Turf grass lawns seem to be a ubiquitous and natural part of American neighborhoods. It’s hard to imagine a block with anything other than a green lawn. But there is nothing inevitable about the grass with which we cover our yard.
The tradition of placing decorative, ineffective turf grass on lawns began in France and England where it was a display of wealth and opulence. If you have a grass lawn, this means that you can dedicate a large area of land to something that cannot be sold or eaten. The tradition was popularized in America by influential figures such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who both decorated their estates with grass lawns.
But grass lawns were accessible only to the wealthy who could afford their own houses. All this shifted with the explosion of American suburbia in the mid-twentieth century, where millions of families bought new homes that often had their own green grass lawns.
Grass lawns, however, require a lot of time and resources to maintain. There is a growing movement to replace turf grass lawns with more environmentally friendly, environmentally friendly native plants.
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