Do you treat the yard as a room of your house?
I've noticed some people treat their lawn like a carpet. If there is 1 leaf, that's clutter that needs to be picked up. If a tire touches their grass, it's like you got oil on their rug. They've usually manicured their lawn into 1 species monoculture grass with zero weeds and zero bugs. Which because of this lack of diversity, it is now incredibly fragile.
For many people, their yard is like a room of the house. And they expect people to treat it with a living room level of respect. They've put a lot of effort into creating this fragile monoculture grass, and they're protective of it.
Maybe you can tell from the way the question is phrased, but I view the outdoors as different than indoors. If someone misses my driveway and leaves a mark in the grass, I don't care because I know the grass will grow back eventually. If leaves fall on my yard, I don't pick them up. These problems tend to solve themselves. At least that's my view. But I've noticed a lot of people see it the other way.
29 replies
I treat my yard like a room in my house where I use it as much as possible. This mean being out there and using it rough if needed. When it gets too hot (like now) or two cold (in 6 months from now) I get a little ansy because I am missing one of my favorite rooms in my house. The back yard
That being said I don't treat my grass like its som precicious thing. Its meant to be used and abused.
Our yard is a play room
No. I never once thought to vacuum my yard.
Yes, same reason.
Definitely not, in fact it's my biggest pet peeve. I hate when people (or HOAs) get chemical bullshit sprayed all over their lawn, which they then scalp with their lawnmower every week, and then it always dies anyways around mid to late summer once it starts getting hot and dry. Meanwhile the people who don't give a shit about their yard always have green grass. It's almost like thicker vegetation and biodiversity are good for the environment. Like who could have ever guessed?
There's a few plants that have nice flowers and don't grow tall enough that I'd get fined for, so I try to mow around those
I treat my yard like a room as in I like to spend time out there and make it nice for that purpose. But at the same time, I'm doing my best to maximize native biodiversity and natural darkness.
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The lawn for those people is a signifier of wealth. 'I'm so wealthy I can afford to spend absurd amounts of money on maintaining land at the level it would take to harvest a crop from it, but I do not harvest a crop from it.' Idiots imitating boomer age idiots who were imitating mid-century idiots, who were imitating old-world, old-money assholes.
I used to have a neighbour that would wash his driveway on a weekly basis. It was coated asphalt. It wasn’t “nice”. Nor was it ever dirty. Oh, but it had a giant ugly orange traffic cone at the end to deter people from pulling in and turning around.
I used to constantly fight with two different relatives because they insisted on putting all their yard trimmings into a paper bag before putting them in the giant rolling bin. That gets tipped into the truck on collection day. Why? “So the can doesn’t get dirty.” I don’t understand why a GARBAGE CAN that SITS OUTSIDE ALL THE TIME ever needs to be kept pristine ON THE INSIDE.
People like to create work for themselves that I will never understand. I’m certain I do the same thing and leave people shaking their heads.
I maintain my front lawn at the absolute bare minimum to not get fined by the HOA. I don’t even irrigate anymore and let it turn uneven brown in the summer. We are in perpetual drought restrictions and it’s against the law for HOA’s to fine for brown grass. So no, I treat it as an outside space that I don’t even use, since I’m not an outdoorsy person and avoid the sun as much as possible.
Nah dawg, that's just a slice of wildlife that I get to modify. I mow the front, and just cut the tall shit with the string trimmer every couple weeks. Working on reducing grasses and increasing natives. Gonna make this bitch biodiverse as fuck.
My yard looks just as messy as my house, though I would like both to be neat and orderly. Those perfectly mowed crisscross lines in the grass give me goosebumps!
No, the yard is outside.My lawn is fairly wild though and a good portion of it is edible
Just don't eat anything near the road
I don't have a lawn atm, but last time I did I made a very low key campaign to replace the grass with clover.
I relate to this so hard.
The less I do to the yard, the better it looks to me. I like having some areas mowed but I like having stuff live in it even better.
You could look into native gardens.
This is a way of planting native plants that support local species, it needs less care - and just a joy to behold.
Ive spread a bunch of seeds in certain areas and let grow what will. I only pull certain plants which I've identified as space hogs (bittersweet.) Not all the plants that come up are native I am sure, but the bugs don't seem to notice. My whole philosophy is to do less work and let the plants do what plants do.
Leaves get raked. Weeds get removed or I wouldn’t have grass (weeds would over take the grass). The grass is not one type of grass, it’s multiple types. It’s better that way. Survives winter in Minnesota,US. As for bugs… honestly I’m not sure what you mean by that. I’m not sure how you’d get rid of bugs in general. My bushes .. those I do pay attention to certain types of bugs that will destroy the bush. Those bugs I get rid of, or I wouldn’t have a plant. But bugs in general yeah not sure how you get rid of them.
Driving on the grass that would piss me off. But walk and run on it all you want.
There are significantly fewer bugs on monoculture lawns. Never been clear if that's from all the poison, or if it's from the lack of plant diversity.
Both
No, I treat it like a yard with stuff that shouldn't be there kept out. Leaves get raked in the open grass so it doesn't kill the grass. Cars don't drive through it to avoid creating ruts. Sure, grass grows back, but until it does there is erosion and moisture issues.
I treat the lawn like any other outdoor plant. I don't walk on bushes or sit in decorative pots with plants. It isn't immaculately manicured or anything, but it is cared for as the plant type that it is.
Caring for it means it is in great condition for running around on, setting up a temporary inflatable pool that is taken down before it kiĺls the grass. Nets and stakes are used because they don't cause a lot of damage. It isn't treated like a delicate flower, just enough to keep it healthy and for the intended use.
We spend a lot of time in our yard and have many many plants that require near daily maintenance. We've put rocks in waking/seating areas so those spots don't get worn and muddy. So, yeah, we treat it like living space and we want it to be nice, but we're not crazy. It's covered in leaves and dog poop 6 days per week.
I live in an apartment building, but...I treat the outdoor space as a separate, communal space. So naturally I pick up any man-made garbage (I don't leave my own as well). Leaves or whatever else, yeah, those solve themselves over time!
ive always seen the lawn as a burden forced upon me by rich people, which is what it is. back when i had a house with a lawn i pretty much only mowed to avoid conflict with the city/nosy neighbors. i basically never used it for anything so it was literally just a thing that cost me time and money. my preference will always be whatever is the lowest maintenance option, which would usually be local plant species. id still probably do some kind of mechanical treatment every once in a while if i started to get trees or woody shrubs growing.
backyard is a cool place for kids to play, set up tents, pools, swings, play ball catch etc. If you're not in such a family situation, lawn might be wasted on you. I feel like if i was DINK, i'd try to make it a veggie garden. Cucumbers are 1€ here. Bet i can grow em cheaper. Remaining lawns grasscuts are perfect fertilizer.
If you live in a city parks support doing most all that and you don't have to maintain it at all.
No, I don't treat it like that and i think people who do are nuts.
I also don't freak out if there my rooms are aren't magazine photo perfect.
And people who think that way think I'm a massive horrible asshole.
To me, it's really about control. people who think/live that way are anxious-controlling personalities and they HATE what they can't control. I enjoy nature and more natural landscapes and I prefer homes and rooms that look like people actually live in them. I find the ultra-manicured thing really off-putting if not downright creepy sometimes.