowed and I could afford it (both of these things would have to be true), I would get rid of mine and replace it with some other kind of landscape.

I'm not "against" them. I just think they're ugly, pointless, and unnecessary. You might think wildflowers are ugly, pointless, and unnecessary - and that's fine, you don't have to grow them.

This view will be received in different ways by your neighbors I am sure.

Most people who live in your part of town have meticulously kept lawns.

I don't understand how watering a lawn is considered wasting water? The water gets pumped up from an underground aquifer and sprinkled onto the lawn. The water then gets absorbed into the ground and eventually percolates it's way back down into the grounds aquifers. All that happens is that the water gets temperairly displaced before it eventually returns into the ground water system. Unless the water gets put into a capsule and is shot up into space, all water used remains inside the earths atmosphere where it eventually finds its way back into the water supply, nothing wasted.

To answer the OP's question, no I would not get rid of my lawn if it was allowed. However, I am considering getting rid of our garden and turning that into additional lawn. I am sick and tired of pulling weeds from the garden, but I don't have to weed the lawn. I would much rather spend my free time swimming laps and golfing than pulling weeds.

The needs of the lawn involve more than just water. Pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, are all being "absorbed" into the ground where it then percolates into the aquifers, mixes with natural bacterium, consumed by other bacterium, fungi, and whatever bugs and insects live off the sludge, which then feeds whatever birds and other animals feed on the insects and bugs, which then becomes food for the next animal up the food chain, and so on and so forth.

And then, the water is churned right back into your lawn by way of your sprinkler system. Do you not notice how nasty that water smells? Maybe it's because I'm relatively new but I can't even turn the hose on to clean the bugs off my car in the driveway without gagging.

Where we live, between SS and LSL, all of our water (including the outside hose and irrigation) is potable water and isn't any different than the water that comes out of our kitchen sink.

Would love Astro turf. That would free up a lot of time and save a lot of money

The problem with astroturf is that nothing grows underneath it. It creates a desert, and eliminates the natural environment completely. If you were to sell the home and the new owner wanted to put in a lawn, the cost and time to restore the ground to growable conditions would be extensive.

For a small patch of ground, it's not bad. We used it up north as the ground cover for our above-ground pool, so when we climbed the ladder and climbed back down again we didn't get our feet dirty or stub our toes on the tile patio.

We had a neighbor who used astroturf to cover the cement stairs to their front door. It was way too bright green, maybe if they had gotten a more subtle hue it would've looked okay. Very functional though.

It is allowed to remove grass in your lawn by law. We are doing it now and can not wait to have it all gone. Too much water, chemical fertilizer, weeding chemicals, disease chemicals and bug chemicals, grass clippings disposal, polluting mowers. Planting the correct plants, in the correct place, Florida native, drought tolerant and freeze tolerant for this zone is imperative.

:bigbow:

The water in your hose, or in the sprinkling system smells here because it has laid quietly for awhile in a warm dark place and smelly little one celled critters that you appear to know about has grown in it. Once that first water is cleared, it isn't smelly. Many things are different here in this warmer climate. Another thing is bugs that can quickly grow in your home. Most of us are very grateful for pesticides to keep them out. Some of Florida's roaches need saddles. AND love me those pesticides to kill the Fire Ants. Their bites hurt and sting and last for a couple of weeks.

Better living through chemistry.

For a relatively small lot for our Jasmine I figured the annual cost to keep it green at least $2000. (Cutting, pest and fertilization and watering). This does not include if something goes bad and you need some sod replacement.
Although I love a lawn I have thought in the long run artificial turf may be less costly.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Getting the grass out
 

I would live to replace my lawn with ground cover but my other half will not see it that way. That does not resolve the weed problem but would not need the water, chemicals and mowing which costs several hundred a year. You can, by Florida statute, replace grass with specific plants, but The Villages also has placed some restrictions, meaning they are not keen on it but cannot stop you because state laws allow it. I love to garden so have a great many nectar and hosts plants for bees and butterflies. I would replace the grass with those if I could! Go monarchs!