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Redesigning the American Lawn - A Search for Environmental Harmony, Second Edition (Paperback, 2 Rev Ed)
Loot Price: R738
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Redesigning the American Lawn - A Search for Environmental Harmony, Second Edition (Paperback, 2 Rev Ed)
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Americans love their lawns with a passion rarely seen in other
countries; fifty-eight million Americans enthusiastically plant,
weed, water, spray, and mow an estimated twenty million acres of
lawn. But is our dedication to these lawns contributing to the
serious environmental problems facing the planet? The authors in
this book state that the lawn may be an ecological anachronism, and
they argue that we must rethink the way we care for our lawns so
that these small pieces of the environment will demonstrate our
commitment to a more ecologically sound world. The authors outline
the origins of ideas about the lawn and the reasons for its
enduring popularity. They describe the development of ideas about
its form and the making of the lawn into an object of beauty. They
explain how the lawn industry has encouraged the spread of the
"industrial" lawn to sustain high sales of mowers, seeds,
fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation equipment. However, say the
authors, Industrial Lawns can have high environmental costs: for
example, power motors contribute to regional air pollution and
global warming; excess fertilizers and pesticides wash off our
lawns and run into our wells, streams, and lakes; grass clippings
that are bagged and hauled away are major contributors to solid
waste problems; and the watering of lawns depletes scarce water
supplies. How can we create environmentally sound lawns? The
authors offer a variety of ideas - such as moderation in our use of
lawn supplements, ecological use of grass varieties, the
substitution of hand mowers for power motors, and the use of grass
clippings to fertilize the lawn. These strategies can help us to
care for conventional lawns in ways lessdangerous to the
environment. They also propose two more radical alternatives:
Freedom Lawns that allow natural and unrestricted growth of
grasses, clover, wildflowers, and other broad-leafed herbaceous
plants; and total replacement of the lawn with new landscape
designs. By choosing these alternatives - which can be
aesthetically pleasing as well as ecologically correct - we can
unite our environmental concerns with direct personal action,
acting locally while thinking globally and creating a new garden
aesthetic in the process.
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