Although there are plenty of irrational aspects to life in modern America, few rival the odd fixation on lawns. Fertilizing, mowing, watering — these are all-American activities that, on their face, seem reasonable enough. But to spend hundreds of hours mowing your way to a designer lawn is to flirt, most would agree, with a bizarre form of fanaticism. Likewise, planting a species of grass that will make your property look like a putting green seems a bit excessive — yet not nearly as self-indulgent as the Hamptons resident who put in a nine-hole course with three lakes, despite being a member of an exclusive golf club located across the street. And what should we make of the Houston furniture salesman who, upon learning that the city was planning to ban morning mowing — to fight a smog problem comparable to Los Angeles’s — vowed to show up, bright and early, armed and ready to cut.“I’ll pack a sidearm,” he said. “What are they going to do, have the lawn police come and arrest me?”
Surprisingly, the lawn is one of America’s leading “crops,” amounting to at least twice the acreage planted in cotton. In 2007, it was estimated that there were roughly twenty-five to forty million acres of turf in the United States. Put all that grass together in your mind and you have an area, at a minimum, about the size of the state of Kentucky, though perhaps as large as Florida. Included in this total were fifty-eight million home lawns plus over sixteen thousand golf-course facilities (with one or more courses each) and roughly seven hundred thousand athletic fields. Numbers like these add up to a major cultural preoccupation.
Not only is there already a lot of turf, but the amount appears to be growing significantly. A detailed study found that between 1982 and 1997, as suburban sprawl gobbled up the nation, the lawn colonized over 382,850 acres of land per year. Even the amount of land eligible for grass has increased, as builders have shifted from single-story homes to multi-story dwellings with smaller footprints. The lawn, in short, is taking the country by storm.
Lawn care is big business, with Americans spending an estimated $40 billion a year on it. That is more than the entire gross domestic product of the nation of Vietnam. Lawn care has become such a competitive field that something as simple as choosing a company name can challenge even the savviest landscape professional. A glance at the national lawn-care directory reveals a very imaginative crowd, able to move beyond the old medical standbys such as Lawn Doctor and Lawn Medic, and such obvious choices as Green Lawn of Riverside, California (not to be confused with Lawn Green of Sacramento, California), into the realm of the avant-garde: Lawn Rescue, Lawn Authority, Lawn Express, Lawn Manicure, Lawn One, Lawn Genies, Lawnsense, Lawn Magic, Ultralawn, Lawnamerica, Lawn Rangers (of Texas, of course), Lawn Barbers, as well as more inventive concoctions such as Marquis de Sodding, the Sod Fathers, and Mow Better Lawns.
April is “National Lawn Care Month” in the United States, but in no other nation of the world. “It’s the perfect time to honor the environment both through Earth Day and National Lawn Care Month,” a representative of the Professional Lawn Care Association of America once explained. And where else can you find advice on a sales pitch like the following one a trade magazine proffered to the up-and-coming lawn professional: “Have a couple of key messages on the benefits of turf. Use statements like . . . ‘I am maintaining your 8,000 square feet of turf so it will continue to provide enough oxygen for your family plus several others in the neighborhood.’”
Hardcore lawn enthusiasts explain that they are not even growing “grass.” No, they are involved in something far more serious: tending “turf” (a word that comes from Sanskrit, meaning tuft of grass). A whole new generation of mower technology has come to the fore: hydrostatic walk-behinds, zero-turn units, and commercial riders. Consider the aptly named Xtreme Mowchine, a riding mower said to cut grass at fifteen miles per hour, a speed that, according to the manufacturer, makes it the fastest lawn mower in the world. “IT’S LIKE A MOWER ON STEROIDS!” blares the advertisement. And mowers are hardly the only product line out there for coiffing the yard. An arsenal of machines is now available, even to the amateur — aerators, sod cutters, dethatchers, backpack blowers, trimmers, and edgers — lying in wait to drown out the first sounds of spring.
Sometimes the lengths to which the truly devoted grass enthusiast will go might shock even your most dedicated weekend lawn jockey. Moles are a case in point. These little miscreants have the annoying habit of tunneling beneath the lawn, causing one victim in Florida to liken the “mole subway system” in his yard to “a map of New York City.” Imagine the horror, then, of residents in Washington after the state passed a ballot initiative that outlawed the use of “body-gripping traps” for dealing with this common turf menace. Here was an assault on the lawn that no self-respecting gardener could countenance. The first line of attack, understandably enough, involved homegrown remedies like pouring castor oil or tossing chewing gum down the holes. The more creatively inclined tried saving their bodily fluids for use in the crusade. Others pinned their hopes on asphyxiation, hooking up long hoses to the tailpipes of cars. If those strategies failed, there was the prospect of advanced technology, such as gas bombs with names like “the Giant Destroyer” and “Gopher Gasser.” While this is not an advice manual, we should learn from the mistakes of others, which brings to mind the Seattle homeowner who ignited his entire lawn after pouring gasoline down the tunnels and dropping in a match.
As bizarre as the lawn fanatics may seem, when looked at closely, their behavior is only a slight exaggeration of what has come to be seen as normal. If most homeowners today are not making turf checkerboards or rushing to mow the Joneses’ lawn next door, they do aspire to a presentable yard which keeps the neighbors happy and adds to their property value. Few Americans bother to question the lawn, in part because its true price is not readily apparent. What is that price? Although the turf industry says that the lawn is the equivalent of “First-Aid for the Earth,” the reality is more complicated. Grass by itself can indeed prevent soil erosion and storm-water runoff, but the quest for perfect turf is another story altogether, with a dark side for both the landscape and public health.
by Ted Steinberg, Longreads | Read more:
Image: Andy Cross/The Denver Post via Getty Images
Surprisingly, the lawn is one of America’s leading “crops,” amounting to at least twice the acreage planted in cotton. In 2007, it was estimated that there were roughly twenty-five to forty million acres of turf in the United States. Put all that grass together in your mind and you have an area, at a minimum, about the size of the state of Kentucky, though perhaps as large as Florida. Included in this total were fifty-eight million home lawns plus over sixteen thousand golf-course facilities (with one or more courses each) and roughly seven hundred thousand athletic fields. Numbers like these add up to a major cultural preoccupation.Not only is there already a lot of turf, but the amount appears to be growing significantly. A detailed study found that between 1982 and 1997, as suburban sprawl gobbled up the nation, the lawn colonized over 382,850 acres of land per year. Even the amount of land eligible for grass has increased, as builders have shifted from single-story homes to multi-story dwellings with smaller footprints. The lawn, in short, is taking the country by storm.
Lawn care is big business, with Americans spending an estimated $40 billion a year on it. That is more than the entire gross domestic product of the nation of Vietnam. Lawn care has become such a competitive field that something as simple as choosing a company name can challenge even the savviest landscape professional. A glance at the national lawn-care directory reveals a very imaginative crowd, able to move beyond the old medical standbys such as Lawn Doctor and Lawn Medic, and such obvious choices as Green Lawn of Riverside, California (not to be confused with Lawn Green of Sacramento, California), into the realm of the avant-garde: Lawn Rescue, Lawn Authority, Lawn Express, Lawn Manicure, Lawn One, Lawn Genies, Lawnsense, Lawn Magic, Ultralawn, Lawnamerica, Lawn Rangers (of Texas, of course), Lawn Barbers, as well as more inventive concoctions such as Marquis de Sodding, the Sod Fathers, and Mow Better Lawns.
April is “National Lawn Care Month” in the United States, but in no other nation of the world. “It’s the perfect time to honor the environment both through Earth Day and National Lawn Care Month,” a representative of the Professional Lawn Care Association of America once explained. And where else can you find advice on a sales pitch like the following one a trade magazine proffered to the up-and-coming lawn professional: “Have a couple of key messages on the benefits of turf. Use statements like . . . ‘I am maintaining your 8,000 square feet of turf so it will continue to provide enough oxygen for your family plus several others in the neighborhood.’”
Hardcore lawn enthusiasts explain that they are not even growing “grass.” No, they are involved in something far more serious: tending “turf” (a word that comes from Sanskrit, meaning tuft of grass). A whole new generation of mower technology has come to the fore: hydrostatic walk-behinds, zero-turn units, and commercial riders. Consider the aptly named Xtreme Mowchine, a riding mower said to cut grass at fifteen miles per hour, a speed that, according to the manufacturer, makes it the fastest lawn mower in the world. “IT’S LIKE A MOWER ON STEROIDS!” blares the advertisement. And mowers are hardly the only product line out there for coiffing the yard. An arsenal of machines is now available, even to the amateur — aerators, sod cutters, dethatchers, backpack blowers, trimmers, and edgers — lying in wait to drown out the first sounds of spring.
Sometimes the lengths to which the truly devoted grass enthusiast will go might shock even your most dedicated weekend lawn jockey. Moles are a case in point. These little miscreants have the annoying habit of tunneling beneath the lawn, causing one victim in Florida to liken the “mole subway system” in his yard to “a map of New York City.” Imagine the horror, then, of residents in Washington after the state passed a ballot initiative that outlawed the use of “body-gripping traps” for dealing with this common turf menace. Here was an assault on the lawn that no self-respecting gardener could countenance. The first line of attack, understandably enough, involved homegrown remedies like pouring castor oil or tossing chewing gum down the holes. The more creatively inclined tried saving their bodily fluids for use in the crusade. Others pinned their hopes on asphyxiation, hooking up long hoses to the tailpipes of cars. If those strategies failed, there was the prospect of advanced technology, such as gas bombs with names like “the Giant Destroyer” and “Gopher Gasser.” While this is not an advice manual, we should learn from the mistakes of others, which brings to mind the Seattle homeowner who ignited his entire lawn after pouring gasoline down the tunnels and dropping in a match.
As bizarre as the lawn fanatics may seem, when looked at closely, their behavior is only a slight exaggeration of what has come to be seen as normal. If most homeowners today are not making turf checkerboards or rushing to mow the Joneses’ lawn next door, they do aspire to a presentable yard which keeps the neighbors happy and adds to their property value. Few Americans bother to question the lawn, in part because its true price is not readily apparent. What is that price? Although the turf industry says that the lawn is the equivalent of “First-Aid for the Earth,” the reality is more complicated. Grass by itself can indeed prevent soil erosion and storm-water runoff, but the quest for perfect turf is another story altogether, with a dark side for both the landscape and public health.
by Ted Steinberg, Longreads | Read more:
Image: Andy Cross/The Denver Post via Getty Images
