Why are you guys obsessed with keeping a sterile well mowed lawn?

24 comments

1. Because if you don’t maintain your property the city will start issuing citations, and mowed grass is the next cheapest thing to maintain after bare dirt.

2. My kid is going to have a hard time playing soccer in an orchard and soccer would destroy the flowers, and an orchard or flower garden would be 10X the time and effort to care for

3. Because nice grass is pleasant for walking or laying on. Its easier to play baseball. Its nice to look at.

   …and I say this as somebody who doesn’t really have or care about their grass.

   I have a large flower and vegetable garden.

   It should be noted, we got the lawn things from Europeans.

4. >with keeping lawns with just grass?

   We don’t. The Lawn is an essential part of the entertainment space for a properly apportioned garden. Almost all of us have additional landscaping.

   I live in Florida. We use our outdoor spaces year round the lawn is part of that equation.

   DEATH TO DOLLARWEED AND CRABGRASS!

5. Grass is extremely easy to maintain. I also have flowers and shrubs. I don’t have enough land for an orchard.

6. Plenty of people have gardens or flower beds. You even admitted yourself that you don’t know anything about this, so why not first ask if your assumption is even true?

7. To show that I take pride in my home and am better able to take care of it than my neighbors.

8. What in the holy hell is a “professional lawn owner?”

9. As a middle aged father in a house full of women, maintaining a lawn is one of the few things I can do that lets have even a modicum of control over one single thing in my life.

   Plus, working on the yard is something that gets me out of the house. No one else in the house is able to do yard work. I keep those chores siloed so I always have a way to escape the hustle of the inside of the house.

10. Lol. I read this as I’m mowing my lawn.

    I have an acre of irregular land. Slopes down from back to front.

    I let mine grow longer then my two neighbors, who both have multiple acres. However, they’re retired and their property is kind of their pride and joy. I don’t think they mind my staying a bit longer. It’s all the hills of East Tennessee and looks good a little wild.

    We have all kinds of wildflowers, wild chive, wild onion, and other stuff that grows.

    The only real reason to keep it short is to keep our allergies in check. It’s crazy when everything grows too much.

11. Why do you shampoo, condition, trim, and style your hair?

12. [removed]

13. Because my HOA gets mad at me if I don’t mow it. Plenty of people have flowers, shrubs and gardens.

14. I used to be a professional landscaper, and so now I don’t really have the interest or motivation to care much about my own lawn and just do the bare minimum to meet to requirements for my city and HOA. However, I would do those anyway because I don’t want a house full of snakes, mice, spiders, ticks, fleas, etc.

15. I’m a lawn enthusiast.

    It’s a nice little hobby. Gets me working outside, makes the outside of my house pop a little with perfect grass. Makes my street look a little better, and helps keep weed pressure off my neighbors as well.

    I don’t want shitty flowers, where would they go? Maybe a couple around a tree are fine. I have bushes where they need to be(house perimeter, around mailbox. Pushing towards adding more in the backyard). But the main part of my yard is manicured grass.

    Even if you don’t care about having nice grass, if you don’t do *something* for it then it will absolutely look like shit and wont even be nice to walk on. Who wants to step on spikes from weeds when walking on it barefoot?

16. I have a mowed lawn, a shrub “island”, a manicured flower garden, a “wildflower” garden, a berry garden, a raised bed vegetable garden, hedges, and trees galore. It’s not just one thing for one purpose. Some of our properties are huge. The lawn area creates a nice recreational space to hang out, play sports, let pets roam, and just enjoy an open grassy area.

    And if I don’t mow the lawn at least every three weeks, there will be so many ticks and bugs, and it will look overgrown and unkempt. Most people in my area have the same issues. We get grasses that grow very quickly and you have to stay on top of it. Just go look at youtube videos of overgrown lawns and see what happens when homeowners don’t mow their lawns regularly.

17. Our HOA is big on “No weeds” and I’m trying to change that mindset. I don’t want to use chemicals. I’ve added clover to my lawn. I also have trees and a huge vegetable/fruit garden.

18. Having a house with a lawn is something of a luxury and an ideal for a lot of people in America. There’s a reason the “American Dream” is stereotypically summed up as “a wife, two kids, and a white picket fence.” No need for a fence without a lawn to fence in. It’s the idea of owning your own *land* and being able to see it, even if it’s just a little bit of it. So with that goes the idea that if you *do* own land, you should take care of it. Having a lawn and keeping it nice is a sign that you have property and the means and/or time and energy to keep it looking nice. Either you pay someone to look after it or you do it yourself. It signals to your neighbor and people who drive by that you’re a responsible person. Personally I think it’s all a bit bullshit, but I prefer city living and never cared for the chores associated with keeping a lawn looking nice. Also, FWIW, a lot of people who have lawns also do have flower gardens and ornamental trees, and the people with good lawns almost always have good (ornamental) gardens too. Interestingly, most people who have gardens for useful herbs/fruits and vegetables usually have them in their backyards. Probably because it’s a bit more private.

19. I have a lawn and I have flower beds. Because it looks nice, and I also want a space out back where my dogs can run around.

    I also live on 4 acres of land, so I let most of my property grow wild. Partially to provide habitat for animals, but mostly because keeping that much property maintained would be a full time job.

20. The evolution of the American lawn is an interesting thing to study and you can read up on it from sources that will be more informed than random Americans who are inside the culture but not necessarily students of its history. The English loved their gardens. French aristocrats liked lawn. 1950s single-family-home American suburbia became the promise of upward mobility to a lot of people living in urban environments with much less green. Then, between “keeping up with the Jonses,” and the fact that the kids grew up with a lawn, it becomes established culturally and generationally. It also becomes a hobby, a source of physical activity, and mechanical indulgence (you gotta have the right tools for various tasks). It can be somewhat gendered toward men and boys for these reasons. Your day job might be working at a desk in insurance, but the lawn requires you to use power tools while doing physical activity. This may also contribute to the sanitized golf course factor, if flowers become the purview of women and the lawn care more of men. It becomes an aspect of home ownership pride, since you can see the lawns that have time put into them vs the ones that don’t. This also becomes a class signifier, since mowing your own lawn is the ultimate middle class chore, while paying a professional to do it is an indication of wealth. At it’s most basic, lawns are useful for kids, dogs, and parties, and can make the home feel visually attractive. All of these things are factors, but most people probably don’t think about it in all these terms. Mowing the lawn is like taking out the trash, just something you do. And of course it depends where you are. My grandma in San Francisco never had a lawn.

    To temper the somewhat judgmental framing of the question tho, entrenchment is often the nature of culture. Why do some people Asia act like the sky will fall if they step foot inside one time while wearing shoes? There are some practical reasons, but the taboo goes beyond the practical and is about the inertia of social reinforcement, further reinforced by a lifetime of personal habit. To buck the trend, you first have to first consider that things could be different, then (for lawns) do the work to plan and execute the alternative, and be comfortable rejecting the habits of most people around you. That’s not always easy to do. Also at this point, you’re likely going to inherit a lawn if you acquire a house.

    Also to be clear: a lot of people *do* have vegetable gardens or elaborate flower gardens. My neighbor is not that far removed from farm life and has a big vegetable plot every year that takes up most of the back yard. I do increasingly see over the last 5-10 years, people looking for lawn alternatives and just having mulch-covered flower beds or tall perennial plants that take up more of the yard than before. And more people are living in cities where it’s not part of the equation. So we may be seeing a shift away from total lawn supremacy, but it takes time.

21. I don’t get any say in what the street facing property looks like because I live in a rental. But from my understanding, lawn is preferred over flowers and vegetables and fruits because, in practice, it’s less work. I have a small garden on my patio and it requires a lot of maintenance regards to fertilizing regularly, pruning, watering, harvesting, etc… A lot of Americans do have gardens in the backyard.

    Also, various city or township ordinances and HOA’s (if you have one) require you to have grass below a certain height.

    That being said, I haven’t known anyone that’s obsessed with lawncare. We’ve only mowed ours ever week or so. Sometimes of there were bare patches, my dad would reseed the grass. But that’s it. We never fretted over having weeds or keeping it watered. While a well manicured front garden is gorgeous, mowing a lawn is a lot easier.

22. Because I’m required to by my city and will get fined. Otherwise I’d let nature have more of it back.

23. > movies, TV shows and news

    Movies and TV aren’t reality.

    As for why Americans have a lawn culture, here.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tfao7CZ0xQ

    I personally don’t like lawns but there are benefits, namely keeping pests at bay. Small woodland creatures get in your house much less with a lawn.

    Personally, my opinion, is of the front yard garden and my plan includes this once I settle into a forever home. Having a layered garden for food or insect life for the area sounds a lot better than a shaved green space. My plans also include goats and rural living, so it’s not like it’s some crazy idea for what I want.

24. Because if I let it grow wild it would be a thicket after one growing season. Orchards and flowers are more work than just driving a lawnmower over some grass.