In many cities having a lawn is required. It may be the HOA, or the zoning code
You think we own shit? Lawns are the landlord’s landscaping equivalent of white paint: inoffensive but dull and useless
I want to grow my own potatoes, bananas, and coffee once I get my own house in the tropics
Canadian here, that’s getting more and more common over here. There’s a ton of HOA bullshit here too but I’ve been seeing more and more food gardening in Vancouver, but that might also be because food is expensive as fuuuck here.
americans already do this i see it all the time
Grass is nice. It’s nice to lay on. It’s nice to walk barefoot in. It’s soft and cushiony. It’s cool on a hot summer day.
I have zero grass though. Just rocks and fruit trees.
Some cities actually mandate lawns. My city has code enforcement officials who have to go around and make sure that lawns are kept to a certain standard. I live in California and at some point these codes were relaxed to deal with water shortages (go figure) so we don’t actually have to maintain our lawn. It’s part of practices focused around preserving high housing costs (which I think are absolutely terrible).
Are you suggesting that we won’t eat our Arborvitaes?
too busy eating avocado toast
Because having a big yard of grass that you have to mow every week while using up gasoline is the American dream and a flex for some reason.
There is a pretty great website called Falling fruit to map trees and other plants that you can pick from freely.
Hey. Thank you for sharing this.
Websites like this are the good part of the internet.
Littering your yard with food attracts things like rats, raccoons, squirrels, etc, which destroy property and infrastructure, spread disease, and cause injury to people and pets. I’m not saying I’m against fruit trees, but I do understand people who are. It’s a legitimate concern. Some areas even have things like boars or bears which are extremely dangerous.
I’m also curious with the way you can sue people in the US what would happen if someone becomes sick after eating one of your fruits. I imagine it varies by state.
I lived in a small city (~30k) in the middle of rural texas growing up, and our main wildlife was deer, squirrels, possums, foxes, armadillos, javalinas, and birds, although we also had the occasional ratsnake or raccoons or skunks.
We didn’t really have fruit trees, but we did have plenty of pecans and several gardens of all kinds of veggies, a fig tree that never seemed to bloom, and some assorted berrying bushes.
We never experienced these plagues of infrastructural damage and diseases and hurt pets (4 cats and 2 dogs in total) that you describe. Idk where people get these horror stories from.
I suppose it can happen, but that’s probably in areas where such a yard is the only safe space for wildlife and people don’t live with nature as a daily part of their lives.
I s2g cityfolk act like getting brushed up against by a non-domesticated critter will give them an instant prion disorder.
that’s probably in areas where such a yard is the only safe space for wildlife and people don’t live with nature as a daily part of their lives.
I think this is the case. In urban areas you get the rats and such nesting directly in people’s homes because there’s nowhere else for them to be, thanks to the absolute miles of pavement. When I’ve lived in more rural areas you would see a lot of animals all the time, but everyone was pretty much minding their own business. I think habitat destruction is the real problem.
Trees in general do all of those horrible things you mentioned.
I don’t think that’s the case, but trees in general are sadly not common in American landscaping, at least in my experience with urban areas. You tend to see newer (90’s+) homes with very small trees that suggest the idea of nature without providing any shade or other benefits. I keep hearing about people buying older houses with big lovely trees and having them immediately cut down because it’s disturbing the driveway or they’re afraid of it falling in a storm. I think insurance costs may have something to do with these concerns, but it’s really sad regardless.
In California they’re constantly giving out these little saplings that will grow into very functional and deep-rooted shade trees, but no one wants them because they aren’t pretty and drop needles.
Dropped fruit all over the ground really encourages rats though.
My mum got a house super cheap when I was young because it had a “rat problem” it also had a peach tree in the back yard that the owner didnt pick up after. We removed literal garbage bags of peach pits from the roof space and crawl spaces of that house and garage.
Chopped the peach tree down (it wasnt a healthy tree anyway) and the problem basically disappeared in days.
And I’ve found loads of walnut shells in nooks and crannies. I’m not going to cut a black walnut down.
Buildings need to be built properly to exclude animals regardless.
Not possible. Nature finds a way.
This. Fruit trees are loads of work that most amateur gardeners don’t know how to deal with them or have the time to deal with them. Gardening and farming is a shitload of work and was only made cheap and easy through the marvel of modern technology. You don’t just plant shit and get to eat lol
Reading this made me even happier I don’t have to live there
Grass lawns as a concept came from Europe as a symbol of wealth. If you could afford a large green lawn, you were likely rich.
Zoning laws in a lot of places.
Probably need a permit and license
Wait…
