Lawns are among our landscape's biggest water consumers. To look good, traditional lawn grasses need more water than is available through natural precipitation on the prairies. During the summer months, approximately 50 per cent of household water is used on the landscape with the vast majority of this is applied to lawns.
Historically, lawns were once natural meadows used as public space or "commons" in towns and villages in Europe - places for grazing livestock, meeting and fairs. In the 18th and 19th centuries, lawns surrounded the homes of rural gentry and were cropped short by sheep. The invention of the lawn mower in the 1830s made lawns manageable even for the urban middle class. Since The Second World War and the introduction of synthetic pesticides, lawns have become a suburban status symbol. They occupy the largest amount of space in our landscape - a reflection of North Americans' outdated concept of space and low population - and encourage a quest for perfection that motivates some of us to over apply water, fertilizer and pesticides in their care.
Lawns are resilient, comfortable and safe places for play and leisure. They reduce dust, glare and air pollution and help control erosion and runoff. Grass also lowers summer air and surface temperatures. As a design component, a lawn provides the "negative space" that sets off flowerbeds, mixed borders and specimen trees in our landscapes. As well, they provide a perception of space and openness that is dear to the prairie dweller. That long sward of green lawn is psychologically therapeutic, giving us a sense of quiet, calm and well-being.
Conventional lawns must be watered. Expenses involve the water itself and the equipment used to deliver it. Lawns are costly to establish and to then maintain over the many decades of their life. Mowing involves equipment and its maintenance, as well as gas and oil or electricity and extension cords. Fertilizers and pesticides are generally applied, often at higher rates than needed. Nutrients and other chemicals applied to the lawn may end up polluting waterways and aquifers. And few of us consider mowing a labour of love.
Take a second look at the amount of turf you have and consider what you actually do with it. Survey the lawn areas of your landscape. What is the function of each area? How is each area used by your household?
Space used for leisure, where you sit or lie on it, a toddler toddles on it, a teenager sunbathes and contact is of an intimate nature should be left as conventional lawn. But consider redesigning that area to match your irrigation system's pattern to conserve water.
Some parts of your lawn may be so intensively used that they would be better converted to "hard surfaces" such as decks or patios. These can withstand heavy amounts of human traffic and need no water, fertilizer or mowing. Such areas are usually immediately adjacent to the house.
Other areas of your lawn are there simply by default. They are seldom walked on unless you are behind a mower. They may consist of odd strips or difficult-to-reach corners. Long, narrow areas between the sidewalk and the driveway are almost never used as lawn and are easily replaced with low maintenance, drought-tolerant ground covers.
Many areas of a conventional lawn are seen but not actually used, their function purely visual. Entire front lawns could easily be converted to beds of drought-tolerant ground covers, flowers, shrubs and ornamental grasses to provide colour, texture and form. They would become much more interesting and, once established, involve less maintenance.
In rural areas, on farms and acreages, large areas of lawn are there only as a visual sward of green. They are usually composed of rough bunch-type grasses and were never intended to be walked or sat upon. They are never watered or fertilized and are mowed only as needed. These may be left as they are or over-seeded with more recently developed low-maintenance grass cultivars. They may be visually broken up by mass plantings of drought-tolerant perennials, ornamental grasses or tree-shrub borders.
- Sara Williams is the author of the new and updated Creating the Prairie Xeriscape published by Coteau Books. This column is provided courtesy of the Saskatchewan Perennial Society (www.saskperennial.ca; email: [email protected]).
