I planted some more annuals in our curbside garden today. It's looking quite well, with the plantings and the flowers that have grown from seed and those that have come up naturally. The combination of colours (blue, white, red, green, scarlet) and the variety of shapes and sizes makes for a pleasing contrast with the mundane strips of lawn along the rest of the boulevard.
There are places in the West End (though nothing compared to Vancouver's Strathcona neighbourhood where grassy swards are in a distinct minority and the front of almost every house is a delightful riot of wildflowers, shrubs, ground cover, lavender, etc., etc.) where people are fighting against lawn order. Grass has been dug up and replaced with flowers, perennials, trees, and shrubs. Not only is it aesthetically pleasing, but it's better for the environnment. The North American obsession with lawns is a major environmental problem. According to David Quammen in Outside Magazine ("Turf Warfare in the American Suburbs", 1994, quoted on the East Dillon Water District (Colorado) webpage):
Americans spend $25 billion a year on the planting and maintenance of turf grass, including municipal and corporate lawns as well as residential ones. The residential component alone amounts to $7 billion in retail trade – that’s $7 billion spent for mowers and weed whackers and leaf blowers and other powered machinery, for fertilizer and seed, for pesticides and hoses and sprinklers and rakes and clippers. Bermuda shorts and plastic flamingos are tallied separately.The grassy yards of American homeowners cover a total of 20 million acres, roughly the same area as the entire island of Ireland. Unlike Ireland, though, a great portion of the American lawn acreage is arid, or semiarid, or otherwise climatically inhospitable to those species (mostly exotics from Europe) considered seemly for a well-manicured yard. One consequence is a need for intensive watering. Roughly 30 percent of urban water use on the East Coast, by one estimate, goes to lawn irrigation. On the West Coast, with its dry chaparral zone and its desert golf courses, the estimate is 60 percent. No doubt the preternaturally green lawns in Texas and New Mexico and Arizona, in Utah and Nevada, on the dry plains of eastern Montana and the Dakotas, are sucking away a similar share. Almost $800 million worth of grass seed is sold each year. The annual take by professional lawn-care businesses is about $3 billion.
Substitute "Canadians" for "Americans" and roughly divide by 10 and you have an idea of how Canada is affected as well. Walking down the street the other day in the heat of the afternoon, we twice had to dodge sprinklers that were uselessly wetting the top of the grass; the water running off down the sidewalk and the street and flushing down into the storm sewers. And this at a time when Vancouver's water supply is lower than normal after a dry winter and spring.
Native plants are best. They are adapted for our climate. They are hardy and don't need fertilizers, pesticides, or irrigation. And, in a few weeks, we (the West End Residents Association in partnership with the Stanley Park Ecology Society) will be breaking ground at a native plant demonstration garden on the outskirts of Stanley Park. The common areas of the garden will be devoted to native plants, while individuals will garden in their own plots -- only flowers allowed for now, alas. We're hoping it will serve as an example of what can be done with native plants which, after all, have had millions of years to adapt to our local conditions - unlike Kentucky Blue Grass.
Anyone interested in replacing their expensive, high-maintenance lawn with native plants should start by going to the website for the North American Native Plant Society.
Posted by wetcoast at July 17, 2003 03:14 PM