The Secret Scandal Of Grass Lawns

Lawns are kind of another form of colonial rhetoric and really bad for the planet. 

Grass lawns are everywhere: we do not question them. We see the default floor of nature as grass. What if you were to learn that grass as we know it, isn’t actually indigenous to Aotearoa? Don’t get me wrong, there are nearly 200 species of indigenous grass but the grass we use on our lawns is invasive. 

So, when did this seedy motherfucker slither its way into our ecosystem? Colonialism of course. When Europeans began migrating here, grass lawns were brought over, and centuries of work went into replacing our diverse forests with naked hills of invasive green.  

So, how did lawns grow to be a trend? 

It started in seventeenth century France and Britain. The aristocrats had a shit tonne of money and slaves. While modern elites venture into space, back then this option wasn’t available. So, instead, they thought a sick way to display their wealth would be to get all of their slaves to hand clip their lands into a plush carpet. Back then, land was crucial to agriculture, and growing your own food was commonplace; these aristocrats wanted a manicured lawn to show how they could afford to have so much land and resources that they could just have an empty space. 

That was it: It’s like contemporary art that you look at and think ‘I could do something like that’. It’s so bare but the elites just live for it. 

We are literally so obsessed with grass lawns that we’ve created plastic lawns. Boo to turfs and terfs. 

Think about what the purpose of a lawn is. To be soft on our feet? We do in fact have shoes. Honestly grass lawns are just fake bitches. It’s a hot summer’s day, you go for a stroll on your soft ass patch of grass and come out of it with feet that look straight out of acupuncture there are so many prickles. But hey, I get it, lawns are big ol’ part of our picket fence culture; and they are also decent for sports but this use came far after the aristocrats. 

Just because it’s mostly pointless doesn’t make it bad right? 

Lol yeah, got some news for you.  

If we ignore the fact that grass is invasive to Aotearoa (alongside many other colonised countries, RE: the US), lawns also bring us excessive pesticide use which is harmful for indigenous species; CO2 emissions from mowing; water waste; and unnecessary urbanisation. 

I too am a privacy enthusiast, but it is a bit greedy of us to all expect our own private yards. I mean a small patch of grass is desirable but just go to a park? Think about how much extra housing we could have had if we ditched the concept of lawns altogether. It’s estimated that 15-20 per cent of our urban spaces here in Aotearoa are taken up by grass lawns. For a country with an absolutely ridiculous cost of housing, the fact that Auckland alone has 150-200 square metres of grass is a little grim. 

Think about European housing which was largely developed before lawns became a trend in the seventeenth century, in comparison to us here or the US (which has a whopping 40 million acres taken up by lawns), we have super car-centric, spread-out cities because of all of the extra space we use for our lawns; as we were colonised after the lawn became trendy; our cities were literally built with this in mind. 

Okay this is a whole lot of negative talk, doom and gloom, the usual ‘this thing you think is normal is actually destroying the planet’ tagline. But there is a sexy alternative. 

A mix of shared nature spaces and the uptake of indigenous gardens have some really strong benefits. 

Indigenous gardens, unlike grass lawns, can be a bit of a mission to implement. However, once planted, indigenous gardens are super low maintenance. It’s almost like that’s the wildlife that was designed for this part of the world. 

Aucklanders alone spend an estimated $131 million a year on lawn maintenance. Indigenous gardens are significantly cheaper because of the simple upkeep. 

Biodiversity is a huge issue here and urban spaces are honestly really bad for biodiversity, but by bringing indigenous species into our yard we can help bring back our diverse species and bring down carbon emissions. While maintaining a grass lawn emits carbon, indigenous nature absorbs it. 

At the end of the day grass lawns are a staple of western culture, and I’m sure if you’re a lawn enthusiast this won’t change that. But change happens one step at a time, and a significant step in that process is questioning what we know about the world and why we do things the way we do, because a lot of our habits are really down to history and culture.