Why your lawn kills the planet

Your lawn kills the planet. Why? Keep reading to find out.

With summer fast approaching, lawn mowers are coming out of storage, fertilizer is on sale and door-to-door salespeople are offering their gardening services. Bags of yard waste are piling up on boulevards as homeowners ritualistically tend to their lawns, bringing dormant grass back to life.

This key element to any suburban Canadian home is causing the planet significant harm, despite being “greener” than cement-filled cities. Let’s learn why your lawn kills the planet and what you can do to make your home more sustainable.

What makes lawns unsustainable?

First off, there are many reasons why lawns are not beneficial to us or the planet, despite the satisfaction of seeing a perfectly uniform, vibrant green lawn. Essentially, lawns are artificial landscapes. There is nothing “natural” about them. Here are a few of the problems they create:

Lawns prevent natural vegetation from growing.

The most common turf grasses planted in Southern Ontario are not native to the area, like Kentucky bluegrass. These grasses form gaps in native food webs and increase the risk of disease spread.

Lawns are thirsty.

It is estimated that we use 30 to 60 percent of urban freshwater on lawns. Lawns do not need watering as often as we think, resulting in water loss. Moreover, watering lawns at incorrect times of the day (when the sun is up) leads to rapid evaporation.

Lawns produce greenhouse gases, contributing to climate change.

This can be attributed to the decaying of grass, which releases carbon dioxide and methane, as well as the manufacturing of fertilizers for lawns, which produces carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. The International Fertilizer Association estimates that producing one tonne of fertilizer emits two tonnes of carbon dioxide. A 2015 study claims that a 2.47 acre lawn produces 2,443 kg of carbon dioxide every year.

Fertilizers and pesticides kill our ecosystems.

Nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen in synthetic fertilizers can find their way into our waters when it rains. Excess nutrients flow into our rivers and end up in lakes. This can cause eutrophication, a process that causes algal blooms all over the water’s surface. Basically, this cuts off all oxygen, killing ecosystems in and around the water.

Lawns provide minimal shading and cooling to the ground.

Lawns are created by removing natural vegetation like shrubs, trees and bushy plants to create a flat surface. This leaves zero protection from the burning sun on a hot summer’s day. The soil beneath the grass can dry out, leading to nutrient loss and erosion. Surrounding plants will struggle to grow in this unhealthy soil.

Removing grass clippings after mowing steals important nutrients from the ground.

When plants and animals die their decaying bodies release essential nutrients and water back into the soil. When we bag grass clippings after mowing the lawn we are removing those nutrients and water from the ecosystems. Grass is 75 to 80 percent water by composition, so when we remove this grass we are also losing all that water.

What can we do to help?

Despite how “important” it is to have a bright, lush lawn in front of your home, as you can now see a well-kept lawn does not equal a healthy environment. In fact, a well-kept lawn is more often a sign that environmental harm is occurring.

Just because we need to protect the planet and our resources doesn’t mean you need to sacrifice beauty. In other words, there are ways to care for your lawn sustainably. Better yet, you can transform your lawn into a natural landscape. Here are just a few of the ways you can do this:

1. Xeriscaping. This is a fun, unique way of transforming your garden into an ecosystem requiring little watering. Especially useful in drought-prone areas, you plant species that require minimal watering. You can create a beautiful garden without using tremendous amounts of water to maintain it.
2. Permaculture. I learned so much about this holistic gardening technique last summer during my internship. You design your garden with the whole system in mind (i.e. the ecosystem), not just what you want to plant. For instance, you can create a hügelkultur flower bed, using decaying tree branches, twigs and yard waste to build a complex, nutrient-rich home for your garden. The intertwining twigs allow roots to build strong foundations, holding moisture better, and as the yard waste decays it releases nutrients that the roots take up.
3. Plant a native garden. By growing native species, you are encouraging a strong ecosystem that is resilient to local pests and diseases. They can feed pollinators like honeybees and butterflies, both of which are currently facing population declines.
4. Water smart. Water your yard at dusk and dawn to minimize evaporation and burning the plants. Your yard only needs about 1 1/2 to 2 inches of water twice a week to grow deeper and stronger. This makes your lawn resilient to disease and able to withstand drought conditions.
5. Ditch the synthetic fertilizers. Natural fertilizers like homemade compost are not only less destructive to ecosystems but also much cheaper than store-bought fertilizers.
6. Leave those clippings alone. Like natural fertilizers, grass clippings contain amazing nutrients and water. Leave them on the ground to return nutrients and water to the earth.

Final thoughts

I believe that lawns are too often overlooked as environmental threats. That’s because we see green grass and think “green means good.” Evidently, this is not the case; your lawn kills the planet. By doing what we can to reduce our yard’s impact on the planet, you are also saving money and time in ways that still leaves you with a beautiful garden.

If you liked this post, I encourage you to check out these post:

• What is permaculture?
• Organic versus local: which is better?
• How to eat sustainably in the winter
• What’s in season: Spring Edition

Before this post, did you know how you lawn “kills” the planet? Have you done anything to make your own lawn more eco-friendly? Let me know in the comments!

Until next time!