It is time of year to get serious about tearing out that lawn grass and replacing it with something useful such as wildflowers and native grasses that attract pollinators while discouraging the need for lawn mowing and fertilizers.
One of the books on this topic that we always carry is Owen Wormser's Lawns into Meadows: Growing a Regenerative Landscape, who explains which explains why lawns are a bad idea. Wormser writes:
"After they are gassed up and running lawn mowers emit ten times more hydrocarbons than a typical car for every hour of operation. This means that in one hour, a commercial lawn mower the kind used by professional lawn mower companies, spews as much smog-forming pollution as driving a 2017 Toyota Camry for 300 miles. Brand-new gas-powered residential mowers running for just one hour are not much of an improvement; the amount of emissions released is the equivalent of driving a car for 100 miles...But in addition to the environmental costs, they also demand a lot of time and money. The average lawn owner spends 150 hours a year tending to their grass."
With the help of the Wormser book, one can improve the environment incrementally. I have been using it as a valuable resource to restore a dead, eroded hillside in my development with wildflowers (I don't have a yard.) and grasses. His recently published new edition includes color photographs to inspire.
I will have both editions at the next Destination: Books pop-up scheduled for Saturday morning, March 25th the Carter Center's Freedom Farmer's Market in Atlanta. We are back for our third year. In the meantime both books are available online from the Gardening-How-To section of our Bookshop website.
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