Making a finely-manicured lawn reduces habitat for native plants and animals, increases greenhouse gases and adds to pollution. In other words, these lawns may be green in color, but not in their impact on the environment.
Hi, this is Scott Fitzpatrick from New Hampshire Audubon, bringing you Something Wild.
Americans have long had love affairs with perfect, green, uniform lawns. But that perfection comes at a cost. To keep those lawns lush, we spread fertilizers and pesticides, which can contaminate our water and the food chain. Every time we mow, we burn fossil fuels and add greenhouse gases to our atmosphere, contributing to global climate change. We irrigate the grass, putting additional pressure on strained fresh water supplies, and then we mow again... and again... and then we gather the clippings, which contain most of the fertilizers and water we just put on the lawn, and take them to the landfill. Talk about a drain on the system! The end result of all that work and money? A virtually sterile ecosystem, one that supports limited species of plants and wildlife.
And the collective ecological impact of all those lawns is huge! A manicured lawn often contains just one kind of grass, very few insects and little else. As we convert more wild lands to lawn, we reduce the amount of habitat and food sources available to our native plants and animals. In the end, more lawns results in less biodiversity.
So maybe it's time for us to change our perception of beauty. Healthy ecosystems are made up of many diverse species. Natural, or "freedom" lawns, are lawns that are left to their own devices. They contain wildflowers, native grasses, clovers and, yes, weeds. They may not be uniform, but they attract and support a dynamic array of plants, insects and animals. They don't need to be watered, fertilized or treated with pesticides, and they need to be mowed much less often. Now that's beautiful!
For Something Wild, I’m Scott Fitzpatrick.
Something Wild is a joint production of New Hampshire Audubon, New Hampshire Public Radio, and the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.
