After promising to pare down our lawn for at least ten years, I’ve now got its area down to about 200 square feet. This year’s big reduction didn’t happen because of any strong environmental commitment, though. It was all about accommodating a new family member, our young dog Lola.
Lots of wood chips and very little grass
Since we installed gates between three yards to let Lola play with her neighbor dogs, prospects of a happy life for turf grass on our property have gone from dodgy to downright dismal. Thundering dog feet quickly tore away most of the existing lawn. Making the best of a bad situation, I covered the bare, muddy soil with a thick layer of arborist wood chips. What’s left is a few areas where the dogs move more slowly, next to the garden pond and along the vegetable garden fence.
This remaining strip doesn't merit a power mower
With so little grass, I couldn’t see hiring someone to do the mowing. Instead, I’ve started a new chapter in my life as a lawn owner by buying a reel mower. I chose a Scotts model because it was cheap and lightweight.
Easy to push
No one will ever mistake our patches of grass for a golf course, but so far the little mower seems to be doing the job well enough. If you look at the grass from the house, as we usually do, it looks mowed. It’s only up close that you see the uneven haircut I’ve produced.
Until this year, I managed to get through life doing very little lawnmowing. When we moved into our house in 1985, my husband Steve took on the mowing job. He soon switched from a gas mower to a rechargeable electric model. I tried running it a few times and found it extremely heavy to drag around in the hot sun. No wonder so many young boys have hated this task!
Our backyard in 1986, before we bought our first mower
When we expanded our yard and added more lawn, we hired a landscape contractor to do the mowing. That was the situation, with a recent switch to an organic practitioner, until this year.
The lawn in 2005 with unharmed perennial beds
There’s a lot to be said for mowing with elbow grease rather than fossil fuels. In the United States alone, small gas engines running lawnmowers, string trimmers and leaf blowers emit 20 million tons of carbon dioxide every year, equivalent to about 4 million cars.
Lawn perfection comes with a steep environmental price
Lawnmowers give off other chemicals too that contribute toward climate change and health risks: volatile organic compounds, hydrocarbons, nitrous oxides, and particulate matter. Just refilling those engines’ gas tanks, Americans spill more gas than the Exxon Valdez every year.
Rechargeable electric mowers do the job more efficiently and generate much less pollution. But doing the mowing myself is even more climate friendly. It generates only the carbon cost of the very few calories I expend on the job.
This is how I’m comforting myself for the scruffy look of the garden this year. By growing less lawn and pushing that little mower, I’m adding my tiny contribution to the effort to heal the climate.
Dogs eat leaves of Siberian bugloss (Brunnera macrophylla)
