a brief history of lawns
...and why they are ecological dead zones!
“Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth, are never alone or weary of life.” ― Rachel Carson
Last week, I accidentally detoxed both myself and my husband from caffeine cold turkey, and it was brutal.
You know the 5 love languages? Well, in true “acts of service” fashion, I wanted to grind up our coffee beans for the week —a task that my husband usually handles. Very mindful, very cutesy, right?
Turns out, the bag I grabbed wasn’t freshly roasted organic coffee beans. It was 2.5 year old decaf coffee beans from when I was pregnant with our youngest son. All. Week. Long. we were drinking 4 cups each, while both simultaneously feeling grumpy, irritable, fatigued, and riddled with brain fog. My husband had headaches all week and thought he was simply in a weird, weather-induced funk, while I grabbed a very uncharacteristic afternoon nap one day, and practically collapsed into bed every night.
Neither of us knew what was going on and just muddled right on through the week. Until Saturday afternoon rolled around, and I made us our typical fancy iced lattes (double shots, obviously). 30 minutes after finishing it, we both got a RUSH of energy and proceeded to:
Shop Vac and reorganize the entire attic
Organize a doom pile of kids’ artwork and school papers
Sew on ties on the inside of our duvet cover
Organize and inventory our chest freezer
Meal planned for the week
Made focaccia
Organize all of my dresser drawers
…all during our children’s afternoon nap/quiet time. Then I went to grind up beans for Sunday morning, only to realize my terrible, horrible mistake. Honestly, I was relieved that there wasn’t actually something wrong with us, it was merely a brutal, hellish caffeine withdrawal. 0/10 would not recommend!
With the arrival of some warmer temperatures here in Massachusetts, I’ve noticed quite a few neighbors starting to eagerly begin spring clean ups, and each year I have to bite my tongue not to say anything to them about it being too early. I never want to shame anyone for nature enthusiasm, but this time of year it is crucial that we restrain ourselves —even though some days might be warm, it’s still far too early to be disturbing plant debris. Many beneficial insects overwinter in the leaves and stems and need time to emerge safely. A safe bet is to wait until temperatures are consistently above 50ºF, and when you see insects buzzing and flitting about, then you’re really golden. Of course, No Mow May is always encouraged around here! From Bee City USA:
Lawns cover 40 million acres, or 2%, of land in the US, making them the single largest irrigated crop we grow. Lawns are mowed, raked, fertilized, weeded, chemically treated, and watered—sucking up time, money, and other resources. Lawns provide little benefit to wildlife, and are often harmful. Grass-only lawns lack floral resources and nesting sites for bees and are often treated with pesticides that harm bees and other invertebrates. When we think of habitat loss, we tend to imagine bulldozers and rutted dirt, but acres of manicured lawn are as much a loss of habitat as any development site.
Every day it seems there is more bleak news about the rampant insect collapse happening all over the world:
Scientists brought to tears by huge loss of U.S. butterflies (CBC)
The collapse of insects (Reuters)
A shocking collapse: forests that once showed traces of insect life on every leaf often now appear ‘fumigated’ (The Irish Times)
Insect apocalypse (Princeton University Press)
First national analysis finds America’s butterflies are disappearing at ‘catastrophic’ rate (Associated Press)
Earth losing roughly 1% to 2% of its insects annually, new studies suggest (CBC)
If I think about this all too much it almost makes me cry.
But instead of throwing my hands up, feeling helpless, and relying on The Powers That Be to right the ship and save the insects, I’d like to encourage folks to approach landscape design and their backyards with a pollinator-first gardening mentality.
The decline of insect populations—especially pollinators like bees, butterflies, and beetles—is directly tied to how we manage our landscapes, including our obsession with traditional lawns.
Did you know that the concept of a lawn can trace its roots back to European aristocracy, where vast, neatly trimmed grass fields surrounding manor homes and castles were a flashy signal of wealth? If you had purely ornamental land that wasn’t used for growing food or being used for livestock, that signified you were rich. This trend carried over to the United States, with wealthy Americans incorporating rolling lawns into their landscapes in the 19th century. The rise of suburban homeownership made lawns even more accessible in the 20th century, but they were still considered a luxury.
By the 1950s, marketers had begun insidiously promoting the idea that a perfectly manicured lawn was the middle-class status symbol — of course, you just had to shell out big bucks for lawn mowers, chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides to achieve that perfect lawn. Lawn care products were sold not just as tools, but as the keys to a better life, promising that a beautiful lawn would increase property value, improve social status, and even boost one’s happiness.
There was just one teensy, tiny, little problem.
Lawns are ecological dead zones.
Are you familiar with the windshield phenomenon? It’s the collective observation many have made about the dearth of splattered insects on car windshields compared to what they recall in the past. I have noticed a stark difference even in my 20 years of driving —I used to routinely use my windshield wipers to wash away bug goo.
Anders Møller, a Danish ecologist, conducted a study about the windshield phenomenon and found that insect numbers splattered on cars declined by more than 80% between 1997 and 2017 when changes in weather and car type were taken into consideration.
I know scientists love to remind us that correlation doesn’t equal causation, but I’m not a scientist — so I’m going to make like a bunny and hop right to a conclusion. The rise of those ecological wastelands we call lawns has undoubtedly played a significant role in the decline of insect populations.
They provide little to no habitat, food, or shelter for insects, and they require constant mowing, fertilizers, and pesticides, all of which contribute to pollinator decline. All of those lovely dandelions that homeowners are quick to banish with weedkiller? They’re important food sources for insects, especially in early spring when few other flowers are blooming. And the clover that pesticide companies encourage you to eliminate? Unlike many other flowering plants, clover blooms for an extended period, ensuring bees have a continuous supply of nectar throughout the growing season.1
If we continue to chase the perfect, pristine lawn in an endless bid to keep up with the Joneses, we’ll be racing toward a future with fewer insects, less biodiversity, and a planet in peril. It’s time to let go of the stuffy outdated status symbol of a lawn and welcome nature back into our yards. Instead of prioritizing a uniform green lawn, we should be designing gardens with biodiversity in mind—incorporating native plants, reducing chemical use, and allowing spaces to grow wild where pollinators can thrive.
Doug Tallamy, an entomologist and conservationist, is leading the charge, with his “Homegrown National Park” movement — one that aims to restore biodiversity by replacing sterile lawns with native plants that support pollinators, birds, and wildlife. No space is too small to matter! Small actions in private spaces can collectively create a vast, life-sustaining habitat.
I’ve read all of Tallamy’s books (they’re fantastic and I highly recommend them if this is something you’d like to learn more about), and this interview with Smithsonian Magazine summarizes his efforts nicely. He has some critics, but don’t we all?
“The truth is that we need invertebrates but they don’t need us. If human beings were to disappear tomorrow, the world would go on with little change....But if invertebrates were to disappear, I doubt that the human species could last more than a few months. Most of the fishes, amphibians, birds and mammals would crash to extinction about the same time. Next would go the bulk of the flowering plants and with them the physical structure of the majority of forests and other terrestrial habitats of the world.”
-E.O. Wilson
So if you grow vegetables and fruits, or enjoy eating vegetables and fruits, you have a vested interest in making darn tootin’ sure to plant plenty of native species to support pollinators, because 75% of crops depend either directly or indirectly on them.
I’m not saying to rip out your lawns and replace your entire landscape with only native plants, although that’s a growing trend. I have kids who love to run around on the grass, so we have kept plenty of it — however, much less exists now than when we first moved in, as we’ve tripled the size of the vegetable garden, added a chicken coop, and planted 12 fruit trees. But we apply zero pesticides or weed killer, and the lawn becomes a carpet of dandelions, clover, violets, ground ivy, chickweed, wild strawberries, and more.
Growing food, supporting biodiversity, and rewilding our spaces aren’t just acts of environmental stewardship—they’re essential to our survival. Start gardening like your life depends on it. Because in so many ways, it does.
I wrote recently about keeping a little field guide, where I write down notable observations as the year progresses. This week, we had our first crocuses start to bloom, I saw my first ever fish crow while out on a walk, we heard Great horned owls hooting in the backyard, and our resident possum (who lives behind our compost pile) sauntered by me while I was sipping coffee on the deck at 6:30 one morning. Noticing the small, seemingly insignificant daily changes has done wonders for getting me out of my head/thinking about the future and anchoring me in the present moment, as hokey as that sounds.
It brings me great joy to share that tonight is the premier of Gardener’s World, one of my favorite shows in the world. Each spring we get a BritBox subscription, watch the show every Friday night while munching on our pizza, pausing to jot down notes, discuss potential projects, and daydream about when we have endless hours to spend toiling away outside. We watch until the end of May, when we are then overrun with actual garden tasks and general life chaos, and cancel our BritBox subscription. It’s simply delightful all around.
Until next (pizza) Friday,
Amy
LOLs of the Week
Coconut Granola with Orange Zest
This is the granola I’ve been making instead of buying this year —and it couldn’t be more simple or more delicious. It’s unfussy, perfectly clumpy, and perfect for kids and grownups alike.
Reading
A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
Growing
I’m in zone 6a here in Central Massachusetts, which means it’s ~10 weeks before last frost. I use May 20th as our tentative first frost-free date, as historically that’s what our microclimate has dictated. A frost-free date is an estimate of when your area should be safe from freezing temperatures in the spring, but it’s not a guarantee. Think of it as a general guideline based on past weather patterns. Some years, frost might linger a little longer, and other years, it might warm up sooner. If you’re confused about what this means for your location check out this handy dandy tool!
I have been horribly negligent with my seed starting so far — I don’t know what it is! Well, I know what it is. By the end of the day I’m so wiped that all I want to do is have some time to rot on the couch then snuggle up in bed with a book. The idea of traipsing down to the chilly basement and mucking around in soil doesn’t sound at all appealing right now when I could be buried under 5 blankets with a heating pad. But Mother Nature waits for no one, so I decided to finally get my act together. During naptime yesterday, I used the shopvac on my basement seed starting space and sowed a round of kale (Mamba, Black Magic, and Siber Frills), onions (Talon), shallots (Creme Brule), and parsley (Grune Perle). One of my goals this year is to make a serious go of succession sowing, so I'll have some tapered harvests. But that involves quite a bit of record keeping which is typically my downfall.
Making
This year, I’m trying my darndest to make everything within reason from scratch —meaning, the goal isn’t perfection, but stretching myself to rethink my grocery store purchases. I’m talking all baked goods, granola, crackers, sauces, dressings, dips, etc. I’m trying to be strategic about making and freezing extra, planning ahead, and getting the kids involved. This isn’t a tradwife/everything is poison vibe, but more of a “everything at the grocery store is so freaking expensive and I’m sick of it” frugal hippie vibe, ya feel me?
From the past week:
sunshine bars from Bake Club by Christina Tosi
sweet cream ice cream using Jeni’s base + leftover chocolate cupcakes from Valentine’s Day that I froze
4x loaves of sourdough (I double this Tartine country loaf recipe, we enjoy one during the week, and the day I bake them we slice and freeze the other 3 to keep in the chest freezer)
Tested out another Sicilian pizza dough for my kids
a batch of my Starbucks copycat egg bites
a sriracha/peanut butter salad dressing to have on my lunch salads
This Dutch oven pot roast because I found a random roast in the chest freezer and I wanted to use it before the weather warms up too much
Loving
Matt Bellassai’s Baked Baking on TikTok. I remember watching Matt’s “Whine About It” videos back in the day when he worked at Buzzfeed, so imagine my delight when he popped up on my FYP! The schtick is that he partakes in the Devil’s lettuce, gets stoney baloney, then proceeds to bake what is usually an impressively complex recipe. My personal favorite? His two part attempt at a croquembouche.
Merlin Bird ID. Honestly one of my most-used apps on my phone and it’s completely free! And supports citizen science! I’m always pulling it out to either identify a bird by visuals, or to use their sound recording feature. For instance, I was out on my morning walk today and saw what I thought was a crow, but it was making a very un-crow like call. Turns out it was a fish crow! Honestly, I’m still floating on cloud 9 from that one. I had no idea there were two kinds of crows in the eastern US.
Link Roundup
From World Records To Lasting Legacy: Lisa Ekus’ Impactful Career In Culinary Literature [Forbes]
Why cockroaches are so resilient [Popular Science]
The Long Flight to Teach an Endangered Ibis Species to Migrate [The New Yorker]
Why Vermont farmers are using urine on their crops [BBC]
How an unexpected observation, a 10th-century recipe and an explorer’s encounter with a cabbage thief upend what we know about collard greens’ journey to the American South [The Conversation]
Enjoying Pizza Friday? Share the love and forward this email to a friend you think would dig it so they can get in on the fun, too. Like pebbling, which is what penguins do! They bring little trinkets like pebbles to their loved ones. How precious is that?
The Power of Clover: a win-win for bees, farmers and the environment, Nature Friendly Farming Network
Pro tip: if you have a judgy neighbor who "just doesn't understand this whole native plants thing," leave your lawn alone/maybe mow it 3 times a year for several years until it is a dead, weedy eyesore. Then let it stay there, mocking your neighbor and their weekly lawn shearing sessions for at least 10 months. Then, and only then, put in native plant/pollinator-friendly landscaping. Your neighbor will be so grateful to see something in front of your house that's not a barren moonscape that they'll regularly come over to compliment your yard.
...I love living in the suburbs.
Thank you for the DIY egg bites recipe! Making them and realized I forgot cottage cheese entirely 🙄 but I did have whipping cream and extra emmentaler cheese, so... same same? Hahahaha