Instructions unclear: lawn covered in bricks and sponges now.
I had a house with shrubbery growing around it. the roots were dense but light, so no real danger to the foundation. I had mentioned to my wife a couple times about removing the shrubs to replace them with flower beds with smaller shrubs to make it easier to maintain.
one day I came home from work and her dad and her had completely ripped up every shrub along the back of the house.
I was livid. I asked her what she was going to do next because money was tight. She shrugged and said we can save up to plant something for next year.
I explained to her that those shrubs were protecting the foundation from water egress and by removing them we would have water in the crawlspace. she dismissed me and said I was overreacting.
this was just as spring started. guess what happened next? yep, water started to seep into the foundation and the walls were clearly wet. I showed her, explained that in 5-10 years the mortar between the blocks would soften and begin to break down and fall apart.
for context, the house was built in the early 50s and the foundation was just raw concrete blocks without any moisture barrier. the shrubs had been there since the house was built (or at least very nearly the whole time). there was one corner that had a downspout that dropped right on top of the foundation that had some pretty bad spalling but was otherwise in perfect condition.
she listens to me now.
I don’t know what kind of logical fallacy it is in us humans, but we really think in the present that we live in a time where we’re above nature like that, as if there’s a solution to everything. And not to talk ill of you your wife, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she thought: “oh well, I’m sure we’ll figure something out before anything bad happens” once you told her. And maybe she just trusted that her father knew better, that’s also not out of the question.
One thing has always been true though: Don’t fuck with water. Just look at the Grand Canyon after all.
Why is it someone hasn’t modified the dna of grass to give us one that has both deep roots and works like lawn grass on top.
As others have said, the size of roots is pretty directly tied to the size of foliage. Roots store energy(calories) in case something happens to the foliage or sunlight is low. The more energy they can take in, the more storage they need, as well as the stability that larger plants need from larger roots.
But how do you keep feeding the larger roots if the photosynthetic engines have giving them energy have been damn near removed?
Hm, this doesn’t fit. You are saying the roots store energy in case the foliage is lost, then saying the roots can’t exist without the foliage. Which is it? I get that they are energy storage. So the foliage in all plants must generate an excess of energy to fill the storage. That should mean that once the storage is full, extra energy can be spent to extend the roots, then fill with energy, rinse repeat.
It makes perfect sense. When the foliage is cut, it takes energy to regrow it. If there’s not enough greens or sunlight for photosynthesis to account for the plant’s total needs, it will draw those nutrients from the roots into the rest of the plant.
And there’s a whole lot of other things going on in the soil around roots as well. For example the interrelationships between plants and microbes has a tendency to start with the roots exuding sugars into the soil in order to attract those microbes. And that’s just a start. I think it’s really interesting stuff. If you wanna learn more, Regenerative Soil by Matt Powers is a fantastic book on the subject.
It is really interesting stuff. But it doesn’t explain why the roots can’t be bigger. You can take a small power source and charge a big battery or a small battery. It just takes longer for the big battery.
Well, to some degree it might be possible to selectively breed plants to prioritize root production a little more. I’m not sure to what extent that’s feasible though. You also have to understand, plants have evolved to actively want to be as big as possible. If you’re a small plant, your neighbor is more likely to grow larger than you, which blocks the sun from getting to you, which will cause you to die. So trying to make plants smaller in and of itself has ecological risks. Or at the very least, such naturally short lawns would be a lot more susceptible to weed encroachment.
I see that as a good thing. It’s like a check against uncontrolled spread. They would lose in natural competition. But a lawn of today already would. Yet the deeper roots would be good for the soil, flood control, drought management. Probably just not enough profit in the idea though.
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I doubt think it’s a DNA problem, the amount of roots depends on the amount of leaves.
So keeping the grass short keeps the roots sorry as well
But why? Roots act as energy storage, so once full, grow more. Not full stop. That should lead to pretty decent roots.
Because releasing genetically modified organisms into the wild can have absolutely disastrous consequences on an ecosystem. I think there are cases where the benefits are worth the risks, but pretty lawn is not one of them. Might be nice in the future when we have a better grasp on what we’re doing.
Thats a great talking point, but it is BS. Humans have been genetically modifying organsims through selective breeding for millenia. Any animal or plant you eat is nothing like it natural origin.
When you said “modify the DNA”, I thought you were referring to genetic modification in a laboratory, which is capable of enacting dramatic change in a single generation, including unintentional changes. Selective breeding enacts mild iterative changes over a long period of time, and is therefore much less risky.
And they also have plenty of issues.
And yet, not disastrous.
Sure. The chickens that we get from Costco that can’t walk on their own isn’t disastrous to me. Especially since I don’t eat them.
But I get your point.
The chickens that we’ve modified to not walk on their own have not yet blown up our world so we accept their mutation.
Yes, the point I was replying to was basically referring to unintended runaway modifications that could be disastrous like horror movie level. Chickens that can’t walk is not runaway because… well they can’t run, lol, so they also can’t breed. If humans died tomorrow, thoses chickens wouldn’t be far off.
That said, I support lab grown meat research. So we can stop with the chickens that can’t walk. But that won’t save the dogs that can barely breath due to selective breeding.
Because lawns are fucking stupid.
Context is important. I grew up on 5 acres of pretty wild land so the lawn around the house was anything but fucking stupid.
Gave kids a place to play in view of the big windows in the house, was a very very small part of the overall land. A small maintained area is a very good thing to have access to. But so was the wildness behind it
In more suburban or urban environments is a completely different discussion I will grant you
That, and I can’t help that my brain is wired to enjoy looking at a well kept lawn. It just is. Though I also like forest. Wish I could have both.
There are prairie grass stains that have very deep roots. Not sure how they act as a replacement for typical lawns but they exist already
- props to crime pays but botany doesn’t. Great stuff.
- needs a subtle Saddam in the root structure of native plant.
ITT lots of people who blessedly have no idea what an HOA is.
I think it’s a curse to know what HOA even are. Rest of the world is just normal.
Or we know all about them and avoid them at almost all cost.
Ur mom?
/j
Benefits of living in bumfuck. Though to be real, I’d never buy or build in a HOA. It’s a choice. Renting in HOAs was bad enough in the past.
Source: https://www.crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt.com/kill-your-lawn
Look, this guy is a phenomenon and worth at least some of your time. Not just for the kill your lawn stuff, but for making botany actually interesting. There’s a whole-ass youtube channel that is sure to entertain if not educate.
His rambling podcasts are great.
Plus lawns are typically domed up to avoid sogginess, causing tons of runoff into the storm drains (including runoff from sprinklers). It’s lunacy.
I work in municipal government, and I have very strong feeling about leaf blowers.
All these assholes blowing all the great fertilizing trulimmings and dirt off their lawn and into the street to clog up the storm drains.
My father, and mother after he died, spent 40 fucking years raking the leaves from under the shrubs and throwing them away. Our house was surrounded by lush bushes, entire house, entire back yard. Took little me and dad 4 hard hours to trim all that.
Got back from taking botany related classes in college. Tried to explain that bagging the lawn clippings and raking the leaves would kill everything. She wouldn’t hear it.
Anyway, dad’s dead, mom’s dead, entire fucking yard is dead. Lost it all but some barely hagin’ in there grass. It’s a fucking desert.
Old lady on the corner religiously rakes and burns her leaves, goes after it like it’s her fucking job. We got a max of 2" of topsoil in NW Florida, max. Her entire lot is nearly all sand.
It’s a shame we work so hard to destroy natural beauty.
That’s why I love my twin blade mower. Turns all yard trimmings into basically powder that feeds the lawn and even helps prevent moisture from evaporating out of the soil.
I also use controlled natural selection so that only shit that can survive our brutal summers grows, so I don’t even need to water.
Was just saying, we got a max of 2" of topsoil in NW Florida. I’m throwing everything back in the yard. Every weed we pull we chunk on the ground. Don’t care if it looks the shit, I’ll hit it with the mower eventually.
It’s impossible to overstate how long topsoil takes to form and how easy it is to trash. At 54, I honestly don’t think I’ll live long enough to add .25" of good soil to this yard. But I’m fuckin’ trying!
Bro if ur using a leaf blower to remove leaves from your lawn and not from your driveway you gotta be extra special
A lot of people love their lawn toys (and hate municipal workers and well draining streets I guess).
I lived in Massachusetts for a while and the city I lived in directed people to blow/rake their leaves into the road so a giant vacuum truck could collect them.
Yeah that’s true. There are a ton of arbitrary defined and applied lawn laws in the states. The “no weeds” ones are always funny too, bc more often then not the grass you imported from Asia is more a weed than the native flowers
Where i grew up you could have an edible native plant that mosquitoes hate, fixing nitrogen as your ground cover, but no the hoa says grass not mint. I wanted to do guerrilla gardening with wild strawberries there too, but never got around to it.
That said, one non native plant belonged there, the earth made the dandelion one of her greatest and most beloved children, and who am I to disagree.
I was taught as child to hate and fight dandelions. Learned in college that “weeds” like that pull nutrients up from deep in the soil. When they die and rot, those deep roots turn into channels for water.
In the same sense that nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd, a little bit of killing goes a long way towards making a desert.
Yeah they aren’t native here but they’re good at playing nice with native plants. If you notice them outcompeting native taproot plants then go after them, but they’re pretty, they pull water from deep while helping keep deeper soil nice and soily, pollinators often like them, and they’re not only edible but good for you.
There was a little old black lady in Tulsa many years ago whose entire front yard was a mix of native plants and garden. It was very nice and organized, nothing tacky at all. City rolled up and razed it flat. She was crying on TV, I was some mix of enraged and crying.
One winter I lost every plant I owned, and that loss kept me away from houseplants for over a decade. I cannot imagine her pain.
Anyway, where I’m at now I’m basically free to treat our house like white trash. No one can say jack about how I’m keeping it and I’ve shared some ecosystem success stories in this thread.
plus the soil can carry invasive weeds, and diseases, or pests too. and ornamental plants often come from places like asia,etc. people are still growing latana camara in some places.
They don’t want the leaves covering up the unnaturally green grass, and if they clog up the storm system that’s someone downhill’s problem.
Not shown: the limestone 16" down.
Relevant Climate Town-video which just dropped: https://nebula.tv/videos/climatetown-americas-dumbest-crop/ / https://youtu.be/KLYMjPNppRQ
I was purposefully allowing my grass to grow because my area is in a severe drought and the herbivorous wildlife (groundhogs, rabbits, and deer) have slim pickings right now and they started coming onto my property to eat. I even leave the gates open to the fenced part when I’m not home so the critters can get in easier.
The other day my neighbor mowed half my yard without my consent because he saw a garter snake cross the road and go into my yard. I was, and still am, so pissed. He cut the grass down to the dirt. He didn’t even tell me after the fact. I had to go door to door asking my neighbors if they knew who tf touched my yard while I was out and about. My neighbor admitted to it when I got to his place to ask and had the audacity to get shitty with me about letting my grass grow.
that’s so fucked up for them to do that
It really was. I had to pay my usual grass guy the price of a full cut to finish it, too. Apparently making the drive to my place for less isn’t worth it for him, which I totally understand. I could not afford a full cut on my own, so I had to borrow money from my mom. My usual grass guy is really great and he uses my yard to teach his kids yard work, so my mom didn’t mind helping me out.
Still super bummed about the wildlife needing food though. It’s super illegal to actively feed the wildlife where I live, so I can’t really provide for them.
I’ve had something similar happen too. There’s some shitty fucking people out there.
Right?? Like this neighbor seemed pretty damn cool until he pulled that shit. He lost a bunch of weight and he suddenly became the biggest dickhead on the planet…🙄
Is there an alternative to grass that covers well, and doesn’t spread fast like an invasive plant?
I’ve read about clover but it does spread fast.
Clover is honestly fine, its short so even if it spreads into your flowerbeds its not going to do any damage, in fact since its a nitrogen fixer it might even help, and insects like clover a lot more than grass
native grass, probably
I love the university of Minnesota Bee Lawn page about some ideas. You can also buy pure flower seeds at Flawn
The spreading nature of clover is not overwhelming. I have it everywhere and doesn’t pass even the smallest barrier to my more traditional gardens. It weedy status is more marketing than factual
Roundup doesn’t want you to know this. In their eyes… Dandelions are weeds, which is such a sad opinion.
Dandelions are awesome! You can make a salad of them with great health benefits and dandelion honey is also great! And the latex milk it has can be used to make rubber!
You can also make tea out of the leaves, root, and flowers (all together, or some combination of the three).
Dandelions have a lot of vitamin A and C, some B vitamins, calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron, copper, and zinc. It’s good for the skin, liver, and digestion. It’s a diuretic and can help with cramps.
When dandelions pop up they let you know to start looking for morels in a week or so. Thank you dandelions.
eh, there’s a shitton of clay about an inch down here. turf ain’t the problem
Dandies eat clay for breakfast
I thought that was a slur for a second.
you’re assuming soil with clay mixed in it. you would be wrong.
Get yourself an earth drill, make some 40cm holes, add earth and plant: sunflowers, dandelions & poppies, tall grass works well too.
i really love when people assume i’m in the wrong climate zone and soil and end up giving advice that would be useless unless i popped another 3 feet of soil on top of what already exists.
there is a specific method you have to use to grow anything here. no, i’m not going into it as it would be overly identifying.
The shape of the roots of the shrubs is somewhat exaggerated. Many do go that deep, but they’re not that wide all the way down. There are only a few types that grow roots that look like that.
There are also deep root grasses if you want a lawn, but don’t want to ruin your soil.
