Just say "NO" to fake lawns

Yesterday, our neighbor came by.  He is a really nice guy, smart and generally an intellectual and interesting person.  He mentioned that he had been talking with his wife about converting his lawn to a native garden, like what we are doing, and she didn't want to.  She didn't want to have it go brown in the summer and so they were just going to put in a fake lawn.  GASP!  EGADS, NO!!!  Don't do it!  I was shocked... especially since he seemed like such a smart guy.

Fake Lawn- I picked this because it is a great image in that it looks really
really good.  It looks real.  I can understand how people can get seduced
into thinking this is a good idea.  But think first... PLEASE!  Don't do it.

I hope that for anyone reading this, you can pass along some information- first... there are a lot of things you can do to leave a "lawn" type look without replacing with "synthetic turf".  There are plenty of alternatives that will not go brown in the summer, including Red Fescue- as it is not an obligate summer dormant species.  With water, it will stay green and it will take a lot less water than a typical lawn.  Check out this link for some other water saving ideas on lawn replacement- what we are doing is not for everyone.  I don't expect that everyone will want to do the type of extreme sport version of native gardening that we are doing- but replacing your lawn does not have to be painful or extreme.

Wabi-sabi is a Japanese term for the beauty in the imperfect.  Master potters and other artists make their art to have intentional flaws so that they are never truly perfect.  "Perfect" is boring.  Instead, they are unique through their flaws and beautiful because of their unique imperfections.  I am very sensitive to wabi-sabi: I like the white picket fence much more as age sags the posts, lichens cling to the paint and plants start to wend their way between the boards.  (I also like to think of myself as having a wabi-sabi personality... eh, not quite "perfect".)

It use to be that I thought of fake lawn as just horrible looking, as it has no wabi-sabi.  A natural lawn, even a perfect one, still retains wabi-sabi in that it is transient in its perfection.  It grows and needs to be trimmed.  It has some deeper and more lush color in some places than others.  Even the most chemically treated and manicured lawn is still alive and still ever changing and dynamic.  I use to just see fake lawns as a ghastly abomination of bad taste- something pretending to be something that it is not.  An imposter who robs the world of wabi-sabi and dynamic beauty.

Now, however, I know that fake lawns are much, much worse than just what they look like (for those of us who don't like fake things)- they are habitat deserts.  Barren ecology.  Strip mining for the urban landscape.  I talk about imagining what your neighborhood would look like if people thought of their yards as habitat- more birds, more butterflies, more life.  What happens when they all put in fake lawns?  From an animal perspective, it is worse than just empty of food- it is devoid of life.  Habitat Desert.

As much as chemically treated, over watered manicured lawns are not my goal... even these do provide some ecology.  They are still living and still harbor insects, bacteria and fungi that help to support the animal community.  A fake lawn has no ecology whatsoever at all.  Yes- it might look very real.  I can understand why people might be drawn to them.  They look really pretty realistic.  But no matter how much they look like a lawn, they never will be.  They do not have soil under them- they have rubber.  They do not have the microbe community living within them and they give nothing back.  They take and do not give.

Missing those microbes now, eh?

Try this thought experiment: Think about dog poop... when a dog poops on a lawn, you pick up most of it and don't worry about the little bits of poop particles that are left over because it will compost into the soil and become inert, safe and actually provide a bit of nitrogen to your soil.  Even Fido's excrement gives back.  When a dog poops in the house, it is a disgusting affair because you can't just pick up the majority and call it good enough.  Those poop particles will not compost on your carpet.  It is unhealthy, smelly and vile because you do not have the microbe community to break down the poo into inert elements.  Same goes with your fake lawn.  That dog poop that is left over from where you pooper-scooped?  Better get out the bleach bottle because that stuff ain't going away.

And for the pee?  It cannot absorb or break down pet urine since there is no microbial community.  Unless you like the smell of pee, better make sure your dog and the neighbor's dog find other places to lift a leg.

If that is not enough to convince you...

People often are drawn to the fake lawns because they want to save water.  They have the vision of frolicking on their lush green lawn and having the advantages we all love of a lawn- a nice hot summer day, cool grass underfoot.  But fake lawns are not living and transpiring like grass.  Instead, think of them as a blacktop parking lot baking under the hot summer sun- for they trap heat instead of provide cooling relief.  Putting your lawn chair out on one might not be the best place to sip your lemonade on a hot day.

I had no idea about how much heat these fake lawns can make until I met Caspar who was working in construction.  He had put in "synthetic turf" athletic fields for the Harker School (Cupertino, CA) in their LEED Platinum renovation.  I really like fake grass for athletic fields and thought that it was great.  It is a really good playing surface and amazing how much it really does look like grass.  I thought that it was a great idea as a way of saving water.  Turns out, however, that they have to irrigate those fake turfs because they get too hot to play on!  I had no idea!

It makes a lot of sense when you think about it- the reason lawns needs a lot of water is that they transpire- water evaporates out the blades and more water is sucked up from the roots.  Lawns feel cool because the soil is usually moist under them but also because they are releasing water as they suck up what is left below.  Landscaping affects the temperature in the air around it- think of how cool it is under Redwoods, even on a hot day.  Trees affect air temperature through more than just shade- a wisteria covered awning is cooler than just a canvas one.  So now picture how your house and yard will feel when you have taken away the soil, the grass and the water and replaced it with fake stuff that bakes in the sun?  Not the same vision of the booklet- you don't just get a perfect, maintenance free lawn year round.  You get the fake one that is not real.  It is only pretending.

And if you are still considering the fake lawn... (I thought I had you at "dog poop"...) please remember this.  They are not recyclable and will not biodegrade.  Back in the 70's, people put in astroturf and now we scoff at it.  But even astroturf was pretty easy to get rid of- plastic carpet to fill up the good ol' landfill.  The new synthetic lawns are really remarkable for what they are: and it is pretty brilliant how they make them.  They use rubber to help recreate the spongy feel of real soil.  But how do you get rid of it?  When some time has passed and your yard is now seen as we look back on the astroturf days- bad taste and ugly, what do you do?  The bulk of your lawn will spend the next millenium taking up residence in a landfill but that ground up rubber will live forever in the dirt behind because it will never degrade and there is no way to physically ever remove it.  They will always be there.  Is that really what you want?  For your yard to forever have ground up car tires in the dirt?  Forever?

I remember my mother complaining to me as a kid about how much she hates fake flowers.  I thought she hated them because they looked fake and tacky and found some that looked really real.  She hated them even more- because when she saw them, she gasped in beauty only to be so let down by the fact that they were not real.  Nature makes things far more amazing and beautiful than we can- and just like all other things that are fake... it isn't the real thing.

Please- there are other alternatives.  We don't have to resort to fake.  Be a real person and chose real- real anything is better than fake.