Why American Lawns All Look The Same
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- čas přidán 8. 03. 2023
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I have been transitioning my yard to native prairie grasses and drought tolerant flowers, and the city has only recently stopped threatening to forcibly mow my yard and bill me for it. At one point it was extra silly, I had a lawn sign commending my yard as great for the community/bees from one department of the city, and letters ordering me to cut my lawn from another department.
(((Land of the free)))
Wow, you're so brave!
Congrats, the way to go, golf-like lawns are just stupid....
@@manu.yt25 it’s impressive it takes years to get it perfect
thats government for you, local state federal, its all shit.
I've received HOA violation letters for the following:
- Having a custom address plate right next to our front door installed by the previous homeowner
- Having a wire through the front of our home to power the front patio sprinkler installed by the previous homeowner
- Listing our spare bedroom for a short-term rental (our address was not even in the listing)
- Having Christmas-style solar powered white lights-which frankly didn't even work-on our balcony railing
- Having our garage door open for "too long"
- Not having plants in our front patio planter
- Having "weeds" in our front patio planter that were not actually weeds
- Having our Ring camera doorbell on our door instead of where our existing doorbell is (where the camera would be useless)
- Having laundry in the window to dry out
- Using a BBQ grill in our front patio
- Having our trash bins out the morning after trash day
Fuck them. So hard.
Land of the Free LMAO
Get on the board and then discover how many expenses and regulations they have to deal with, and you'll see yourself become the villain. Or, in an ideal world, discover how few they have and then work to change the ridiculous parts and be the hero. You're not the victim, either way.
There is a subdivision near me that the HOA state that each home; for Christmas lights, must have One Cone shaped wire frame with 8-10 white light strings running vertically for each side of the driveway.
Many of these homes have a semi-circle drive , so four.
Nothing allowed on the house.
It is the most Blah division I've ever seen.
@@QuesoCookies I'm sorry they're forcing the HOA's hands to unnecessarily restrict what people do with their homes. I forgot that apparently citizens have no say in what te government does.
"Land of the free" my ass.
My Dad's town complained he wasn't mowing his grass often enough. He worked at NASA Clear Lake in Engineering & Development and was working huge hours on the Apollo moon program....
So he bought several hundred pounds of salt and used it to kill the grass, then had green dyed gravel laid down.
Thats how engineers think for problem solving, do it once and never worry about it again.
Note the city and the neighborhood was horrified but he told them he had many other ideas to try (all legal) if they kept bothering him. And that was the end of that.
your dad is what people would call a GIGACHAD
Your father salted the land to spite bureaucracy. That's absolutely hilarious, I love it
Bob, I want your dad to be MY dad. King Dad move.
Reminds me of the idea I once heard that, if an HOA is bothering you, threaten to build a ham radio tower, since legally the only organization who can stop you is the FCC, nobody else.
@@Descriptor413 or build a bat home (idk how it's called). As bats are endangered, they can't remove it and need to put up with the area gettimg FLOCKED.
My friend got gigged once by his township, being charged for them to mow, so he killed the grass and kept it just dirt. The neighbors complained but there was no ordinance about having to have grass, just about grass height.
your friend is a gigachad
Turned mine into a parking pad, there is no rule about installing too much parking in your front yard.
They fined him so he literally salted the earth. I'm a fan.
@@falconJB To be fair, that's just as stupid an idea as having a boring patch of the exact same grasses.
Though, I suppose it won't cause many issues unless many other people start turning their lawn into a parking spot.
@@martijn9568 Not really, because a parking pad is useful and less wasteful than grass. I don't need to water a parking pad and there is no on-street parking where I live so its great when hosting company, it is full of cars of friends at least once a week. Also its great to not have to back out of my driveway into traffic each morning.
I live in a small HOA between two bigger ones, just a few blocks. Both the bigger ones were arguing over who would snap up these blocks, so a few of the owners in the non HOA area started their own HOA! It's pretty chill. They organize snow removal and garbage pickup and give zero craps about everything else. It's a spite HOA and I love that it worked!
Beautiful
The only kind of HOA I would ever consider living in
This is fabulous, although you didn't mention how the lawn was inspired by English manors, where the whole "lawns as a sign of wealth" came from -- it was showing off how much land you owned and didn't need for anything.
Yeah i was thinking the same, there's so much more to the lawns... And it for the most part isn't about anti-communism, it was just a sign of wealth. It started way before the cold war and all that stuff.
Which is why the grow food not lawns movement hit started but if people are food self sufficient it’s far harder to starve them out
My understanding is that *originally* a big expanse of grass meant you had a lot of sheep, and wool was big money. Some generations later they gave up the sheep, and the lawn meant you were so rich you could afford to keep the grass that way for no gain at all.
@@josephatthecoop Exactly that. Along the way you also evict all those filthy peasants from your land because they were raising worthless livestock and growing useless barley and wheat which can't feed your sheep. You can't get profitable wool from a peasant, or from their cows or chickens, so they've all got to go. Raze their village to make more flat land for grass to feed the sheep, the people can go live in the city and work in the factory that processes the wool.
@@josephatthecoop : Well, not necessarily sheep, but also cows, goats, horses, or *some* kind of grass-eating animals. Point is, if you own livestock, grass is actually *useful* for feeding them. And you can depend on the animals to cut (with their teeth) and fertilize it for you, so it's not labor-intensive like a useless suburban lawn.
HOAs have not forgotten why they enforce the rules, they still know it's to provide control over your life and your home. That's part of why "no HOA" was a specific requirement when I was lucky enough to go home shopping.
Yes, did you know that they can legally give you a late fee for your fines they give you?
And those late fees can accumulate.
Once that happens, the HOA can then put a lien out of your home for that amount of money owed to them.
Essentially, if you do not pay a fine (not their association fees), they can sell your property.
HOA has too much power, and this power has been given to them via the rich.
This video is spot-on and I love it!
You just better hope you don't get trash moved in next to you, and have your homes value drop 20%.
You won't think the same if that happens.
And trashy people are *THE* reason HOA's got so popular.
And people not wanting trash to drop their home values is why HOA's have a 97% "very satisfied" rating from people who live in them......
And a 97% very satisfied rate, is almost impossible to get for anything.
That high a satisfaction rate almost doesn't exist for anything else.....
That makes me wonder about you not wanting to be on one.....
Betcha got one of the worst yards on your block.
@@fackeyutub-emael6545 What a load of BS. I'm from a former communist country and if you think we didn't have HOA in communism you are very mistaken. And considering we all lived in flats, it's incredible how many rules HOAs could come up with. From monthly meetings, monthly rotations to clean the gardens around the block in summer and shovel the snow in winter (the schedule for which was voted in the monthly meeting so if you didn't go to those you were saddled with the worst possible days to do that on). You also had to give them money for whatever stupid project they voted they want to do that month, from painting the hallways to replacing the water / gas taps in the basement, all done with overpriced handymen that just so happened to be the president of the HOA cousin, brother-in-law, etc. Failure to conform to these rules brought fines, and in case you refused to pay the fines they could just put interdiction on up to 30% of your monthly income that got automatically redirected from your employer to them. And if you by some chance lived in a house that was not part of a HOA the municipality assumed the duties of the HOA, and they have even more stupid decision-making with allot more red tape.
Fun Fact: A group of Karens is called an H.O.A.
HOAs relieve a lot of tax burden from other sectors to subsidize the upkeep of utilities to suburban areas that generate almost zero tax revenue. Basically, you're saying you'd rather mooch off the city than pay your own expenses.
Love how you slipped "the reason YOUR PARENTS have a small patch in front of their house" in there. Quick but accurate observation of the current state.
Likewise, Boomers weren't "lured" there - they were born and bred there and grew up thinking it was the default norm. Their parents were the ones lured there.
Millennials are the largest group of homebuyers.
@@OC-CPA What, people owning a house tend to not buy a lot of additional houses !?
I'm shocked.
@@Vaasref Way to miss the point. My point is that OP is implying young people don't own homes, which is blatantly untrue.
I think the reason they're saying this is that if young people could afford to buy houses, lawns would already be gone. I can't think of any young person who thinks it makes any sense, and we'll all ditch the concept as soon as we're able to buy houses and have enough influence.
A "Home Owners Association" seems so foreign and totalistically dystopian to me as a german
If a *German* is calling something dystopian, it *must* be bad.
I'm American and think that it(HOAs) should seem dystopian and totalitarian to everyone. 🤔🤓🍻
As a Brit, I see HOAs the same way and for a Brit calling something dystopian. You have royally fucked yourself.
How? No really explain to me HOW does it seem "dystopian" to you, oh enlightened European?
Get it guys because get it. he’s german. get it? 😂😂😂😮😅😂😢😢
My county told me it was a fire hazard, then fined me $1k when I ignored them. Meanwhile, the woods in my backyard are apparently fireproof, or something, I guess; I'm allowed to let them grow.
Because your grass/yard is a fire break between your house and the woods
Typically large forests that experience regular fires aren't at much of a risk of completely burning up.
Regular fires help clear brush while leaving large tress mostly untouched. The reason these wild fires have been getting so out of hand is because of the prevention of forest fires. They need to happen. Letting too much undergrowth take over is just a recipe for disaster.
Not saying it wasn't BS, but in Australia with serious bushfires, thick unkempt vegetation around a house is considered much more dangerous than a tree that is not up against the house.
@@jeremyowen1forest management. Something that got throat chopped becayse of environmental concerns. Now the environment if worse
Note that in the coastal deep south, the preferred grass for lawns, St. Augustine Grass, is actually native.
Unlike the fire ants living in it.
@@Primalxbeast At least fire ants are less of a pest than HOA people who tell you your lawn is wrong.
@@Primalxbeast I remember the first time visiting my grandparents in FL and going barefoot in the yard. It was a quick unpleasant introduction to fire ants. And sand spurs. But the anoles were cool.
@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721 Agreed. And at least I'm legally allowed to poison said fire ants. :-P
The grass may be native, but the forced monoculture isn't. That grass wants other plants to help it survive and thrive; encouraging the grass to the exclusion of everything else is still pretty bad for the environment and even the grass itself.
Unfortunately I live in an HOA, it's almost impossible to avoid in the US if you have a "nice" house, but I do push the limits with my lawn. I like it to be high and lush, everyone else scalps it. I've long known that the whole lawn thing in the US was manufactured so to speak, but it's nice to have this video give a better explanation than I could when I've tried to describe it in the past.
Get involved in your HOA and fight to get it changed.
The longer Ive worked in lawn care, the more I encourage not maintaining a fancy patch of fescue. It just doesn't make much sense. It is an insane amount of water, fertilizer, and money that gets blown, all to the detriment of the environment. Not to mention running a piece of equipment with relatively high emissions. It's possible to go more natural and still have a good looking, useful space.
Also yes. Unless you're feeding/watering, using a reel mower, and mowing frequently (3-4 days or so during prime growing season) definitely do not scalp down below 2 1/2". If you're removing more than 30-40% of the grass length at a time, you're fuckin it up. Less space for cut grass to decompose and sit without clumping the lower you go. Getting around that with bagging just wastes energy. That's your lawns natural feed. Now you just have a bag of grass rotting away.
hoas arent even common in most states
That’s incredibly region specific. When I was looking to buy a house a couple years ago none of the places we looked at were in an HOA.
I mow my front lawn short in the front and let my backyard run wild. Hopefully my HOA doesn't start using drones.
I love explaining this and what loitering are to my European friends. They find our "freedom" fucking hilarious.
Loitering: 50% ticketing/arresting people for being black, 50% maximizing the misery of unhoused people so people fear becoming poor and work themselves to death for bosses who may as well be vampires.
What even is loitering??? I keep seeing all these signs that say "no loitering but who determines when someone is loitering?
@@Egerit100 Are you really asking, or are you being rhetorical?
@@LowJSamuel After using the Google, loitering is "waiting or standing around a business for no apparent reason and without buying anything" but still, who determines when you're loitering?
@@Egerit100 Have you seen the scene in Family Guy with the "okay" / "not okay" chart?
It's always amusing hearing about American Home Owner's Associations. You're free to do whatever you want, as long as the grass is short, don't paint your house the wrong shade of white and hide the car in the garage 🤣
“You can’t own that car you cheap bastard”
Levitt houses had real plumbing. They also had radiant floor heating. The problem was they used iron pipes in a cement slab and the two don't mix. By the 70s pretty much everyone I knew in Levittown had had their floors ripped out to stop the leaks and forced air furnaces squeezed into tiny living quarters.
By the way, one of the primary reasons you had to have a front and back lawn was for a place to put your well and your septic.
Pretty sure that having a septic tank and private well was what he meant by "no real plumbing" in the city. Being connected to a municipal waste system and water supply often (but not always) go hand-in-hand with sidewalks in a lot of places today.
The in-floor heating was copper pipe, not iron. However, the effect of being in concrete was the same - leaking pipes. I grew up in Levittown (1950-1970), and one of the really nice things was the warm floor. We had hot water baseboard installed.
@@johnladuke6475 Except that there was a municipal water system. It wasn't metered until sewers were installed (in the late 70's, I think).
@@michaelwarren2391 Interesting... but then why also have a well?
@@michaelwarren2391, I do stand corrected. East Meadow, 1969-1983
I'm 30, own my home that has a lawn, and the rain waters it. I can tell you one thing, don't ever live in an hoa, and if you do, do not sign a piece of paper that says some random do nothings can control your property.
Indeed. Though, some random do nothings do still control your property, they call themselves "the government".
In order to live where I wanted, I had to buy a condo, and in order to do that, I had to live in an HOA. That damn HOA has been a perpetual pain in the ass.
A lot of HOAs are contractually obligated. Like the real estate agent/title company can't legally deed you the property until you sign the piece of paper.
You know, the city/county/state is effectively an HOA that lets "random do nothings ... control your property."
@@OC-CPA Hoas are a good thing with condos, when you actually share amenities and a building there has to be some sort of rules laid down and dues paid for maintenance of shared spaces etc
We have a couple of freaks in my neighborhood who work to have perfect grass, while a couple of us have lawn that are welcoming for bees (In canada). About 1/3 of my lawn is clover, 1/3 grass and 1/3 wild strawberries.
Clover used to be part of all lawn mixes but the corporate jerks realized they could make way more money on weedkiller and fertilizer if they left it out
Is it hard to introduce wild strawberries? How do you do it?
@@daltonsimmerman3054 they were there before I moved in, and as I am not "helping" the grass, the strawberries are spreading like weeds. As I made a garden with regular strawberries in it (with a net over them), I let the bird eats the wild strawberries.
@@daltonsimmerman3054 Cultivated strawberries will spread faster than wild ones (because they are larger).
This is why I vastly prefer the style of house where its placed directly on the street, and you a bigger fenced area in the back that you can plant whatever you want in it.
I know what you really meant, but I'm having a great time picturing how hard it would be to build and live in a house that is actually _directly on_ the street. Cars having to drive around the living room to get where they're going.
Illegal in most places
@@daltonsimmerman3054 Very common in new suburbs in Britain.
Two years ago I identified 39 non-grass species in the lawn around our home here in Maine (I find it difficult to get interested in grasses, a failing of mine). The lawn never gets watered or fertilized by people, and never dies. There are periods of bloom where clusters and mixes of colors cover areas. It's so beautiful. It never needs mowing more than once or twice a month. I have no idea what the turf grass people are doing, it's idiotic.
edit: I'm a former landscape maintenance manager at a large company. I hate turf grass, rare in the industry. People spend so much money on turf, nothing on lovely lawns like mine.
This is you... failing to get interested in grasses? I'd like to see the comment you'd write if you found them fascinating.
Sounds like my attitude towards my lawn here in Australia. If it can survive on the rainfall and doesn't mind a monthly mowing, it gets to stay. With one exception: paspalum that springs up near where anyone has to walk. That gets poisoned because I can't stand getting brushed by the seed heads. They're sticky and make my legs itch.
Among the variety of stuff that springs up, I make a point to mow around the paper daisies. Lovely little native plants. Pity they're only annuals.
Grass does support ecosystems - many in fact. It's just that a 2 inch tall lawn grass monoculture cannot. As an ecologist, so much of the USA's land being covered in useless grass and not literally any other plant is depressing to me, it's really destroying habitat for animals like birds and insects (especially pollinators like bees).
on the flip side we have some of the largest national parks and nature preserves
That's the thing, a tiny monoculture full of pesticides becomes the opposite of an ecosystem, if a native plant decides to grow, it is treated like a pest. Even a small lawn could become an ecosystem if native plants that attract animals are allowed to grow.
@@manjensen1710 Agreed completley.
This is great and all but I have kids and I’d rather them not get ticks and chiggars when they step out the door to play
@@oguzman1996Native trees and bushes, as well as gardens with native flowers and such, could be a good alternative without having to worry about ticks and stuff from overgrown weeds.
I've been staying in a different country for a few months and one of the main aesthetic differences that stood out to me is that, while it has a ton of plant life, there really aren't any lawns. sight-blocking fences up to the sidewalk. though it might also be the difference between my suburban hometown and a city lol.
There is a great video by Ordinary Things that goes more deeply into lawn lore called "Lawns: Crimes Against the Ground". Give it a watch 👍
Hilariously, Kentucky Bluegrass doesn't have to be water hungry. When you see it browning, that's actually drought resistance. You can let it brown for 3 weeks before you need to water it... unless you happen to mow the lawn since the grass is quite vulnerable after cut.
The phrase water hungry literally means the amount of water needed to keep it green....
So yes, it's quite water hungry.
We aren't talking about it's survival.
We use grass for decoration. Therefore it's the amount of water needed to keep it pretty that matters.
wow, I thought it was just long island, but it turns out it was actually lawn guy land
omg that's the best pun I have seen in a long time
That's oddly accurate.
Remember : 🧠"If the penalty for a crime is a fine, that law only exists for the lower classes."
Beside, about (meadow) grass, let it live and grow, it's good for bugs (like bees) and you'll save money AND noise.
"Capitalism is like a dog in heat, we need to put a leash on it or it will f... everything".
Elon Musk
Just kidding. It was Jesus.🤪
Grass isn't good for bees besides providing oxygen, I think you are thinking of flowers
@@eatshmoogle3573 Yes, grass isn't pollinated by bees, but it will provide habitat for a lot of bugs. Also some leanguages don't differentiate between a lawn and a meadow. Wild native flowers interspersed in a grass meadow are the best food for insects.
@@eatshmoogle3573 Well. Of course. I mean... let the wind and the bugs do their thing and, sooner or later, you will find flowers blooming in your "blue grass" lawn.
Thank you. You put it more eloquently than I ever could (I'm french).
I remember once going to Phoenix, Arizon, it is a city that is right smack in the Sonoran Desert. Imagine my shock when I saw that there were lawns with grass there. The city truly is built as a monument to man's arrogance (plus 5 imaginary points if you get that reference).
Just a ticking time bomb with so many band-aids it looks like it wrestled with a porcupine.
KotH
King of the hill right
That's wild because I know that Las Vegas has actually banned grass lawns because, you know, they're in the middle of a desert. Just the fact that that city exists is enough of a defiance to God as is. So to hear that Phoenix doesn't do that is insane.
@@AZaqZaqProduction : Yes, Las Vegas exists only because a bunch of people don't understand probability.
Oh, and also a nearby big-ass hydroelectric dam that makes electricity cheap there.
I always thought planners didn't understand how people think. A big open flat square downtown is a place people cut across to get to the other side unless there's a protest rally or something. But if there are stairs creating different levels, people lounge. As for the front lawn, nobody ever steps on it unless they're mowing it. If you want empty you can have empty.
Never thought about the different levels thing...
Lounging on squares is great.
Plenty of people use their front lawns for recreational and leisure activities (playing catch, kicking a soccer ball, playing with toy trucks, etc).
The one time I have been to the US the grass lawns were really the most striking thing. it just felt very alien, cartoonish even.
Well timed video as I intend to convert my 3rd acre plot to a mostly clover and native wild flowers purely to reduce the amount of maintenance
You could also try creeping myrtle or use local plants from your area.
@@plant.hacks.4.ur.environment "native wild flowers" is my intention of using local plants.
No matter how you choose to use the space, ditching your lawn is so rewarding. Just the time, energy and money wasted on mowing and watering are worth the change. No more growing the grass, so you can cut the grass, so it grows well, so you can cut it... forever.
@@johnladuke6475 thankfully I don't really water the lawn except sometimes in July as its pretty common for us not to get any rain at all that month, but even then if I did water it was like at most once a week.
But overall that's been my driving force. Plus if I do it right a nice spring meadow will look way better
Clover is non-native to North America.
maybe if hello fresh stopped spending all their money on marketing they could retain some customers at a realistic price point 😂
Their promo text is terrible... they make going to the grocery shop and making a simple meal the most complicated thing ever. Pffff.
I'd like to give a shout out to the people down the street who have a cactus garden instead of a lawn.
What I don't understand is why people don't erect walls or metal fences taller than a human being to protect against trespassers. Where I come from it's standard to have 9+ feet tall cememt walls surrounding all properties (primarily for privacy cuz we deeply value it), and if you like to flaunt your front yard then put metal iron walls so all can see through
I don't think many neighborhoods in the US would allow you to have a 9 foot concrete wall in your front yard.
@@Primalxbeast and the question is, Why?
@Zaydan Alfariz Those walls also double up as fire protection, though I don't think that's an issue in America where suburban housing have always maintained social distancing
it just hit me when i read your comment: american houses dont have fences! what the fuck. its the norm here too, for people who live in a house to have at least 2m fences around their property. even most apartment buildings have fences around their gardens. no wonder so many horror movies set in the us have random killers just walk into a house
@@iris5478 its also the reason why zombies are always a trouble in america (in movies, lol), the only thing protecting their houses are their windows and doors. In South America a zombie virus would be much less dangerous, because we all have either tall walls or metal bars on the windows
Ha! I was right that all this grass is an endless chore for no good reason. If you can't tell, I'm not a person that enjoys cutting the lawn. it is time that could go to much better endeavors if you ask me.
We ditched our lawn, replaced it with a mulch base that doesn't need to be mowed and an ever-increasing collection of fruit-bearing plants that actually give a return for the time and energy spent taking care of them. Never having to mow again is a great feeling.
This is seriously one of the reasons I still live in an apartment.
It’s still like this today, people have a weird obsession with lawns and on top of that the government forces them on people
I’m certainly not complaining since i own a lawncare company lmao
I have nothing against you personally. Youre just trying to survive im sure but it's a crap situation because Bermuda grass and grass in general if not native is terrible for the environment when it gets loose because it kills native species and that means that other natives have less to eat, and it effects the whole food web. Wildflower gardens or trees with native understory plants can be lower maintenance, and more interesting.
Its depressing how because it's ultimately more harmful than not to everyone, yet society is brainwashed to like the look of a flat green plane that does little more than waste time and money, which makes it even harder on whoever still has land these days because before for most of human history, even a couple centuries ago nearly everyone grew food on their own land, and its leas wasteful than shipping produce that gets mostly thrown out.
@thetobyntr9540 I don't think we need to worry about invasiveness too much. Lawns are still notoriously hard to keep up, which is why lawn care remains a viable business.
@@QuesoCookies
I wish that were the case but species are becoming at least locally extinct if not completely. What im saying could be proven wrong if it was. Any resources taken by us and our grass can't go to the local ecosystem. We've displaced more than half of the world's biomass. Our invasive plants build up massive numbers and adapt even better, all the while they take resources from things that the local ecosystem actually needs, without having predators or pathogens to limit their number like its supposed to be.
no place is outside of an ecosystem, that includes our homes, i think its best to be in the your local ecosystems side in action and intent. It is always destructive when our grass spreads from the lawns and nearly every other inch of land that we dont farm or build, especially after we just erase unique ecosystems, which is ok if it's done small and the populations dont take a nosedive, but when its unnecessary and only harmful or benign things make up most of the environment is when things break down. We wouldn't have to worry about this if we had a small population but thst simply isn't the case anymore.
Its not all bad, we still have lots of life left to build back our ecosystems with, we just need to accept the hard facts in order to make anything about this better. Our species coexisted and actually reinforced biodiversity (except for megafauna extinctions, but that took thousands of years of pressure while humans filled the same niches) for a while in prehistory, we can do it again if we put our minds to it and and fight the people making money by exploiting the world.
@thetobyntr9540 Except much of the grasses kept in lawns are picked because of their reluctance to bolt, which looks unsightly, which also keeps it from spreading effectively. Annual crops are the same way. We've bred them not to breed on their own very well because they would become a weed to whatever we wanted to plant next year, and the seeding process would take energy away from the fruiting and leaving process we want them to be doing, because those are the parts of the plants we want to eat. Talking about the ecological damage of any human structures and natural diversity being replaced by artificial monoculture is not the same as the crops and grasses being invasive, unless you're making a semantic argument about humanity as an invasive species, which is fair but not precisely what an invasive species means.
house i bought in 2015 was foreclosed and abandoned so the lawn was gone, replaced by whatever grows. I mow that wildflower/weed/clover combo three or four times a summer so its nice to walk on and i can see the dog poop to pick it up.
Never water it! Its great!
In minnesota tho, so maybe im just lucky with friendly, hearty local plants that can beat the shit out of grasses in the winters.
Why pick up the poop? Just leave it there, it's good fertilizer.
The place where I live has wildflowers, clovers, dandelions, and grasses of varying lengths for the lawn. It’s great!
If u look at lawns in Florida, the grass is a lot more thick than grass up north. The weather plays a huge factor in that showing that Florida lawns are different than northern lawns
in Florida I usually see crabgrass, while in other regions it's the softer, greener, more vertical kind. I don't know what the name of it is
Florida and other southern states have a coarser grass than those up north. Many varies of grasses hybridized to fit the climate they are to grow in. My backyard has a newer grass made for higher altitudes. The front yard the old sod has relented to local short grass prairie and other imported weed grasses and yarrow. My clippings are used in my vegetable garden.
Ah yes time to learn of Lawn Lore
at 0:46 i didn't know every state was boarded with a unbroken line of grass!!!????!!!?!?!?!?
Yes it's a very famous feature of American geography.
@@justin.booth. go take a picture on The Line™
I love the thought of getting sued by the city due to NOT being rich enough to afford to water useless grass.... especially with colorado river drought issues we still gotta show off the front yard 🤬
But Republican orange man was bad
It is interesting to observe how cultural differences can influence the design and construction of homes. In the US, many homeowners choose not to install gates or fences around their houses. Just their big and boring lawns, which for me is so cool. In contrast, in the Philippines where I live, it is common for homes to have gates installed for security and privacy reasons.
I have a fence with gates, and a lawn, for privacy and security, as well as an area to have my children play.
I wish people could actually make nice gardens
Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a place where you don’t have to fence your home for security reasons? And where you could do whatever you want with your lawn?
Yeah but then they'll shoot you if you come to close 😅
@@mattwardproductions7399 You can??
That's it! I'm tearing out all the grass in my yard and replacing it with brick. Nothing controversial about bricks.
wait till you hear about how much carbon is released into the atmosphere to make bricks instead i would replace it with moss
@@monkeeboy830 Na, gotta go with concrete, one huge slab.
@@DarthRagnarok343 You meant asphalt? Cmon, a lawn is a perfect spot for a parking lot and a dollar general
Grass just kinda fits that need of something short enough that can be played on and thick enough it doesn't get muddy. Turf type fescue is superior to Bluegrass in my opinion.
If i ever own a home, i wanna grow some foods on my front lawn just to have something to look at.
Do all raised beds with gutter run off water collection that then runs threw the beds. Have pretty mulch paths threw them.
Just don't try to do that in a house with an HOA.
Fruit trees (including nuts) have big upfront costs and hassle, but once they are in maintenance are low.
One of my neighbors has a sort of wildlife garden on their lawn. They deliberately don't mow it and let nature do whatever it wants. It's nice.
@@timstone2813 Why do Americans suck ass at spelling lmao
I grew up in a suburb, but the houses in my neighborhood are all unique and we’re not apart of a HOA thankfully. Suburbs are fine, but HOAs and creepily identical houses are…not my favorite
Saving up to get rid of our grass. West Texas water is expensive and im sick of paying 150 a month in the summer just for looks.
I like the joke where you segue from talking about the means of production to a Hello Fresh sponsor.
0:43 Same reason that I built a copper roof. It looks nice.
Though copper does actually hold up pretty well against the weather. The oxidation makes it last longer, unlike steel, which becomes weaker with rust.
As someone who loves my perfectly landscaped lawn, I feel attacked.
Been watching this channel since it was at like 150k subscribers and his content and quality is so good....
It makes everything doubly interesting.
Having exquisitely maintained lawns was also popularised by the Palace of Versailles
I knew I hated keeping up my lawn. I desperately want to replace my lawn with the artificial turf that the NFL plays on, but our HOA bylaw says that not maintaining the lawn is punishable by death, I think.
Don't. It'll make your place hotter. Grass sucks for keeping your place cool, but it's better than nothing. Put in proper plants, by which I mean trees and large shrubs, and plenty of them, and they can keep your property several degrees cooler than somewhere with just grass. Fake grass, rocks or paving just get hot in the sun, like your roof. Living plants put out water vapour which helps cool things down.
We deleted our lawn years ago and inputted flowers and trees and other nice usances instead.
Is there any chance of a follow-up video on grass alternatives?
I never knew how stupid our obsession with grass was till I saw phoenix. A city in an arid environment and scare water dumping millions of gallons on these stupid lawns.
We don't have to do it in Mississippi since we get ample rainfall, but in a lot of places out west you're required to keep you lawn watered. Presumably these Western cities don't want to end up looking like the deserts that they actually are.
Kentucky is also famous for the Kentucky Derby and being prominent in the horse industry. And of course horses eat grass.
While lawns in general are a bit ridiculous to have everywhere, there are very good reasons in parts of Australia to manage vegetation near habitation. One is snakes. In urban areas the one place you might accidentally step on a snake is in tall grass. The other is fire risk. In rural areas and outer suburbs, you have to be very careful not to allow a buildup of tinder near houses.
Do you mean Tinder the dating ap? What have this to do with lawns
@@sandralison7584 no, not the app. The app was called that because tinder means something that lights on fire very easily.
Why is it so popular to hate on grass? I love the stuff. It's so nice to lay in. HOAs are the devil's handy work though. I agree with ya there
"It's so nice to lay in."
I assume you live somewhere without fire ants?
I never got the point of having a house if you can’t do what you want with your lawn.
But I guess that’s why I see it differently then most people. I here people telling me about how a home is an “investment”, and I am always like “I thought it was a place to live”?
If I ever own a home with its own dirt, I want to fill that dirt with native grasses and wildflowers (well, except for the bit where I actually garden--I love eating food I've grown), put up a small sign saying "Native Pollinator Habitat", and watch my neighbors lose their minds.
You're forgetting the most important reason: most people don't want an ecosystem in their yard. They just want to go outside without having to worry about ticks or other bugs that thrive in unkempt or natural lawns.
Lawn grass in Scotland is so soft and nice, visited family in Texas and it was like straw.
Climate thing i guess
Texas is much hotter and not as dry so they need different grasses (Bermuda, Zoysia, etc.). Especially if it was winter the grass was probably dormant.
We have St. Augustine grass in Florida. Not only is it not soft, it's infested with fire ants.
Over the past 24 years, my lawn has transitioned to 50% moss, 40% low-growing, drought-resistant weeds, 5% bare ground and 5% grass. I run the lawn mower over it two or three times a year to prevent trees and brush growing up. In the spring, masses of bluets decorate the yard, and later on there are violets, dandelions and other flowering weeds. I think it looks great!
When my parents finally moved off the military base their number one priority house shopping was no lawn, because we dealt with three on the military base for a decade. Side yards are a fucking bitch to mow with a push mower, damn thing was so big I had to have like two massive extension cords just to get the mower to the farthest corner of it. The responsibility gave me character growing up, but I’m not eager to go back to that
No that I’ll probably ever be able to afford my own house in this present economy… but still
okay so my question is - why did the first settlers coming into central Kentucky via the wilderness road in Berea, see the plains, such as they were at the time (Lexington was largely a swamp), as "a sea of blue grass" ... now i'm wanting to go find our natural grass ... even though i have a wildflower and clover lawn ...
It might be worth checking on the source of that quote, as well. It may well be a later invention, or a description from a later wave of settlers after the land had already been transformed.
It was bluestem maybe?
Are home owner associations a thing outside of the usa? Just never seen one
We have them here in Canada
You can always count on Canada to copy the worst parts of the USA.
I love living rural.. Huge garden in the back yard and a big beautiful lawn full of trees and flowers everywhere else.
The day I get my own back yard, it’s gonna become a lush garden/forested ecosystem. Have some stone paths to get around, and mulch beds around the house so the vegetation doesn’t touch the house much and invite insects in. I don’t mind time and effort spent on the yard, just make it have a god damn purpose.
The dumbest thing is that it's not even that hard to keep people from reading Kapital. It's not really a page-turner. Even just reading selections for a class is one of the worst things I've ever done to myself.
(Note that this has little to do with the ideas conveyed in the text, just the readability)
So true!
However, the Communist Manifesto is plenty readable. Engles must've been a decent editor.
EDIT: (I was also reading it for college, I'm not a commie, I promise)
which is why i live up a dirt road and grow vegetables in my front yard. True. American. Freedom.
At this point, we should covering lawns with clover. Of course they flower and attract bees, but they also need less work/maintenance. Plus clover are [more] beneficial to wildlife and look nicer than plain grass lawns. The reduced need for mowing is good too, as lawn mowers can generate pollutions/emissions.
I live out in a very rural area on several acres of land, not in a suburb, so I've never heard of anyone being arrested for how their grass is growing.
Sam sending a subtle hint for HAI viewers to touch grass
Don't just touch grass. Tear it down! Stick it to the Levittown leaders!
I don't irrigate my lawn. I can't be bothered to water it. I even live in a nice neighborhood where people do water their lawns a lot but it'll just be whatever color it's supposed to be.
Water already costs enough.
The only effort my parents put into maintaining their lawn was occasional mowing, grass just grows in upstate NY.
Their lawn is also far from a monoculture, predominantly grass sure but all sorts of flowers and bugs live in it as well. Hating lawns only makes sense to me in places where the lawn would die off without human intervention.
My house is one of the original Levitt n Sons model homes from the 1940s. I live in a small lumber mill town in Humboldt County, Ca and the mill in town made a lot of the lumber kits they shipped by rail to build the Levitt houses on Long Island.
Comrade Half As Interesting confirmed
I literally tell everyone that having and maintaining a lawn is just a social construct because I hate taking care of it so much, but knowing what I know now, its worse than I could've even imagined.
M O A R B R I C K S
Having and maintaining a house is also just a social construct. Eating particular foods is also just a social construct. Wearing clothes is also just a social construct. Speaking is also just a social construct. That term means nothing.
@@LowJSamuel Well, that may be he the case for you, and that's totally fine my friend. we could get even more cynical and deduce that everything means nothing, but where is the fun in that?
The only thing that I know I care about at the end of the day is getting more videos about bricks out of this guy, okay?
@@brailyndsummers What is and what isn't a social construct is just a social construct.
I didn't know there's a story behind it. Cool story. I really like American history and culture. One day I will visit ❤️🇮🇩
Don't. We are completely and totally psychopathic here. You could come here on vacation and leave in a casket; just because you looked at someone "wrong". In the 70's we shut down all of our mental health institutions and kicked all of the occupants out into the streets with ZERO support. Now, 50 years later, they have all grown up and had children, and their children have had children. And now we have an actual insanity outbreak. Most of our population is clinically insane now. And that is not hyperbole, that is a fact. It is what happens when you allow crazy people to breed without control.
So I recommend just staying where you are, or at least avoiding our country; for your own longevity.
i hope you enjoy it 😊
How can you think any of this is cool lol
this isnt cool, it is destroying our ecosystem and is a driving force behind insect extinction. bugs NEED tall weeds and wildflowers and leaf litter and moss. it is their home.
Yeah, do be sure to visit. The USA is well-known for its love of foreign people. Especially if you happen to not be white or speak English with any non-American accent. You'll definitely learn lots about their culture.
Hey! We have bourbon in Kentucky. That's our one thing!
Right on. My paternal side is from Rockcastle County (1804-1950), although I have never lived in KY, I do appreciate their number 1 "export"!
Serious question, for the people who live in HOA neighborhoods that mandate a lawn: can you take out all the grass and put in artificial turf, basically paying a one time cost to hopefully shut them up once and for all?
Depends on the HOA. Some go so far as to have language that dictates that it has to be grass and which breeds of grass are acceptable.
My #1 requirement when we bought land and a house - no HOA.
Why do HOA's even exist? What's the benefit?
It seems like the entire purpose of an HOA is to cater to the desires of superficial people. "See my house? Your house should look this good."
Shut up Bethany.
The only solution for an HOA infestation is napalm
@@jeremyowen1 So people who can't get elected to public office can at least be mini-tyrants.
Great video Sam!
And you won't need long to find someone that will make up some sort of argument why all of this is good because freedom
Nobody in England waters their lawns, apart from sports clubs, despite the fact that London is drier than any American city east of the Mississippi. And we certainly don't mow them every week.
I didn’t know there was so much to learn about grass
I am pretty sure that grass and lawns have actual benefits beyond just looking the way they do.
grass helps moderate ground temperature as it absorbs heat and retains it, meaning a generally grassy area will have a milder climate both in the summer and winter than it otherwise would have. As negligible as it may be, it can help decontaminate the top soil layer and absorb at least some amount of chemicals from the air. It keeps the ground fresh and more workable than if you just had a dry patch of dirt and it helps lower dust proliferation as it both captures at as well as does not produce it. It also helps retain more moisture and water in general. It may have been a plot, scheme, whim and an expensive stunt, but there are definitely long lasting benefits that it brings with it.
There's of course some instances where it's better not to keep lawns like Las Vegas where it is literally detrimental to water your lawn.
The problem is not grass itself, the problem is short monocolture flowerless grass, it looks green and lush, but it's the biosphere equivalent of a wasteland
@@davidefinzi8145 I agree, but a grassy wasteland is still better than a dry dirt wasteland.
Any other plants that would naturally grow there is better, my lawn is mostly clover and wild strawberries.
Why does everything have to be either a dense city or an untouched wild jungle, and suburbs are always bad? There are many positive aspects often left unmentioned. Think of a suburban open front yard as akin to a city's parks, not identical, but similar. As kids this is where we played with all the neighboring kids (especially if unfenced), and as adults it's where we still meet our neighbors (unlike back yards which are truly private). It allows rain to absorb into the ground and avoids concrete jungle effects. It provides a nice open view, rather than a narrow concrete lane lined with buildings, and that openness is aesthetically pleasing to many people. Mowed grass is soft and allows for lots activities; and also tends to keep away many unwanted rodents and things. Lawns do support ecosystems, though different than prairies. Not every place in the US has a constant water shortage. And furthermore the US has no shortage of land for ample agriculture; if you want a private garden fine, but we don't need to commandeer lawn-space to keep people from starving. This isn't an argument as to why yards should or shouldn't be mandated, or HOAs, (though there are arguments on both sides there too); but yards are not, as some city dwellers think, just evil and in need of reforming to make them more like cities or more like jungles.
"Lets talk about Cannibalism!" - "Brought to you, today, by our sponsor, Hello Fresh!" 💀💀💀💀
Product placement gets wild these days!
Y'know, for all the bad things you're saying about owning a mass manufactured home identical to every other home in a neighborhood and being required to maintain a lawn, I'd happily trade that for my current situation.
the first step to "protecting freedom" is to limit freedom 🙂
i loved this video as much as i hate grass. I'm letting nature take over my lawn
The rats will love that.
Reject arbitrary order, embrace nature's chaos
@@blainelanders2361 yep, nature is beautiful!
Our lawn is a free for all. Dandelions, various small flowering plants (we still mow occasionally) and variety of grasses.
@@blainelanders2361 yep! instead of loving the inside of your drywall lol
Woah woah woah, Kentucky had TWO things going for it, one WAS grass and now all they have is fried chicken
Oh and also one thing missing: it's bad for the environment. In the desert there is no grass. In hot places grass is pretty hard to maintain and in these areas, water is tight and you need a lot of water to maintain the grass or it will die and you need to replant it, so it can die again.
At least there are now regions where they remove the grass and plant native plants that can survive in that region.
I personally hate that every patch of grass gets cut to death. Sure having some nice but grass to play and lay down is nice but not every patch needs to be that way. Where I live, we have a lot of grass and the landlord is cutting everything very short. Some parts I don't consider a nice patch for playing or so and these patches should grow, so wild flowers can grow and letting insects live there.
The best joke is that they have some parts where they don't cut the grass but these are like 2qm. Having less than 1% that can grow wild is a joke. We have here so much grass and so much areas where they can let it grow wild.
What kind of sociopath 'hates on' a nice grass yard? For fucks sake, grass yards LOOK NICE. They are easy to maintain. They smell good after you mow them. They are plesant to walk on barefoot. They are a safe surface for kids to play on.
What kind of insane anti-nature and misanthropic wingnutter thinks destroying thousands of years of natural development of an entire continent for the benefit of the useless wasting of scarce ressources, totalitarian neighbourhood policing ("Land of the free", amirite?), "boring dystopis" conformism and lack of biodiversity is a good thing? How much terminal Americanism can someone swallow?
Watering
But is this a video about mating of worms?
The original Beverly hillbillies estate uses something like 1,000,000 gallons of water a year to water their grass look it up
this is your best video yet. keep this awesome new content a-coming!
HOAs get a bad rep for being run by petty tyrants with no power in other parts of their lives, but the real problem is the original developer retaining too much power through their rental units and a one unit/one vote structure and trying to keep things in "model home" condition forever. What's needed is for states to regulate HOAs to a one ownership entity/one vote structure (with sufficiently broad designations that developers can't just set up a separate LLC for every rental unit of course).
Brilliant!
My city in Florida tried this before I left the state, I don't know what happened to it but pretty sure it fell through.
So if you own 5/25 units (20%), you still only get 1 vote? What if a homeowner (not developer) owns several units and puts each under a separate LLC they control? I'm not sure if its even possible to circumvent LLCs unless you make it against the rules to own a property through a LLC. And I'm not sure if that's legal since many properties are in Trusts and LLCs are legal in any other property arrangement.
But what is the need to preserve HOAs at all? Just outlaw them
@@philc.2504 So, groups of homeowners can't form legally binding contracts regarding how their properties are maintained and collectively fund the maintenance for common grounds, insurance, or other needs?
How would ownership in a highrise work without HOAs?
Useless patch? There's not a day that goes by that my whole family, includong the dogs and cats, aren't playing on the grass. Never mind the neighbor kids that come over all the time too.
It's a park that takes 0 seconds to get to. Swing set, slide, tiny zip line, obstacle course, and a garden for fresh snacks. Get the dogs hyped up and you could probably do race betting on them circling the yard.
Badminton night? Check.
Science experiment with explosions? Check.
Drone race course made from leftover PVC? Check.
Impromptu campsite for the little ones? Check.
Outdoor movie night on the inflatable screen? Check.
Outdoor wood shop to build a cabinet? Check
Meteor shower theater? Check.
How many uses does a lawn need before its not a "useless parch?"
Granted, that's non HOA living. Maybe those places have rules where you can't use your yard and it's just decorative? Just speculation; I've never lived in one of those places. Seems unpleasant.
I wouldn't say "never" but it's seldom explicitly spelled out. It's just if you use it like that, it'll look like it's been used and not pretty enough.
lol yeah you're not doing any of that in a front lawn with an HOA. they are strictly for maintaining property values
Hello Fresh doesn't cater to 1 person, minimum 2. I had to drop them because I got tired of having to either eat a 2 person serving or eat questionable leftovers every other day.
How about so we have something to walk on? Painting mud green is still messy. Watering it, lol, no. If it turns brown-ish I don't have to mow it as much.