this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2024
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No Lawns

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What is No Lawns?

A community devoted to alternatives to monoculture lawns, with an emphasis on native plants and conservation. Rain gardens, xeriscaping, strolling gardens, native plants, and much more! (from official Reddit r/NoLawns)

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[–] [email protected] 84 points 6 months ago (2 children)

You can use electric mowers. They solve the belching fumes problem and nothing else.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 6 months ago (4 children)

They're often pretty quiet too.

Get an automatic/self-driving one, and you can just watch your vegetation be mutilated instead of doing it yourself.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Yep, electric "Roomba" style lawnmowers exist.

[–] nikita 6 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Lol that sounds like a device that would mutilate the plants growing beside the grass too… like my precious strawberries

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I'm pretty sure you need to set up an electric grid on the property for it to follow.

Like the pet "invisible fence".

[–] Poiar 9 points 6 months ago

That, or GPS, but they're more expensive

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Husqvarna 115H! It's down to like $600 now. This is going on its 3rd year doing my backyard, and its fking amazing. Once a month I trim the perimeter, but otherwise I dont have to mow most of my yard now, its always the same perfect height, the grass seems much happier with it too.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

Up until last year I didn't even know people in my country even still had petrol lawn mowers. I wanted to get one of those things that's not even powered, just a rolling blade cage.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Look at Mr rich pants here, needing a ride on petrol mower. Most people round my way have small push along electric mowers.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 6 months ago (6 children)

Petrol lawnmowers come in push along models too. Before they had electric, that was the only type. It's not fancy.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 months ago (5 children)

And before the petrol mower there was the mechanical reel mower. My grandfather had one of these beauties. They take a bit of extra care and maintenance (sharpening, cleaning, oiling) but they do a great job and are much easier to push around than you’d think! Super lightweight and much safer around kids and pets too. Plus they’re basically silent compared to those extremely loud engine varieties (petrol and electric)!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

My grandfather had one of these! I really enjoyed mowing my grandparents' lawn with it as a child.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Reject modernity. Return to scythe.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

look at mr. fancy pants here, thinks they're too good for a regular old sickle huh?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Those are two entirely different tools with entirely different purposes. Sickles are good for harvesting small parts of plants, not mowing large swathes.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 6 months ago (9 children)

I used to think lawns were dumb but then I moved to a place where if you don't take care of your yard, it's just overrun with bugs and weeds. Planting too many trees makes things damp and miserable, open areas are key, but that's where stuff grows. Most plants can't survive being mowed, but grass loves it, and the birds can pick out insects when it's low. So now I like lawns, it's the human version of a meadow. And I don't see an alternative, other than growing an extra long beard, converting myself in mud, and becoming a druid

[–] [email protected] 54 points 6 months ago

And I don't see an alternative, other than growing an extra long beard, converting myself in mud, and becoming a druid

I don’t understand. Are you implying that’s not the obvious solution here?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It depends on how much lawn you have, too. If you're sitting on a quarter acre (1000 square meters), then just mow it. You don't want bug habitats literally on top of your house.

If you have five acres, you can probably leave a good chunk of it as natural. Mow the stuff closer to your house, and whatever you want to be able to use, and leave the rest. Maybe take a scythe to it every once in awhile.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

I used to have about five acres and would only mow the area around my house. But when I went to sell it the realtor said I had to mow all of it because it looked "messy."

Dumbasses want to move out to the country and live in a damn suburb smh

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago

To be fair, I do love mockingbirds, and mockingbirds love mowed lawns :)

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 6 months ago

I’ve planted clover and creeping thyme and wildflowers in my garden. I have a reel mower that I push at highest setting over the clover when it has a growth spurt.

I happy with my decisions.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 months ago (1 children)

i mean you don't have to pick grass to be the lawn you have, unless you live in a HOA that requires it

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago (4 children)

Get a push mower. It's insane how much better it is in every single way. There's no reason at all to push a 2 stroke across your lawn after paying for gas and getting it to star. You just quietly glide over that grass quiet. And some have a bag too.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Nah, get an electric mower, best of both worlds. Quiet-ish and still faster than an old push mower. No gas or mixing or worrying about it starting every season, just like the push mower except as labor saving as a gas

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Nah, throw your mower in the bin and let your yard return to nature.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

Sadly, that's not an option for me until I can get enough allies to take over my HOA board and then proceed to dissolve it.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago

Just to be pedantic, mowers are 4-stroke because they need torque, not speed

Things like chainsaws are 2-stroke

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago (2 children)

In my whole life, mowing the lawn was fun exactly once.

It was the first time that I got to mow the lawn at the house that I just bought. Every other time Ive had to do it, it sucks.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

That's once more than for me.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago (6 children)

I’ve got a reel mower and lawn cutting doubles as exercise without noise or cables or bags. Just have to do it regularly.

But then, I also don’t water my lawn, so it’s dormant for large parts of the year, like nature intended.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago

Nature intended my yard to be mixed hardwood forest.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I like the way my backyard looks with all the clover and stuff for ground cover, but it also makes it almost impossible to enjoy it. The amount of insects and stuff that fly in my face or bite me while I'm out there just makes me miserable. I didn't have this issue when it was just mowed down grass.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Do you have any trees back there? If so, the next step is to build bat boxes to attract bats to live there. They will eat those abundant insects and be very happy! Eventually it should become less annoying!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

I agree with you, a bat box or a birdhouse for insectivorous birds.

A battery powered thermacell insect repellent will work in the meantime to keep many insects away while you are outside at least.

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[–] Deceptichum 9 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I’m jealous, I miss insectlife. Rarely see anything living anymore.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Global insect biomass has declined 75% since I was born. And a big part of it is people who don't want insects on their property - reasonably, as the person you're responding to points out - and manage their lawns to deprive insects of habitat. And there's so many more people in the world now than when I was born, and correspondingly less habitat for insects. And everything else.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago (3 children)

You could do what I did:

  1. only buy a house in a place that has no HOA
  2. xeriscape the front, let most of the back just grow out wild, and keep a small patch of grass in an area where you like to chill (for me this is in a courtyard)
  3. use an old school push mower for this small patch. You get a little exercise with this, but not enough to ever stress ya, and it requires no gas, no oil, no electricity and barely ever any maintenance.
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[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago (5 children)

My parents always had lawns but always had a battery powered mower. They currently have a small lawn that continues to their neighbor's yard that they're planning to replace with something more eco-friendly & drought-tolerant.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (7 children)

I remember my parents were early adopters in 2011 so we had an electric mower that wasn't battery powered, you would actually have to plug it into the outlet. I remember going to school one day in the 3rd grade, we were assigned to talk about the chores we did around the house, I said that I liked to plug the mower into the outlet and mow the lawn. I got docked 50 points because the teacher didn't believe my lawnmower was electric. "Are you sure you don't crank it?"

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Lawns are one of those things we do without thinking about it because it's what everyone else has.

If you have space for a lawn, why not turn it into something beautiful and productive like a garden?

Oh, because your neighbors will get made at you for being different.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (4 children)

Oh, because your neighbors will get mad at you ~~for being different.~~ because MuH pRoPeRtY vAlUe!!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

Change the narrative. Tell them their property value will plummet because lawns were shit fads that are going out of style.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

Taking notes from Saltburn?

We have a nice wee patch for our daughter to play on that we maintain with a push mower. No extra power needed. Very satisfying.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The only care my lawn gets is a mowing or needle raking once in a year. Some bush trimming maybe, but that's it. Rabbits, neighborhood cats, and deer hang out in it all the time.

I would rather live in a dense area and not even have a yard, and instead visit the nearby park for my greenery needs.

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