What should Mahogany do about her lawn?

[mahogany]

I'm going to try to convince my dh that we should get rid of our lawn. I've never been a fan, and I've decided that this might be the year that we get rid of it.

I'm thinking of overseeding my lawn with a wildflower mix with flowers that are native to the pacific northwest, with some extra fragrant flowers thrown in.

[Poll #1713216]

Comments

[lovejunk.livejournal.com]

A couple of weekends ago we built 3 raised beds for veggies that cover the entire front lawn. The backyard has terrible sun exposure, and it's not the kind of road frontage where we want to be hanging out and having BBQs and drinks in the front anyways.

I'm pretty anti-lawn in a general sense, prolly from my small farm upbringing. I see a lawn and think there should at least be a goat grazing on it or something productive like that. Pasture (wild grasses, wildflowers, etc) I'm OK with. All that energy and resources going into artificially maintaining astroturf looking stuff, not so much.

[schneckerock.livejournal.com]

I hate grass. it's probably foreign to where we live, anyway. and we go out of our way to grow it jsut so we can chop it's heads off all the time. :P

the house we're trying to get has half the lawn bricked. it's ugly, but we're not gonna rip it up or anything. just put some huge planters there. as for the other half... we'll think of something. if we get the stupid house, that is.

[garpu.livejournal.com]

I'm allergic as hell to grass, so I'm all for getting rid of it. Not sure how well succulents would do in your neck of the woods, unless you like mossy covered rocks. (Which could be cool, too, in a kind of minimalist Japanese way.)

Might want to check with local ordinances. The neighbors across from us put in a huge, way cool garden in their front lawn and had to rip it all out due to city ordinances.

[kishiriadgr.livejournal.com]

I hate grass and love succulents and cacti. However I don't know how they would fare in your part of the world. As such, I elect for a rock garden with a few nice trees thrown in.

[tatianne.livejournal.com]

Plant veggies! Or herbs!!

[lavendersparkle.livejournal.com]

I vote for wildflower lawn but I am a tree hugging hippy. I wrote advocating clover lawns here. We've been letting our grass turn into wildflower lawns through natural selection. We don't apply weedkiller or water the lawn and it is now mainly clover and moss. I think if I was somewhere a bit more permanently I'd have some clover lawn with lots of bulbs growing through, which I cold use for cut flowers.

[new-iconoclast.livejournal.com]

Re: My "Other" answer on #2: I wouldn't be worried that the wildflowers would invade my grass; I'd be hoping.

[tracied.livejournal.com]

I say grow food.

[annabellissima.livejournal.com]

It isn't an "eyesore" persay, and I wouldn't be furious, but I think it tends to look "rundown" and like the person who owns the house has not taken care of their lawn and has let it become overgrown. So tho the concept is inspiring, and beautiful, and flowers in, and of, themselves are beautiful, it would end up not coming across that way. Does that make sense?

[nightynight.livejournal.com]

It can make you look like a crazy person who's let their lawn go to seed if it's not done right, and doing it right sometimes involves as much maintenance time as landscaped gardens.

In my view what we need to do is create gardens that welcome biodiversity and flowers for bees. Some bee flowers are big purple spray-up bushes, there are thousands of wee purple flowers. We all need to do our part for the bees!

As for the landscaping, please remember this: you are in an enviable position. You're in a habitat zone that can grow fantastic things, lovely, and wherever you are you have options. Rain gardens are beautiful - most Dutch gardens are these work of art gardens for rainy locales.

Gardening is an opportunity to involve your kids in connecting with life and the land, the gift of God, observational fun, caretaking-learning, research.

Whatever you do, get rid of the lawn, but landscape it with lots of green plants, because this should be relatively easy for you and has wonderful benefits. Weeding is relaxing.

Throw in a blackberry and a raspberry bush. Grow some peas and carrots.

Can you tell I'm a *little* bit into gardening right now? :)