Gently sloping and smooth green landscape can be gorgeous. And flat, well-mown lawns are great for romping on, kicking a ball, picnicking on. And a neat lawn bespeaks an organized life.

Why mess with that?

Well, there are many reasons to shake up our long-held visions of spacious and tidy lawns, but the reason we’ll focus on today is simple: rain resiliency.

Before we get there, though, let’s consider the short history of our crush on lawns, and maybe this will put in perspective the urge to mow down lots of grass.

Some Lawn History

The word “lawn” derives from the 12th-century Old French lande, which meant heath, moor, barren land or clearing. In the 14th century England the word became launde, and then, by the 1540s, laune meant glade, open space in a forest or between woods. So, from the beginning, a lawn was not necessarily meant to be a vast and uniform swath of green, but rather a grassy space among other vegetation.

The word “lawn” being used to mean a manicured area was first recorded in 1733 in Europe. When lawns were featured in landscapes at the time, they were a status symbol of wealth. Only the wealthy owned land, and only the uber-wealthy owned land that was maintained for aesthetics rather than profit.

When the United States cast off British rule in 1776, many American landowners had a sort of inferiority complex. At the time, visitors from Europe described the American homestead as unsophisticated, frequently mentioning “yard birds,” a term used derisively to describe the chickens commonly kept in the modest dirt yards of post-independence American homes. This portrayal did not sit well with the American elite, who wanted to showcase the young nation’s success and sophistication.

Meanwhile, American diplomats and affluent individuals who had traveled to Europe returned with lawn envy. They were impressed with the grand, manicured gardens and lawns of European aristocracy. Motivated by the desire to reflect the prosperity of America, they imported this symbol of European refinement. Lawns began to appear on the landscapes of America’s grand homes, including the White House.

As the United States began to grow, parts of the nation became increasingly urban with cramped housing for the new immigrants that came in large numbers to work and establish new lives. The European notion of getting away to the countryside couldn’t really be practiced because we didn’t yet have countryside; we had a wild, rugged frontier, not a relaxing place to have a picnic.

Around the mid 1800s, “The Father of American Landscape Architecture,” Frederick Law Olmsted, designed Central Park in New York. His design featured large grassy areas called “greenswards,” strategic plantings of trees, and man-made lakes. This work influenced other communities across the country to follow suit and design their public spaces with turf as a prominent feature.

Later in 1868, Olmsted designed the first planned suburb in Riverside, Ill. He required that the houses be set back 30 feet from the road for lawns. This was an aesthetic choice, but also a convenient one. When an architect draws up plans for a subdivision of homes, it’s easier to fill it in blank spaces with generic lawns than to draw up multiple garden plans.

In 1870, Ohio architect Frank J. Scott articulated a vision for the American lawn that emphasized openness and community over exclusion and division. In his popular book, “The Art of Beautifying Suburban Home Grounds,” Scott argued that “with our open-faced front lawns we declare our like-mindedness to our neighbors, and our distance from the English, who surround their yards with inhospitable brick wall.” Scott believed that the unenclosed front lawns of American homes symbolized a commitment to transparency rather than the closed-off, exclusive gardens of Europe.

That same year, Elwood McGuire from Indiana introduced the push mower. It weighed 40 pounds, could cut a 12-inch swath, and cost $12. McGuire’s mower was a significant improvement over earlier, horse-drawn reel mowers, which were heavy and expensive. The push mower made lawn care manageable and less time-consuming, allowing a broader segment of the American population to cultivate their own lawns.

Gas-powered mowers of various sorts came onto the market in the 1900s. After the Briggs & Stratton Company gained experience during World War II with producing generators incorporating aluminum, the company developed its expertise in using this light metal, which helped lead to the widespread use of the vertical shaft single cylinder gasoline engine in lawn mowers.

After the war, suburbs took off. In the 1950s and ’60s, many people were ready for a quiet life away from the city, but close enough for work and consumer conveniences. The frequently mown lawn became an expectation and a symbol of communal identity and pride. The lawn became a measure of civic responsibility. The perfect, uninterrupted green of suburban landscapes represented a place where each homeowner contributed to the collective well-being of the neighborhood. This uniformity exerted pressure on residents to conform to standards of lawn care — including the use of pesticides and of close-cropped mowing — lest they disrupt the visual harmony of their community.

It is estimated that currently about 40 million acres of lawn exist in the United States. Can the modern American lawn evolve once more, this time towards resiliency and biodiversity? Maybe it’s time to reevaluate the lawn and its place in our lives.

Because…

Alternative approaches to your yard can enhance habitat, create beauty and increase resilience to storm events. Some “green stormwater” practices around homes are quite easy, such as simply raising the blade of the lawnmower to encourage more robust growth, thus increasing root depth and absorption of water. Another fairly easy approach is to create one or more “mini-meadows” in your yard. These can be neatly arranged and bordered, and can also increase water absorption as well as pollinator habitat.

“Our built environment brings changes to the way stormwater behaves,” said Jill Sarazen, the Green Infrastructure Collaborative Coordinator for Lake Champlain Sea Grant. “In the natural environment, there is plenty of space for the absorption of rainwater, but in more urban settings stormwater is sent with increasing volume and speed downstream.” Green Stormwater Management techniques, she said, “are ways to deal with that water closer to the source” so that falling rainwater is slowed, spread and absorbed.

Rethinking Your Yard Routine

Alexandra Contosta, research assistant professor at UNH’s Earth Systems Research Center, has done research on “low mow” options as well as carbon storage in the backyards of New England cities. “Taking important small steps, like not mowing as often, can have a big impact on things like carbon storage and carbon emissions, which can influence climate change,” Contosta said. She added that trimming the number of times you run the mower around the yard, known as “low mow,” can help reduce carbon emissions, build soil organic matter and even enhance pollinating habitats for bees.

Some of Contosta’s tips are:

• Mow every two weeks — mowing less often allows for spontaneous lawn flowers, such as clover and dandelions, to grow. These flowers provide important nectar for bees, which are in decline and which pollinate food crops.
• Try a “no mow” area — for larger yards, consider creating a zone that is cut less, or not at all, providing time savings, rainwater absorption as well as a beneficial habitat for butterflies. This can be useful for hard-to-mow areas or parts of the property that are not used.
• Give the rake a break — skip raking grass clippings; returning them to the soil provides high-quality, carbon-rich leaf litter that organisms can break down and store in soil organic matter. This keeps the carbon out of the atmosphere, where it contributes to warming temperatures.
• Get the neighborhood involved — propose no- and low-mow months on your block (in the early spring or late fall), create a community garden and in the fall transform leaves into valuable mulch.

Mowing less also means less emissions, decreasing a household’s carbon footprint. The low-mow approach can be economical, practical and a timesaving alternative to replacing a lawn or even planting pollinating flower gardens. Researchers say if low-mow became more socially accepted, it could be a great way to do more for the environment by doing less.

From 2015-2019 the Urban Conservancy conducted a survey in New Orleans to assess long-term benefits and issues with residential green stormwater infrastructure (GSI). “This data… shows that residential GSI, when properly installed, is effective, economical, not overly burdensome to maintain, and enhances community safety and quality of life by reducing frequency and severity of flooding while keeping thousands of gallons of water per rain event out of our streets, catch basins, and pumping systems,” said Dana Eness, executive director of the Urban Conservancy.

The Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) has done a study of green stormwater infrastructure’s impacts on property values. Their report shows that GSI also adds value to homes. CNT and partners modeled the impact of GSI installations, such as rain gardens and swales, on property sales data in two cities and found statistically significant higher sales prices of homes near GSI. These findings add to a growing body of research that shows that nature-based solutions to stormwater management provide many benefits in addition to flood resiliency.

Resiliency

Which brings us back to where we started: Our time in history — defined partly by extreme weather events — demands that we rethink the American concept of our home landscapes. When it comes to our yards, our civic responsibility now means contributing to slowing, spreading and absorbing stormwater. And at the same time we can enhance habitat for pollinators and other wildlife that are native to our area.

Although there is no guarantee that green stormwater management will keep our communities from flooding during the heaviest rainfall events, a collective effort can lessen the impact of storms. Since 2013, China’s “Sponge City” program has used ecological methods to transform the traditional “fast drainage” principle to widespread methods of infiltration, detention, retention, purification, utilization and discharge of rainwater. The city of Wuhan has initiated 389 separate sponge city projects covering almost 15 square miles of the city, the sum of which have resulted in improvements in stormwater management with side benefits such as cooling and additional natural spaces for recreation.

We can Soak It Up too!