In a sea of brown lawns, why some natural gardeners are bringing messy back


As the abnormally dry climate extends throughout the country this summer, it is possible that he has found himself looking discouraged to the brown and crispy patch of fried land that once called his front garden, he felt that his fingers contract in the direction of the hose and wondered: Should he? Am I allowed?

But environmental and horticultural experts, as well as the defenders of the movement without power, say that the question is actually if it is already responsible to have a complete grass of grass.

The David Suzuki Foundation has previously estimated that there are around 6.2 million Céspedes in Canada, and calculated that between 8.2 and 22.7 percent of several large Canadian municipalities are grass of grass. In 2021, two thirds of Canadian households reported that they had a grass, according to Statistics Canada.

These Céspedes are “deserts of biodiversity”, according to the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, supporting very few insects and wildlife. They are also known for their water waste and contribute to water scarcity. Keeping them often implies pesticides and harmful fertilizers, while frequent cut emits greenhouse gases.

And with many Canadian cities that experience prolonged dry conditions, many Céspedes look … dry.

Enter the Movement without a soul, anti-American or wire, a sustainable approach to landscaping and an attempt to change our perspective of how courtyards can be, and their purpose. This may include a naturalized patio, a habitat garden, wearing patios to grow food or even simply convert a section of your grass to dedicate to native plant and pollinators species.

“There is a crazy amount of grass, such as dozens of millions of acres in Canada and the United States, dedicated to growing fair grass,” said Brendon Samuels, a postdoctoral fellow with the Ecological Design Laboratory at the Metropolitan University of Toronto.

“That it is an imported and non -native species that does not have a real ecological value, which is very expensive to maintain and that it does not look so well when you are in the middle of a heat wave in the summer.”

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People are rethinking the grass in the midst of a ‘cultural change’

Brendon Samuels, a postdoctoral member of the Ecological Design Laboratory at the Metropolitan University of Toronto, says that people are thinking more about individual actions that can take “in the midst of a crisis of loss of biodiversity that is largely driven by the loss of habitat and the planning of land use.”

‘The grass must be area carpets’

Naturalized courtyards have a variety of benefits, Samuels said, such as helping to preserve monarch butterflies species growing algodoncillo or making the area more resistant to climate change with more green coverage.

Native plants help maintain the coldest and damping areas during heat waves, because they have deeper root systems that can access groundwater, he said. They also help increase the resilience of landscapes during floods, he added. And yes, it does not need to water them as often as a grass lawn to keep them healthy, he said, making them more resistant to drought.

A patio full of wild flowers
Brendon Samuels, postdoctoral member of the Ecological Design Laboratory at the Metropolitan University of Toronto, has a naturalized patio, which is shown here in London, Ontario. (Brendon Samuels)

Last year, a study by the National Silvestre Federation found that 12 percent of adults surveyed in the United States said they were turning parts of their grass into a landscape of natural or wild flowers.

The movement is particularly popular among a younger generation that looks for alternatives to the grass, and is prominent on social networks, the notes of the Hom and Garden magazine. And Garden Design magazine predicted that native plants and ecological gardening will be the 2025 gardening trend, followed by “less orderly” gardens.

In Pinterest, there are about 23,000 searches for “naturalist garden.” Some videos about Tiktok about the growing native gardens have millions of views.

“We are bringing messy,” said Grant Minkhorst of Toronto, known as “Gardening Grant” on Tiktok, in a video last month with 25,000 views where he shows his thick beds of vegetables, perennial edges and the fallen meadow.

“My success measure is how much food we produce? How many pollinators did our gardens visit? That’s,” he added in the description.

And in Reddit, there are about 283,000 members of the “Non -grass” Subnet, an online community dedicated to “alternatives to monoculture caps.” There, people there share photos of full yards with pink and extensive yellow chorepsis; Leafy plants that climb on fences and balm fields of purple bees.

“As nature intended,” said a redditor in a video of the bustling and open courtyard of someone.

Two people dug in a garden in a front courtyard
Samuels included his family, in the photo here, while planting a rain garden in his house in London, Ontario. (Brendon Samuels)

The more we can stop being ordered, the wilder we can bring to our gardens and landscapes, the better habitat we provide, said the New York -based ecological horticulturist, Rebecca McMackin, in a 2023 TED TED TED video that reproduces more than 1.3 million times.

“Why not get rid of your grass or shrink it dramatically?” She said. “Céspedes must be area carpets, no wall to wall carpet.”

The lawn as a state symbol

The Céspedes are a cultural import of Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, where they were symbols of wealth and status, Samuels said; At that time, I needed significant resources and labor to maintain one.

“People do not have people to the grass because they are very normative in our culture,” Samuels said.

“What we are seeing more and more is that people begin to question these standards and look for alternatives.”

A black and white file photo of a man cutting a grass in front of a house. A woman and a baby sit in the front crossing
A man cuts his grass in this 1956 archive photo. Céspedes are a cultural import of Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, where they were symbols of wealth and status. (Three lions/getty images)

That said, some people who have abandoned the grass have faced obstacles. The naturalization of the grass has been recognized as a constitutional right for decades in Canada, but the statutes have not always reached, and the Associated Press indicates that the associations of many owners still have rules on maintaining meters careful.

Samuel himself faced the statutes when he created his own naturalized backyard and rain garden in London, Ontario.

CBC News has previously covered cases in several cities throughout the country where people have faced the complaints of the statutes about their natural courtyards, but also others where these statutes have changed to allow people to maintain their courtyards as it is.

Some cities, such as Toronto, offer subsidies for projects led by the community to create pollinators gardens or convert a grass area into one. Others offer exemptions to the cutting statutes for residents who create naturalized areas.

And although some may assume that naturalized courtyards would attract more pests, such as rodents or ticks, it has been found that the opposite is true, according to a 2024 report by the ecological design laboratory. And the David Suzuki Foundation explains that “simplified environments, such as grass grass, favor white -legged mice, a key deposit for Lyme disease in Canada.”

“A traditional grass is one of the worst landscapes for wildlife, and one of the best for ticks.”

There is a balance here, said Samuels.

“We don’t go after anyone’s grass,” he said. “But I think that municipalities and individual owners should be considering: ‘Do we need so much grass?'”

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Why you should naturalize your lawn

With the summer climate on the horizon, many British Colombians begin to think about water conservation. Some experts say that one of the best ways to do so is to naturalize the Céspedes, allowing native plants and wild flowers to flourish. Darius Mahdavi went to the Botanical Garden of the UBC to learn more. This story has been updated to clarify the attribution of the source of statements made on the ecological impact of some types of grass grass.





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