I dislike New Year's resolutions, and even though the Garden Writers Manual says I am supposed to use them as the theme for the last column of the year, I usually end a long year of advice columns with a bit of opinion. This year, I am going to start the year with one.
I have been thinking about the origins of our American Yard. Uh oh. Too much winter darkness for Jeff, huh? I know, but bear with me as I try to explain and connect the dots. My premise is that we have been going about this yardening thing all wrong. We have been banging our heads against the soil trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
Why do our yards look like they do? Why do we have lawns? I know the answer in historical terms: The meadow moat around the castle that let guarding soldiers see the enemy approaching morphed into huge expanses of castle lawn when enemies no longer threatened and the lawn mower was invented.
So why do those of us who now no longer live in castles have lawns? Not only do they require work, we now know they reduce nature's diversity, a diversity (like others) that is beneficial.
The answer has nothing to do with horticulture, gardening or even aesthetics. It's all economics. In the beginning, you cut the trees around the homestead to build the cabin. The cleared land around it was useful to maintain animals (or prove out the homestead). Today, builders know houses are easier to build (translate: cheaper) if they can clear-cut an area and in the end toss some grass seed down on whatever is left so that the potential buyers won't track mud all over the house and won't see how the crappy is the soil that was left.
That is it. That is why you have a lawn.
Don't believe me? Consider what the landscape architects of rich and famous frequently do when they build a new home and money isn't a concern.
They often leave native trees, boulders and grasses, complete with mosses and lichens galore. They work with builders to ensure a yard and home fit the landscape like a veritable Fallingwater, instead of scraping off all the native plants, removing all the natural contours and destroying natural accoutrements and then sprinkling lawn seed and planting a few trees and shrubs.
Ah, but you are like the rest of us and you come to a place, say Anchorage or Fairbanks or Wasilla (though it could be Scarsdale, New York or Dayton, Ohio, or Portland, Oregon, or anywhere in the United States) and you buy a house. Invariably, the builder left a lawn (even in a place like Alaska where you expect wilderness if not attention to it). And you keep it. That is why you have a lawn.
I know. We've all been brainwashed by Scotts and our local box and hardware stores and garden centers that everyone has a lawn and not only that, it needs to be cared for each spring, so you get to think you live in a castle. Add in the laziness of your local garden columnist (who gleefully gets to bank a whole month's worth of columns in one sitting writing about lawn care), a dose of the American Dream — to own a house with a neat yard bounded by a white picket fence — and there you have it.
Finally, let's not forget to admit our own laziness in taking the cow pie dumped on us (directly or indirectly) by a builder with no care but the almighty dollar and putting a smiley face on it. We justify our lawns by thinking our kids need the whole yard to be grass so they can safely play or that such a cleared expanse keeps the mosquito populations down. And, of course, no one wants to have to spend a bit of money and effort to radically shrink or eliminate a lawn.
As I lecture around the country on my books, I hear other gardening lectures. I've read a lot of books on the subject, too, and it is clear that it is past time to get rid of our outdated concept of lawn. In fact, it is long overdue. Our vision of "lawn" is not sustainable and -- once protection was out of the picture -- never was. Only the original builder benefits. The rest of us -- mowing with extremely inefficient gas engines, applying polluting fertilizers, using poisonous herbicides and deadly pesticides -- suffer the consequences.
This year, let's start to reduce the size of our lawns to what we need. Children don't need the whole yard to be lined with Kentucky bluegrass to play. Put in a grass strip to let them kick balls and play badminton, sure, but they don't need the whole yard.
Why not a path out to a grass- and rock-based barbecue-picnic area surrounded by natural landscaping? Leave the rest of the yard be. You can watch the birds, damselflies and butterflies as you cook.
It is time for the New American Yard. Why not surround your gardens with natives? This will surely reduce all manner of problems.
The practice may be so effective as to even eliminate the need for the weekly garden columnist.
Jeffs Alaska Garden Calendar
Happy new year: Relax, enjoy having nothing horticultural to do. We have a great year ahead of us with lots of stuff to do, but this weekend, just enjoy.
Christmas tree recycling: You know the routine. Naked trees only can be dropped off at any Carrs-Safeway in Palmer or Anchorage until Jan. 15. Do not let them go to the landfill. Troop 268 will pick up trees for a small fee if you call 868-8899 or contact recycechristmastrees@gci.net.
New this year -- Christmas light recycling: Take yours to the Anchorage Recycling Center off Dowling Road or Total Reclaim in the Huffman Business Center.