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BANG FOR THE BITE
If 10,000 Biters leave clippings on 1/4 acre of lawn each, in a year we'll save the weight of 1,600,000 manual lawnmowers in grass from entering landfills.
COCKTAIL FACT
Some home sellers who want to increase the "curb appeal" of their home paint their lawn green.
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home › tip library › Lawn Care
Wanna spend more time watching the grass grow and less time cleaning it up?
The Bite
Lawn-mowing lazies rejoice: now you have an excuse not to bag your grass clippings. Leave them on the lawn for a healthy nitrogen boost and use fewer big plastic bags to boot.The Benefits
- Free fertilizer. Grass clippings release nitrogen, so you can spend 25% less on fertilizer.
- Less synthetic fertilizer means less nitrogen runoff into waterways (too much nitrogen causes algae overgrowth, which kills aquatic life).
- Smaller landfills. The EPA estimates that yard waste such as grass clippings accounts for 18% of household trash.
- Relaxation. Instead of stuffing bags, you can sit back and enjoy a cocktail.
Personally Speaking
When we want to impress the neighbors (or make an excuse to spend time outside), we rake up our lawn leavings and compost them.Wanna Try?
- Compost Guide - if you don't like the look of clippings on your lawn, you can still avoid sending them to the landfill by composting them.
- Earth911 - enter your zip code to see if your city has a program that will compost for you.
May 31,2007
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All editorial suggestions in this tip are the result of testing and a preference for the tip topic. No advertiser has paid to have its company referenced in the tip. For more information, please read our Editorial Policy.
Calling all Bozeman boy Biters!
Single and looking for a hot girl's lawn to mow? Look no further than Jen. Not only is she looking for someone to mow her lawn, she's also looking for a significant other. The best part is, per today's tip, you won't even have to bag the clippings. Post a comment to apply!
-Toshio...off to write a personals ad for myself...
Biter Comments...
I'm disappointed that this tip didn't mention any of the alternatives to grass; slow-growing fescues, ground cover, rock gardens, heck, even herb gardens! Get rid of grass (which is hugely consuming of water, and pesticides if you want to keep it looking anywhere decent) and replace it with low maintenace xeriscaping. Search xeriscaping on the web for ideas.
In my opinion grass should be a thing of the past now with global warming (humans warming) the planet at an alarming rate! We don't have enough water to have the luxury of grass anymore, people you need to wake up! Look into grass alternatives. How many people do you ever see using their grass anyhow? I rarely in my entire almost 40 yrs on this planet see people actually playing on,sitting on, picnicking on their lawns. It is a waste of money for water,it's a waste of energy,and the chemicals most people dump on their lawns is causing global, human, and animal imbalances! Who the heck decided that lawns are so special? Lets be the deciders,and decide something new, out with lawns I say! What a sad over consuming American culture we have,and the reality is that we can't afford to have lawns anymore! Next time your outside open your eyes and look around, how many people do you see on their lawns?
Hello--a lawn??? Haven't had one in years!!!
And if your community does not have a green waste composting program you should work to get one! Please don't talk about taking yard clippings to the dump--take action.
We heart our little lawn. Not all grass lubbers pour water and chems on their lawn either. We use a reel mower (excellent exercise) and let the clips land where they may.
Here-Here for those who say grass should be a thing of the past! It's irresponsible to do sod -- go with the alternatives and walk the kids to the park if you want to roll around on grass!
There is no grass in the parks though; since banning weed killer, all there is are knee-high thistle bushes, dandelions and goose poo. Not sure I want my son to roll around in that, though we do have fun picking the dandelion seed heads and blowing them, thereby ensuring an ongoing crop. About once a month they mow the whole mess down, and just leave the 'clippings' on the 'lawn', though the mown thistles are a hazard.
there are great indigenous species of grass, that require maybe a few mowings a season.
that said, eliminating it is definitely best!
Hey JS - thanks for the ongoing comments - you always bring great buzz to our blog. But what is with all these meetings? You deserve a break at an eco-spa, my friend ;). OK, OK, just kidding - you make a great point. Clearly, we should all do more by, well, doing less. But I think this movement is still too nascent for most of the people joining it to think in those ways, and until we reach a more critical mass, a "light green" approach may just be the ticket to bringing people into the fold who will one day make the bigger changes.
Catherine - oh, we're here. We just think Tosh (for some inexplicable reason) is better at writing personal ads than the rest of us. Ahem.
Evelyn - bravo on the Reel mower. When your son is older, I recommend reading Dandelion Wine, by Ray Bradbury, together.
Eliminate lawns altogether, and try planting a veggie garden. If that's not possible, or allowed due to homeowner covenants, go for planting appropriate trees, shrubs, perennials and growndcovers for your area and growing condiitons. Easier on you and the birds,
etc. will love you for it. If you really do want 'lawn', try some of the native varieties, such as 'grama' or 'buffalo' grass...it's perfect here in the intermountain west. Saves water and work! Contact your local county extension office for info on what's suitable for your specific area. The folks at www.highcountrygardens.com can really help you out here!
Jen--my son is an MSU student (just finished his freshman year), and is home in Great Falls--mowing! Otherwise, I would send him your way--for the mowing part!! Really, I am interested in your green barn, as we just bought property in Manhattan, MT for our MSU rodeo daughter's horses. We are working on the barn. Advice needed! Hope to hear from you! Great cover last month on the magazine!
Forgot to add to my last post, we started leaving the clippings on the lawn at our Great Falls home and have encouraged others to do the same!
My son has a lawn mowing business in Bozeman/Belgrade and could use another job or two for the summer. He's a hard worker and will mow, prune trees, edge, weed eat, take care of animals, etc. He can do anysize lawn anywhere near Bozeman/Belgrade/4 Corners/Gallatin Gateway and will also bag it for you at a great price. Not the dating response you might me looking for but why not help out a responsible local kid while also getting a great looking yard out of the deal. Email me if interested and I'll get you our home phone. brook@pcengineeringllc.com
Hey Heather...I definitely am all for what you guys do here, especially your action-not-just-awareness approach. Nothing is worse than watching different perspectives within this evolving community divide and disappoint based on details rather than incite and inspire.
Lately I'm wondering where I'm at with this stuff. I had the chance to speak with an Iroquois chief about a project (we realized I probably hit his grandson, and vice versa on the Nation's box lacrosse field) and Janine Benyus (www.biomimicry.net, super-interesting stuff for anybody interested) within a few weeks of each other...two people as close to embodying the natural world as anybody out there. Both, as optimistic as you'd imagine, saw Climate Change as already, essentially, ten years gone (sorry for the Zeppelin reference...one of my all-time favorite songs). Change isn't coming...we're already living it ("Changes fill my time, but that's alright with me"). Basically we can avoid the gloomiest & "doom-iest", but both sensed Nature forcing a re-localization of perspective and consumption, with Chief Lyons urging his people to "start planting" and protecting the Great Lakes water supplies, and Janine seeing a point of inflection in global commerce, most likely on its way.
Anyway...the basic dichotomy or paradox I keep hitting, Is doing a little less bad good? Or just a little less bad? Different communities answer that one differently, as you'd guess in this age of moral relativism, evolving notions of decency and all that, umm, stuff. The Bible and, say, McKibben's reading of the Book of Job? The whole house divided thing...bad is bad is bad. Same with Jim Kunstler, the theatric post-modern drama guy, the atheist (not sure?) balancing out McKibben's Adirondack, Protestant and Minimalistic sensibilities.
Then there's Treehugger's founder, probably a really great guy (honestly), living his daily day with $300 dollar cashmere sweaters and carbon offsets to balance out trans-continental commutes, all to save the environment in a day's work. Or Inhabitat...warning of greenwashing, as the writers color certain questionable products as sustainable because "you can't write about solar panels or biodiesel every day". Close to measuring sustainable by the standards of the world that all of us in this community are trying to protect (embodied in the laws and principles of physics, environmental chemistry and biology)...the C2C restorative community, and probably Tom Friedman's Flat World.
So who knows, other than Nature, that after 3.8 billion years of building biodiversity, resilience and human/ecological health with only local, current sunlight, no waste or bio-accumulative toxins, in water and at room temperature...and Nature's already on the move.
Tough call, and lately these meetings are with those sort of alpha male, eat-what-you-kill, consuming more is just the American success story type clients...which I guess puts me in fighting mode, because I think I know the answer to that question, but I can't stop fighting the supposed good fight even if the proverbial and literal flood's on the way. The only answer I have these days is "restore where you buy" -- so think about any NYC building for example. Since NY still gets 60% (and that's actually low) of its power from coal-fired power plants, here's what I just told a client they needed to do to be sustainable. First, go restore the human and ecological communities that mountaintop coal mining destroyed in Appalachia, but whose citizens are too poor to protect themselves or get the story out -- www.ilovemountains.org. Then restore the ecological damage associated with hauling, processing and burning this coal in Ohio. That includes the acid rain over the Adirondacks and the 24,000 lives cut short by pollution from these plants. And then let's talk Climate change. Do that, and you'll be sustainable. Or buy green power...locally produced, current solar energy, as Nature does.
I won't even quote my favorite movie Braveheart here, but it's basically a "bend over and kiss your ass and apologize to every indigenous species, animal or human, along that path of consumption from the first piece of coal extracted in the most biodiverse freshwater ecosystem in the world (the Appalachian temperate stream systems), to any of the 24,000 people whose lives were cut short this year by pollution from coal-fired plants". I do it with a big jackass smile, at least!
Who knows.
And...I'm definitely "light" green only on my best days, not even close most others!
I'll be in town for the Big Brothers Big Sisters golf tournament July 14th if Jen needs her lawn mowed? Rocky
Rocky, did you get a chance to mow Jen's lawn? Was it already trimmed or wild and bushy? Details man!
PHOTO ALBUMS
Posted by: Catherine | May 31, 2007 at 05:17 AM