Lawn Care
I was reading an announcement by the EPA today about tightening up standards on lawn equipment. It really got me thinking about how we maintain our yards and what kind of landscaping we put in.
In most of America, we have green grass lawns that we mow every week during the summer and always wanting the bigger yard. It seems to me that people (generalizing here) are obsessed with getting all kinds of power equipment to maintain their property. Not just lawn mowers, but weed whackers, leaf blowers, snow blowers, the list goes on. The only reason we need all these powered machines is because we strive for that larger property that we can’t take care of on our own.
I am currently in the midst of shopping for a new home and yard size is something that we have considered very carefully and put towards the top of our priority list. Now my husband agrees with me to have a smaller yard, but I think that is merely for the laziness factor. Our goal is to be able to mow and trim the entire yard in less than half an hour. We don’t want to achieve this by buying bigger machines that suck more gas and put more pollutants in the air. So we are intentionally buying a house with a smaller yard, and even then I may consider putting in more landscaping (flower beds or a vegetable garden) to keep the part that needs mowed smaller.
My brother used to have a rather small yard. Instead of buying a gas or electric powered lawn mower, he bought a push reel mower. I often think of these as old fashion, but I really think they are on to something here and much cheaper too. If you are pushing a mower using man power anyways, do you really need something powered by gas?
My parents live in the desert of Arizona. They have opted to go the landscaping route. What that means is that their “yard” is entirely made up of rocks/stones with only desert thriving plants in it. They don’t mow their lawn and they don’t water their grass because they don’t have any grass. The only yard work they have is to pull the occasional weed.
Think about the equipment you use and the type of landscaping in your yard. Perhaps it is time to consider reducing the size of your lawn, change the landscaping or changing equipment to better suit the size of the job.
Tags: evironment, green, lawn