I just read a blog post by Seth Godin, entitled ‘The Reason.’ In it, he lists the reason for a front yard is to demonstrate to friends and neighbors “how much time you have to waste.”
As I have written my thoughts and analyzed them, at first I disagreed with Seth. Who is he to say that landscaping and gardening is a waste of time. Then the thought occurred to me. “Oh, he’s talking about lawn when he means front yard.”
He’s not talking trash about trees and plants. He’s talking about high maintenance landscaping like beautiful golf course green lawns. The kind that need the chemical trucks and door knocking salespeople to maintain them.
It’s clear the trend in new construction in Nashville is pushing community over privacy. Less lawn and outdoor space or the outdoor space isn’t landscaped like a deck or outdoor kitchen.
That’s fine, as long as people are still going outside.
That’s why I was so upset at first when I read Seth’s blog post. Being outside whether you’re doing yard work or just relaxing with friends and family is important. Whether we can quantify it with data or not.
I couldn’t disagree more. The reason you have a front yard is to connect nature with our sterile lives. Inside our dry air, sanitized lives, we control everything.
Outside, the birds chirp and the bugs pollinate the flowers. It’s real life, man. Too many people think this is luxury. Like we have a choice whether we just want sterile, germ free existence.
With the millennial generation beginning to buy homes, it’s clear the trend is that they value community over privacy. They (we) don’t want to mow the grass, prune the shrubs, etc. I get that, it can be hard work.
But back to Godin’s point that it’s just wasting time. It’s not, you’re expressing yourself, you’re creating outdoor space that benefits other small organisms and cleaning the water and air. What’s wrong with that?
Who can’t get behind cleaner air and water? So maybe Seth Godin has a problem with people mowing their yards. Maybe he secretly doesn’t want to see grass yards. I can agree, there is a time commitment.
So if you’re looking to reduce your lawn footprint, I can help. Trees take up a lot of space, followed by shrubs, and annuals and perennials.
That’s one thing we can agree on, Seth and I, we can do with less lawn.
