What the heck is the deal with grass? Does the entire idea of buying and maintaining a lawn seem ridiculous to anyone else?
Fact:
-Grass is a weed
-Grass naturally grows to be long
-When cut short, grass requires more water than is naturally given from rain
-Dogs like to eat grass
-Grass makes dogs vomit
So why do we do this? We spend money to plant seeds or to buy sod, then buy a lawn mower so we can cut the grass unnaturally short, then we have to spend time and money watering the grass because it can't survive at it's cut length. Seems like a lot of work for no real reason.
Lets address the reasons we do use grass:
1) It's soft - kind of. It's softer than rocks or wood, BUT, Soft ground became uneccessary in 1,200 BC with the invention of shoes. If it's soft you're looking for why not just line the ground with cotton? It'd be cheaper.
2) It's astetically pleasing. I guess that's true in our world view, but really? Green spikes? We completely judge anyone who hasn't cut their grass for more than two weeks. Crazy low-lifes who don't care about pleasing us. What if we all decided that long grass was attractive? That would save everyone a lot of time. Think about it. If 1 in every 20 people spends an hour mowing the lawn each week, that's almost 43,000 hours per DAY or 300,000 hours a week. That's a lot of freedom we could earn by just not caring about long grass.
Finally, Why hasn't science made something better? And yes, I'm personifying "science" like a good modern-enlightenment worshipper. Can't "they" engineer grass that grows to be 2 inches tall and only needs rain water? I mean, if John Hammond can make Dinosaurs out of ambered DNA the should be able to fix grass.
4 comments:
Bio-engineering as a commercial product has died down considerably since the late 80's and 90's because of public outrage and our current government does not look fondly upon the idea. Hence, no engineered grass.
Also, we need grass so my Dad can stay employeed. You can talk to him about grass and seed. He likes to talk about it.
Also, we forget that grass is a natural thing. It grows anyways, so at some point we (as in...america) decided to get the better of it and plant out own and try and maintain it. Take that nature!
The shortest grass that I know is called Bermuda grass and practically only needs scissors to be cut. But sorry, it can't grow in Minneosta. It grows in more tropical climates.
grass is silly. people who have grass are even sillier. dogs who eat it and get sick are the silliest.
did you see what i did. silly, sillier, silliest. i'm a teacher. weeee!
i agree, plus the fertilizers that run off into our streams and water can cause eutrophication.
lawns are silly, i think if we reserved lawn-quality grasses for golf courses and parks, people would more appreciate our parks and not throw trash everywhere as much--this is wishful thinking.
lawns are definitely a weird thing. i think its meant to show man's domination over nature.
i think the simple reason bio-engineered grass doesnt work because other plants would immediately invade upon the short grass, grow taller and block out the sun killing the short grass. to prevent this, the engineered grasses would have to employ some sort of alleopathy to prevent invaders from running rampant, of course at this point the new grass would be on the offensive, and would probably just as much or more work to control than a typical lawn.
there's nothing silly with most grasses, especially when its grown in at an optimal grass climate on grass friendly soils.
its when you start watering the desert and BAM we've got lawns in arizona is when i start to worry about maybe the best uses for freshwater...
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