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Green Landscaping: Greenacres

 

Wild Ones Handbook

THE LANDSCAPE THAT WAS, IS, WILL BE 


TODAY'S LAWN

U.S. Lawn Care Facts as Annual Totals & Percentages
From Redesigning the American Lawn by F. Herbert Bormann, Diana Balmori, Gordon T. Geballe, Yale University Press, 1993

Powered mowers contribute to noise pollution and hearing loss.

 

"An old error is always more popular than a new truth." - 

A German Proverb

The English Burgher Lawn Aesthetic
by Virginia Scott Jenkins condensed from The Lawn, A History of An American Obsession

The mowed lawn aesthetic originated in the late 18th century from aristocratic France and England. Landscape architect Andre LeNotre designed small lawn areas for the Palace of Versailles. This aesthetic was rapidly adopted by the rich of England, because turf grass grew easily in the English climate of moderate temperatures and frequent rains.

The U.S. colonists also adopted the lawn aesthetic in an attempt to transform the wildness of the new country into the sophistication of the old world. Landscape architects again were at the forefront, and Lancelot Brown created thousands of acres of magnificent parks using lawn turf and trees.

Prior to the middle of the 19th century, U.S. homes were either built fronting up to the street or road, or else with a small fenced front yard consisting of bare ground or garden plots. The middle class did not copy the wealthy lawn aesthetic until after the Civil War, with the stimulus of the new landscape architects leading the way.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, the USDA, the U.S. Golf Association, and the Garden Clubs of America jointly spread the front lawn ethic throughout the U.S. [They] held competitions for landscaping and shamed neighbors into compliance by setting strong example.

 

Can Lawns Kill?
by Colleen Aagesen & Mary Fiscus Condensed From the Heartland Journal

Wildlife specialists, such as Diana Conger of Washington, D.C., call bird poisonings in residential areas lawncare syndrome. Symptoms enumerated by toxicologists include excessive salivation, grand mal seizures, wild flapping and screaming, most often followed by death.

Ward Stone, New York State's wildlife pathologist, sees more than that in the poisonings. The songbirds act as miners' canaries for us in detecting the buildup of chemicals that may ultimately threaten humans," reports Stone.

According to the National Academy of Sciences, lawn use is a significant component of the total pesticide problem. NAS said that although the farmer uses pesticides more widely, the homeowner uses 10 times more per acre than do farmers. 

 


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