Grass Means Something Different Here

Our house here in Richmond sits on a quarter-acre lot. About 0.15 of an acre is landscape. That's more than we had at the Tucson house. What is one to do with landscape in this setting?

I'm in the process of learning from a variety of sources about how to replicate natural ecology to benefit animals of all sorts, especially birds and pollinators. There are a variety of sources here, including the Cope Environmental Center, the Hayes Arboretum, Indiana Audubon, Indiana Native Plant Society, and other local experts. I've gotten tips about sources of native plants. But I need to hurry because September is a good time to plant natives. 

A typical front yard (ours), with a small area of 
shrubs and the rest mostly grass. 

I also want to start by looking at what neighbors do. That gives me a starting point for your list of possible landscape enhancements. I'll add some of what I see to my "to do" list and some to my "not to do list." 

The overwhelming choice by most homeowners in the neighborhood is... GRASS! I'm not talking about the kind that's legal in Arizona and not in Indiana. Rather, it's the kind that's frowned upon in Arizona and that is the dominant paradigm in Indiana. 

Lawn, turf, or whatever you want to call it--it's the dominant choice. Any other yard amenities cover much less area than lawn. There is often a small area of shrubs or flowers close to the house, and there is often another patch of shrubs and grasses near the street. 

Grass is not my first choice. I hope to convert a lot of it to native shrubs, wildflowers, and vegetable garden. Grass has to be mowed once a week for much of the year, so it's time consuming. Mowers make a lot of air and noise pollution. And grass doesn't do much for pollinators, birds, or anybody else. 

To keep things under control while
I plan turf reduction, I got an electric
lawnmower.

But I'm beginning to understand why people stick with grass. First of all, it's a beautiful green color. Second, at least during the two months we've lived here so far, we haven't had to water it. It just grows. And grows. And grows. (Although I'm told that this summer has been rainier and cooler than usual, so it might need some summer irrigation in the future.)

In addition, grass tends to spread itself. Lawns, most of which are really a combination of grass and weeds, pretty quickly invade bare areas. If you don't put down porous landscape cloth with a layer of mulch, or do a lot of weeding, it ends up being lawn whether you want it or not. The easiest way for most people to exert some level of control is just to let it spread and mow it down. Many neighbors have a riding mower, so that makes it go faster. 

I purchased an electric mower that doesn't emit pollution. And since about 25% of local energy is renewable (wind and solar), at least part of the energy I'm using is produced without pollution. A downside is that it takes at least two charges of the battery to get the entire yard done. But as I gradually convert turf to other kinds of landscapes, I hope to reduce the time and energy spent mowing. I don't want to shock neighbors by doing away with lawn immediately or entirely. I'll do it in stages. Anyway, it would be a whole lot of hard work to do it all at once.

A strategy recommended by ecologically minded folks here is to clearly delimit non-turf areas with some hardscape--low retaining walls, decorative pavers, and such. This makes it clear that the non-turf area, which could look at bit wild, is an intentional strategy instead of just a neglected patch. This helps you avoid coming up against city code which, like many places, defines anything higher than 8 inches as a weed. If your wildflowers and native shrubs are at least somewhat tastefully demarcated, neighbors won't see them as weeds and complain to the city!

Flowers around the base of a mailbox. Virtually
every mailbox has this kind of treatment. 

There are some other interesting quirks of local landscapes that I am pondering. One is the small amount of shrubs and flowers that people plant around their mailboxes. Virtually every mailbox along the street has a mulched, non-turf, area with flowers or shrubs. The only thing I can think of is that it's hard to mow around the base of the mailbox, so you would have to clip grass there by hand or with a weed-eater. So maybe there's a functional argument as well as an aesthetic one for this.   

 Another interesting feature of local landscapes is what I call the "anomalous manuport." In archaeology, a manuport is an object, often a rock, that has no apparent modification for use as a tool, but that isn't geologically local, and thus must have been brought there by people.

Mailbox or not, there are often shrubs and/or
rocks by the corner of the driveway.

Anomalous manuport. Can someone explain?

The odd corner fence fragment.

Another feature in a few yards is a fragment of ornamental fence at the corner of a property. This is a real head scratcher. It seems to me like it would be more trouble than it is worth. But maybe somebody will be able to explain it to me. 

As you can see in at least some of these photos, yards also usually contain one or more trees. This is one of the more glorious features of the neighborhood. Often they are quite large. The shade cover here from trees would be the envy of any neighborhood in Tucson. There are tulip trees, maples, red oaks, white oaks, buckeyes, eastern hackberries, locusts, catalpas, sweetgums, and probably many more. 

I'm hoping that by spring I have less grass, more native plants, and more vegetables! And maybe a couple more trees!

Trees in the neighborhood.