Biospheric Resonance

Due to the ways in which lawns have been conventionally designed and maintained, much doubt has been cast on their place in the sustainable landscape. Let’s examine just what the boo-boos are in the typical picture and explore different ways of doing things that could restore green credibility to the lawn, a landscape element much loved by many people all over the western world and beyond.

The biggest concern is turning out to be the use of pesticides and herbicides as part of regular lawn care. More and more people are becoming aware that the chemicals used to make their grassy patch inhospitable to weeds and insect pests are making those same areas hazardous to themselves, and especially to their children and pets.

Then there is the issue of energy consumption, pollution, and noise from lawnmowers and other maintenance equipment, as well as the low-quality care resulting from the widespread incorrect use of such tools.

Lawns are widely used as a default option for lack of better ideas, covering huge areas of land that has potentially more profitable and/or ecologically sound uses or is simply not well suited to sustaining a carpet of grass. On top of that, the species of grass for the seed mix may have been carelessly chosen and not a good match for the location and purpose of the lawn. In their layout, lawns often have complicated plans with nooks and crannies that are awkward and time-consuming to maintain.

So how do we going about creating and caring for a lawn that can hold its own as an ecologically conscious landscape feature? First, if you haven’t yet read the article series about soil conservation, do so now, as it contains some valuable hints on how to determine where on your property to site your lawn and how much of it to create. Basically, the function of a lawn is a combination of recreational space and visual foreground to other landscape elements and to buildings.  Keep the shape of the grassy area simple, make it serve its main purposes well and don’t add unnecessary complications.

Grade and cultivate the area thoroughly and choose a seed mixture that is well adapted to the temperatures, moisture levels, and light intensities prevalent at the site, as well as the use to be made of the lawn. Use compost as a soil amendment, avoid chemical fertilizers. Once the grass has started growing enough to be gently walkable, go through regularly to rogue out anything that looks like it doesn’t belong there. If you pull out weeds early, they will be much less of a problem later on. Do not apply any herbicides.

Once it is time to start mowing, avoid the single biggest mowing mistake made by almost everyone – don’t cut the grass too short. Most lawn grasses do best when cut to about 4 inches, definitely no less than 3 inches. Cutting it shorter only stresses out the root systems, making the grass more vulnerable to drought, erosion, pests, and diseases. Take off a small amount more often rather than a big chunk once in a while. Use a type of mower that’s appropriate for the size of lawn and the type of terrain. Reel-type cutting mechanisms give a higher quality result than the familiar rotary-type mowers, and come in all sizes, from the humble hand-operated push mower to self-propelled walk-behind, and all the way up to tractors. There are cordless electric mowers available today that are powerful enough to take care of almost anything short of a football field. This is the path I would recommend taking if you have too much grass for a handpushed reel job.

It is especially important to resist the temptation to use herbicides for maintaining the edges of your green carpet. This practice causes severe erosion of the border line and on top of that it looks just plain cheap, dumb, and ugly. Much nicer is to have bedding plants and shrubs, or at the very least mulch, meet the grass at the edge, which should be kept cut with a weedeater and/ or edge trimmer.

If you follow the basic advice found in this post and the rest of this blog, you will be able to enjoy the best of both worlds – a lush green carpet to relax and play on that is clean and ecologically integrated into the wider landscape – earning you double bragging rights.

Tags: green curb appeal, landscape design, landscape maintenance, landscaping, organic lawns, pesticide-free, recreational spaces, sustainable lawns

In Part 3 I left off with talking about herbicides and how they affect the soil physically. Part 1 touched briefly on the knowledge expressed in the metaphors of Polynesian mythology, where the soil is pictured as the domain of a cyclical process in which death and decay turns into new life, which eventually dies and decays, and so on it goes. The point I”m making with this analogy is to show how certain kinds interventions in these processes reverberate through the chain and have disastrous consequences for soil retention and fertility. And of course armed with this insight we will be able to implement practices that actually help.

The two sides of this coin are like yin and yang, feminine and masculine, etc. The two of them together is what makes life in this world possible. Take away or change one of them, and the whole system collapses. If you constantly remove all decaying organic matter to get a “clean” look, the soil becomes unable to sustain life. Chemical “fertilizers” do not fulfill the same biological function and therefore cannot restore or maintain soil fertility in such a situation.

Herbicide application can overload the decay cycle with a sudden burst of dead plants that need to be processed. In the field, this often results in a very brief spike in nitrogen production followed by a steep decline. Not a recipe for healthy crops or landscape plants. The beneficial microbes, worms, insects, and other organisms that live in the soil are disrupted and often killed both by direct contact with the applied toxins and by such artificially induced swings in the nutrient balance. Also, because large parts of weeds killed by herbicides tend to remain standing up for long periods of time, they decay by weathering instead of being incorporated into the soil. This is a radically different process in which most of the nutrients contained in those parts end up in the air and are lost to the soil.

It is clear that in order to achieve and conserve optimal soil fertility, vitality, and retention, any cultural measures undertaken must support and enhance rather than disrupt the natural background processes taking place in the soil. A simple principle you can bear in mind as a guideline is: “Feed the soil life, not the plants. The soil life will feed the plants.” In other words, find out what the soil needs for ITS health, and cater to that, and you”ll be able to leave it to the soil to cater to the needs of the plants. How can  this principle be put into practice?

• As already mentioned, avoid herbicides, chemical fertilizers, and any other substances that harm the life forms that inhabit the soil.

• Work  rock dust or sand made from crushed rock into the soil. This is a way of adding mineral nutrients that doesnt”t circumvent or disrupt, but actually enhances the natural soil processes.
• Avoid using fresh chipped tree waste mulch, especially that of the usual medium size. It sucks all the nitrogen out of the soil and forms a shingle-like surface that makes the rain run off it. Extra finely chipped tree waste can be composted together with a high-nitrogen waste such as chicken manure. Very course chip – chunks of several inches long – can be spread very thinly or placed in small piles in woodland landscapes.

• Space plants as closely as possible without crowding them. Wherever plantings need to be widely spaced and leave patches of soil bare and weed-prone, plant soil-improving ground covers, e.g.  clovers, in between.

Beside helping to prevent erosion, these measures also dramatically improve plant health, and in the case where the plants grown are food crops this translates into copious yields of foods with much higher nutritive value than their counterparts grown in dead or no soil. This in turn obviously promotes human health, and so the cycle goes round.

Tags: erosion prevention, land management, land use, landscaping, local ecological knowledge, organic gardening, polynesian mythology, soil conservation