Lawns Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Lawns , as they are commonly understood in the United States today, are expanses of closely mown perennial grass. They are often found around suburban houses, sports fields, parks, and public sites. In order to maintain their uniform evergreen appearance, lawns generally require regular intensive management, including fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation. Until mid-century, lawns in the north primarily included Kentucky bluegrass, and lawns in the south primarily included bermudagrass. Since the 1970s and 80s breeders have hybridized and cloned grasses to produce varieties suited for hightraffic areas, shade, and disease-resistance, and differing conditions of soil and climate. Current varieties include types of bahia, bentgrass, zoysia, fescues, and perennial ryegrass.

The modern American lawn has its roots in late 18th century Europe. There the Romantic Movement led some aristocrats to convert their formal geometric gardens to a naturalistic style including swaths of lawn. Mimicking flowery meadows grazed low by sheep and cows, these Romantic lawns required servant labor to keep them shorn. In the early 19th century a few wealthy Americans began imitating this style. By the 1880s, the middle classes followed suit by creating smaller lawns on their new suburban house-lots. Magazines promoted the lawn as an aesthetic and social ideal that allowed leisure activities such as croquet, lawn tennis, lawn bowling, and archery. The growing sports of golf and baseball also played a role in the evolution of lawns. By 1912, in response to pressure from the United States Golf Association, the U.S. Department of Agriculture began research into turfgrass breeding. The growing desire for lawns also encouraged private research in grass seed, mowers, sprinklers, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides. First patented in England in 1830, the lawnmower became widely available to wealthier households in the United States during the 1870s.

Democratic Lawns

After World War II lawns truly became democratized. Increasing home ownership and rapid suburbanization created a vast market for the lawn care industry. The prosperity of the postwar years provided many households with the time and money needed for a weed-free, evergreen lawn. New chemicals were also key to the modern lawn. Nerve agents invented for use as weapons during World War II were converted to home use in the 1940s and 50s as insecticides such as DDT, malathion, and parathion. Following Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring (1962), the public became concerned about persistent chemicals in the environment. Soon writings on organic lawn care appeared, beginning a wave of interest in reducing the environmental impacts of lawns.

In 2005, researchers completed the first comprehensive estimate of the land area occupied by lawns in the United States. Their conservative estimate of 128,000 kilometers2 (31.6 million acres) makes lawns the largest irrigated crop in the United States by area. Because of the magnitude of this land use, lawn management practices have profound impacts. Problems include water use, air pollution, petroleum and chemical use, and decreased biodiversity.

If all lawns in the United States were kept watered and green all year, irrigation would use approximately 200 gallons of fresh water per person per day year round. Water use for landscaping, primarily lawns, absorbs 50-70 percent of home water use in the United States. Facing water shortages, especially in the arid West, governments at various levels have begun encouraging “xeriscaping,” that is, replacing lawns with native plants that require little to no irrigation.

Americans use up to 800 million gallons of gasoline per year to mow their lawns. Of this, approximately 17 million gallons are spilled while filling up lawn equipment-more than the Exxon Valdez disaster. Inefficient motors long made mowers extremely polluting. Running a 3.5 horsepower mower for one hour produces as many volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as driving a new car 340 miles. Because they are often operated on sunny days, mowers’ exhaust exacerbates smog and ground level ozone. Since 1997, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has established emissions standards and regulates new gas mowers. Electric, solar, and hand-push mowers reduce or eliminate both petroleum use and emissions.

Americans spread 80 million pounds of chemical fertilizers and pesticides on their lawns annually that can run off into fresh water. Excess nitrogen causes eutrophication in surface water. Run-off can be reduced through careful attention to slope, soil moisture, riparian buffers, and other factors. This amount of knowledge may not, however, be practical for home applications. Leaving grass clippings to decompose on the lawn can reduce the need for nitrogen inputs by one-half.

Many herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides commonly applied to both home and “professional” lawns are known or suspected to cause cancer, birth defects, and kidney or nerve damage; though this information is not required to be printed on packaging. Children are especially susceptible as their nervous systems and organs are still developing and they tend to have greater contact with treated lawns through play. To reduce the use of lawn chemicals, insects can be controlled through Integrated Pest Management, while many weeds can be pulled or killed with boiling water or vinegar and lemon.

As extensive monocrops, lawns accommodate minimal biodiversity. Environmental advocates have suggested that lawn size be reduced to a minimum and replaced with native plantings that provide food and habitat for a wide variety of wild crea tures. This message has gained ground even on golf courses, some of which now incorporate naturalized wetlands and prairies in their “rough” areas.

Lawns do provide a few environmental benefits, especially in urban areas. They can capture environmental carbon, filter some air pollutants, produce oxygen, and reduce urban heat island effect. Two key factors, overall, in reducing lawns’ harmful impacts are reducing their area and changing the lawn aesthetic. If lawns were allowed to go dormant (brown) during hot, dry weeks-and to include a mix of broadleaf plants in with turfgrass-the need for water, herbicides, and fertilizers would drop. Researchers have created alternative grass mixes that include clovers, yarrow, and other broadleaf plants in a lower-impact lawn. This aesthetic echoes the origins of lawns as mown meadows.

Bibliography:

F. Herbert Bormann et , Redesigning the American Lawn: A Search for Environmental Harmony (Yale University Press, 1993);
Virginia Scott Jenkins, The Lawn: A History of an American Obsession (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994);
C. Milesi et , “Mapping and Modeling the Biogeochemical Cycling of Turf Grasses in the United States,” Environmental Management (v.36, 2005);
Rodale Press Editors, Lawn Beauty the Organic Way. A Complete Guide to an Attractive Lawn Without Poison Sprays or Commercial Fertilizers (Rodale, 1970);
Warren Schultz, A Man‘s Turf: The Perfect Lawn (Clarkson Potter Publishers, 1999);
Ted Steinberg, American Green, The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn (W.W. Norton & , 2006);
Georges Teyssot, , The American Lawn (Princeton Architectural Press, 1999).