As a preteen and adolescent I had to mow the 800 square foot
lawn in front of my family’s Garden Grove tract home. I hated it but it was one
of the few chores I was required to do so I reluctantly accepted my
responsibility.
In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s I joined in the call for
removal of water wasting lawns and replacement of said area with native
species. All this in the name of saving some of the state’s precious resources.
I also envisioned in my head a viable habitat lining suburban streets as
hundreds even thousands of homes were now fronted by a mixture of sage, bunch
grasses and California Poppies. This mental picture of an arid water saving
landscape with aromatic herbaceous plants surrounded by chunks of colorful sandstone
and compacted decomposed granite was beautiful. Many homes in Southern California
replaced their turf with native plants and achieved desired water savings while
creating outstanding and beautiful gardens.
When my family moved onto the One-acre property we live on
now, it had been scraped clean of vegetation except for the grove of very old
olive trees behind the house. The quarter acre in front of the house became my
wife’s project and she immediately began to regularly apply water. By the end
of the first winter we began to call it the front lawn.
To be clear, our lawn is not a typical lawn one might expect
to find in southern California. After 10 years of mowing it with a weed whacker
to mimic the results of being grazed we now have a diverse pasture. It is not
all native though wild Brodiaea, miniature lupine, and some poppies can be
found in our little pasture front lawn.
Now understand that the ideas I present here are purely
based on observation and no scientific testing has been done. I know however
that the diversity I see on my pasture is greater than I find on many of the
Native Gardens created to reduce the water consumption of a private household.
My pasture is irrigated 2 or 3 times a month and thrives. We sequester
significantly more carbon in our organic rich top soil and thriving year round
vegetative cover than single species lawns and ornamental gardens. In fact I
have seen our organic matter increase immeasurably (there was none 10 years
ago) and at least 3 inches of humus has accumulated where once it was just
mineral soil.
I know that this is only anecdotal evidence but I offer it
so that we may begin to look at what some have estimated to be 50,000 acres of lawns
in Southern California alone. And I would also remind my habitat restoration
friends that grasslands in California are equally as threatened as Coastal Sage Scrub and diversity
is strength. Imagine now if we could restore 50,000 acres of grassland, just by
treating our front lawns as pasture.
So I suggest that now is the time to re-evaluate our lawns.
Not to remove them, but to change the management practices we employ on them.
We can save water, increase diversity and counter climate change by treating
our lawns as grasslands rather than golf courses. Maybe we can eventually even
convince municipalities that suburban neighborhoods can legalize grazing. Every
suburban street can share a steer and practice rotational and intensive grazing---
one lawn, one day.