Monoculture

I have known for while about the evils of lawn (herbicides, insecticides, etc of course that were originally created to kill ALL lifeforms for war purposes, but also the vast amounts of water needed to keep these non-native plants alive and lush) and especially the evils of mowers that then murder the poor blades, spewing gas and sweat into the ozone. I have also spent many hours dreaming of what will fill my front yard once I have back-breakingly lacerated all evidence of grass. But I didn't know before reading Liz Primeau's intro on lawn history that WE have, by eliminating all types of plants/bushes/flowers other than grass, CREATED a monoculture (and therefore our very own problem). No longer does the ecosystem with multiple varieties of bugs feeding off of one another exist, meaning that certain bug levels get out-of-hand... With only grass and little else there is no "balance" and so certain types of insects, bugs, fungi greedily create their own nasty, destructive empires.

Yes, so guess what I did today? (And am already paying for shoulder-wise.) I'll have to take a pic of my half-shredded lawn. My loving husband has already brought back a load of rocks (our kids have become experts & adore chucking stones into the van's open back - not to mention uncovering millipedes and worms and, more frighteningly, cattle skulls, teeth intact).

The goals is FREE. Rocks from farmer field piles, bushes and perennials from others overloaded gardenscapes...there IS one "statue" I have my eye on (which is odd for me - a non-collector who rarely covets material items)but otherwise FREE free free....

And yes, this lawn commotion ("turf under construction") has me temporarily skipping the Holstein mini-series (suspended pro tem?)...

As Liz Primeau penned: "I realized I wanted to save the world. Then I realized I couldn't save the world, but I could change my own garden. Then I thought that maybe, just maybe, my neighbours and all their friends might take up the cause. Maybe, just maybe, we could weave together a network of poison-free, biodiverse, nature-friendly garden that would, in the end, make a difference. And this has become my quest." (p.24, Front Yard Gardens).