Search Results for: label/lawns

53 results

Mistakes we have made . . .

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Animals, Chickens, Permaculture, Thoughtstylings
13 Comments
...sing chunks of turf and newly amended soil to fly all over the yard. Let’s do the math–in a dry place like Los Angeles–lawn=crime. On top of the waste of water they simply don’t look good here without massive inputs of fertilizer, herbicides and gas powered lawn mowers. Sorry, but I hate lawns and will not ever be convinced otherwise. Got kids? That’s what mulch is for. Fuck the lawn. Fuck all it stands for. The Conclusion I guess the lesson here,...

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Casting out the lawn

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Lawns, Thoughtstylings
4 Comments
...aces between buildings, consists of vast seas of parking and empty, unused lawns. We all tend to filter out these spaces, failing to comprehend their size and ubiquitousness. Thankfully there’s a growing awareness that our city’s negative spaces are in fact negative, that they contribute to blight, profligate use of resources and our general unhappiness. But a consciousness shift is underway led by forward thinking folks like the parishioners of H...

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Plantain!

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Food, Foraging, Gardening, Water and Power, Water Conservation
.... It’s exactly what we’d like to see more of–folks growing food instead of lawns and everyone sharing the abundance. While there’s a lot of banana trees in Los Angeles they tend not to yield edible fruit since our climate is not quite hot and humid enough. But plantains, judging from the delicious taste of the ones we fried up, are a different story. They do require a lot of water to grow, but greywater expert Art Ludwig calls bananas (the same fa...

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In Praise of the Hedgerow

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Gardening
8 Comments
...if whole cities could function as hedgerows? What if we took out all those lawns and planted native and/or flowering climate-appropriate plants instead? In a somewhat rambling lecture I just gave to a group of Master Gardeners, I sang the praises of that UC study and also linked it to another nice resource, the UC Davis Arboretum Allstar list of plants that look good, provide habitat and don’t need a lot of maintenance. Combine these two resources...

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Councilmen Want to Astroturf Los Angeles and Turn it Into a Big Minigolf Course

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Gardening, Water and Power
7 Comments
...all the details wrong. Offering homeowners rebates to replace water hungry lawns is a good idea. Letting them use those rebates to put artificial turf in the parkway (see council motion 14-1197–introduced by councilpersons Blumenfield and O’Farrell) is not ecologically responsible. I disagree with a recent editorial in the Los Angeles Times, about giving rebates for artificial turf. It’s time for all of us in this dry Mediterranean climate to go b...

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