No Lawns

Over 12 expert-led weekly challenges, transform your lawn into a vibrant ecosystem teeming with life. Discover simple techniques to create habitat that butterflies, birds, and beneficial insects can't resist. Ready to turn your patch of earth into something extraordinary?

Live Kickoff on May 1st @ 12 pm est / 9 am pst

Featuring Doug Tallamy
Renowned Ecologist,
Founder of Homegrown National Park

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When Sara Weaner Cooper and her husband bought their first home in Pennsylvania, they knew they didn't want a perfectly manicured front lawn like their neighbours. They wanted something that was more than just turf – a flourishing, wild meadow home to diverse species of plants and animals.

Weaner Cooper had always wanted to focus on native plants in her lawn and do less mowing, so rewilding their front lawn felt like the right move. But the Coopers' lawn is a different animal than her father's. It's in full Sun and consisted of over 1,500 sq m (16,000 sq ft) of turfgrass – narrow-leaved grasses designed to look uniform that had to be dealt with before a meadow could fully take over.

Rather than rip everything up and live with a drab, brown lawn for months, they decided to try strategically seeding and planting native plants into the existing turf, hoping it would eventually weed the turf out naturally. "It's easier in the sense that you don't need to be beating back as many weeds," explains Weaner Cooper. "The native plants came in so thickly that they outcompeted a lot of the weed pressure that would have been there if we would have just made it brown."

It took about two years, lots of planning, some careful weeding, and some trial and error, but eventually a medley of waist-high native plant species blanketed their vast front lawn.

https://archive.ph/fno9c

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/28682830

What could be more indicative of a thirst for power and control than a perfectly level, uniform expanse of grass? Clearly, only someone with fascist tendencies would aspire to such impeccable orderliness, attempting to impose their oppressive standards on nature itself. Because nothing says "I want to dominate the world" quite like the pursuit of a weed-free lawn.

Consider the process of maintaining a lawn. It's essentially an exercise in subjugation. Mowing down innocent blades of grass week after week, enforcing a uniform height – it's like a tiny dictatorship being played out in your front yard. And let's not even mention the chemical warfare that goes on behind the scenes – those pesticides and fertilizers are the secret tools of aspiring autocrats, seeking to eliminate any form of diversity (read: weeds) in their quest for homogeneity.

But the plot thickens when we consider the boundary lines. The quintessential white picket fence, meticulously aligned with the driveway, serves as a clear metaphor for the barriers these so-called "lawn fascists" wish to erect between themselves and the rest of the world. Heaven forbid a dandelion or, heaven forbid, a clover should breach these sacred borders! It's not just a lawn, it's a fortified buffer zone against any hint of dissenting plant life.

And let's talk about the water consumption. While the rest of us worry about global water shortages and environmental sustainability, these lawn-loving authoritarians are apparently convinced that the well-being of their turf is of paramount importance. Are they hoarding water to fuel their nefarious plans for world domination? It wouldn't be surprising – every power-hungry despot needs a well-hydrated base of operations.

In conclusion, the evidence is irrefutable: anyone with a lawn is a fascist. The quest for a pristine lawn represents a disturbing desire for control, uniformity, and domination over the natural world. So, the next time you see a neatly trimmed yard, just remember – behind that innocent facade of green lies a potential dictator in the making, plotting to impose their authoritarian rule, one well-timed sprinkler cycle at a time.

Started working on this area underneath a tree last spring. Common blue violet, eastern columbine and wild geranium make up the groundcover.

I planted Virginia spiderwort too, but the cottontails feasted on them 🐇

And an update on my violet post from last year. They're filling in this area nicely under the elderberry:

A few years ago I saw a post about permaculture from u/Suuperdad that inspired me to create this sub. I had no idea what it would turn into. Yesterday I got this lovely email about our website that in all honesty, I forgot existed. It was made during the great Reddit migration and has been kind of forgotten about until today.

Never in a million years did I expect an email like this or, my co-workers to know my subreddit or, my new significant other to lose his mind when he found out I started this sub. Even if you don't think you're going to change the world, you might. This is a reminder to fight for what you believe in, make positive changes in your life, and do what's right. Maybe it will have a snowball effect, maybe it won't. Either way you'll be changing your own life.

I want to make a special shout out to my amazing mod team over on Reddit who does amazing work not just in moderating but in contributing resources, setting up really cool things like the Doug Tallamay AMA and just overall being really great humans that I enjoy chatting with. I have an amazing mod team over on discord and here on Lemmy too that I can't thank enough for the hard work they put in and a special thanks to the host of Solar Punk for hosting the Lemmy instance we use.

This community exists because we all want to see a change in the world and we're doing it. Sincerely, thanks for being here with me everyone. I love this community so much!

A french article about a juridic process that allow regular people to protect the nature in they gardens, or houses...

The article is in french. Feel free to use a translator.

Here is a link without paywall : https://archive.ph/iswqt

cross-posted from: https://peculiar.florist/notes/9mvjejg1u8q1tqnr

What was once pasture is now a forest.

www.boredpanda.com/brazilian-couple-recreated-forest-sebastiao-leila-salgado-reforestation/
institutoterra.org/o-instituto/

Instituto Terra is a non-profit civil organization founded in April 1998. It is focused on the environmental restoration and sustainable rural development of the Doce River Valley. The region was originally covered by the Atlantic Forest and covers municipalities of Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo bathed by the Doce River Basin.

The Rio Doce Basin is one of the most important in the Brazilian Southeast. In its domain live more than four million people, who face the consequences of deforestation and the disordered use of natural resources, such as soil erosion and water scarcity.

The Terra Institute is the result of the initiative of the couple Lélia Deluiz Wanick Salgado and Sebastião Salgado, who faced the scenario of environmental degradation in which the old cattle farm acquired from the family of Sebastião Salgado – like the many other rural units located in the mining city of Aimorés – made a decision: to return to nature that decades of environmental degradation destroyed.

The first step was to transform the area into a Private Reserve of Natural Heritage – RPPN Fazenda Bulcão. The title was obtained in an unprecedented way in October 1998, being the first environmental recognition granted in Brazil to a completely degraded property, given the commitment to be reforested.

The first planting was carried out in November 1999 and was attended by students from schools in the municipality of Aimorés, in Minas Gerais. Thus was born the largest proposal of the Earth Institute: to share with the community of its surroundings all the knowledge acquired in the environmental restoration of the 608.69 hectares of the RPPN Fazenda Bulcão.

To achieve this goal develops projects ranging from forest restoration and nascent protection to applied scientific research and environmental education. The financial support comes from different partners, both from the governmental and private enterprise, as well as from Foundations and individual donors from various countries and other institutions of the Third Sector.

Due to the action of the Earth Institute, thousands of hectares of degraded areas of the Atlantic Forest in the middle Doce River and close to 2,000 springs are in the process of recovery. The former cattle ranch, once completely degraded, today houses a forest with diversity of species of the flora of Atlantic Forest.

The experience proves that with the recovery of green, springs flow again and species of the Brazilian fauna, at risk of extinction, return to have a safe refuge.

avant : institutoterra.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/antes-1.jpg

après : institutoterra.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Instituto-Terra-2022-%C2%A9Sebastiao-Salgado-221213-00-00393-scaled.jpg

#ecologie #Bresil #InstitutoTerra

@environnement

Crazy for me to think that earthworms are invasive to North America!

Currently resisting the spring cleaning urge! The grass in the front yard is starting to grow, so it won't be too much longer.

The first on my list is thinning out the orange coneflower to make beds in the backyard. The second is grouping up the late boneset that sprouted in random places.

Where are some places that I can get bulk white clover seed? The tractor supply-ish stores by me only have it mixed in with grass, or the deer forage variety.

Chrissa Carlson, the former Garden and Nutrition Educator at Baltimore's Hampstead Hill Academy, shows us the steps needed to start a school garden and explains the different components of her school garden that not only makes it an effective space for growing plants, but also an engaging classroom.

If you don't have a lawn of your own to convert, this could be a great project for your neighborhood! Retirement communities or houses of worship are some other possible options.

More about the Baltimore Curriculum Project's Food For Life Program can be found here.

I recently came across this video about ARKs (Acts of Restorative Kindness) - small rewilded spaces that form a global rewilded network.

I thought this community would be very interested in this! It was started by an Irish woman and has spread all over the world. You can find the official site here: https://wearetheark.org/

Maybe you already have an ARK that could join the growing collective, or maybe you're interested in starting one.

A science class for middle school students at Panorama Middle School commonly involves a trek out to the prairie behind the school, a sketch of native seeds under the microscope or a homework assignment to track the progress of a backyard bluebird from its birdhouse.

Teacher Mark Dorhout created an outdoor education program at the middle school in Panora to “connect (students) to the natural world,” foster environmental stewardship, and give students a real-world application to the science they learn in the classroom.

Once upon a time, the land you tend was stewarded by others – or by nature itself. Learn how to assess your site and the plants that will grow best there.

publication croisée depuis : https://lemmy.world/post/24754679

Get out there and enjoy it!

Over 35 years ago.

Another day it occurred to me that time as we know it doesn’t exist in the lawn, since grass never dies or is allowed to flower and set seed. Lawns are nature purged of sex and death. No wonder Americans like them so much.

https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/121951-Silphium-terebinthinaceum