To Kill a Lawn

This site is being born because of two things that are happening in our world right now.

The first is the explosion of the Deep Water Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The ecological catastrophe that the Gulf is currently experiencing is expected to be unprecedented in the history of modern humanity. Just five weeks into this disaster there is wide spread death of sea life including sea turtles, dolphins, fish, birds, including the just-taken-off-the-endangered-species-list brown pelican, and plant life. An entire ecological community will cease to exist in at least the short term. And worse, there is little we as a species can do to save the marshes once oil gets in them. Oil is in them.

Now what does this have to do with killing lawns? You shall see.

The second reason for this site being born is the recent explosion in interest in gardening. It's finally cool to garden! You could not imagine my happiness. Having been a gardener myself for almost twenty years, and being professionally involved in ecological restoration, I receive an enormous amount of questions related to gardening and plants in general - the "how, what, when, where" of gardening.

The answers and suggestions I make often lead to the "why" questions.

This blog is an attempt to capture all of that information in a concise manner. It is my goal that you should be able to use this as a manual for creating your own garden. And as the title of the blog implies, getting rid of (killing) your lawn in the process.

There is one thing you must know before going further. Responsible gardening is one of the most important things you can do for all of life. You literally hold within you the power to change the world for the better. In the United States, roughly 20 percent of our fossil fuel is related to agriculture. And much of that is for the production and application of fertilizers and pesticides.

You, by growing your own food, can put a stop to this. YOU can drastically cut down on the consumption of fossil fuels, by growing your own lettuce instead of getting it from central California (unless you live there of course!).

But there is more...

By choosing native perennial plants you can begin to restore habitat for wildlife. Yes, in your own yard, or on your patio, or even up on your roof, by planting native flora you can begin to encourage native fauna.

Both of these ideas, especially the later, are too big to fully explain in this introductory post. And I have certainly gone too far already. I hope I have kept your attention for at least this long. We will develop these ideas in great detail over the coming years. I hope you'll join me in killing your lawn and planting a garden.

Billy

<-Garden-to-be, May 2009

Garden-to-be after a good plowing, May 09 (i.e. killing the lawn) ->

<-Garden, late June 2009

Garden, a year and a week after plowing ->