Hats off to the Salt Lake Tribune, which published an excellent editorial this week on the folly of having lawns in Utah.
“We live in a desert,” the editorial reads. “Precipitation is sparse. And still we try to make Utah yards look like lawns in Ohio … Ultimately, our attempt to paint the desert green is unsustainable.”
Not only is it unsustainable. It’s downright madness, as more and more research is telling us. For example, there was the warning earlier this year from scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography/UC San Diego, which gave Lake Mead — water source for millions in the Southwest — a 50-50 chance of going dry by 2021.
Or consider this month’s study from Purdue University, where earth scientist Noah S. Diffenbaugh plotted the U.S.’s potential climate change hotspots in terms of likely temperature and precipitation impacts. (No surprise here: the Southwest fares poorly.)
And then there’s the fact, as the Tribune editorial points out, that a full two-thirds of Utah’s precious potable water is sprayed, sprinkled or hosed onto outdoor landscaping.
And for what? An artificial pasture of chemical dependent verdure that requires Sisyphean maintenance throughout the growing season (not to mention that lawnmowers are horrendous emitters of greenhouse gases).
The Salt Lake Tribune editors are right. It’s not only time to redefine a yard as a “a plot of grass adjacent to a building” (a definition they pulled from Webster’s College Dictionary), but it’s time to start letting our yards — front and back — be a positive force for the environment, not a negative one. Switch to xeriscaping in places that don’t get enough rain to support more common garden plants. In places that do, tear up the grass and plant a vegetable garden. Then feed that garden with compost, not chemicals.
Yes, the Tribune editorial points out, a yard of drought-resistant plants, mulch and stone “will make croquet very difficult to play.” But not many people in the Southwest (or elsewhere) will feel like playing if their taps one day run dry.
Click here to read the complete Salt Lake Tribune editorial.
