This commentary is by Kelsey Deemer, a senior student at the University of Vermont who is finishing her degree in biochemistry this semester.
Google images of a suburban American housefront are this: two stories, painted shutters, and a precisely trimmed lawn, blades of grass each 2 inches in length.
Some homes vary, holding a single floor, opting for blinds and curtains over shutters, but never in their landscaping. Each image contains the same rectangle in the same cadmium green between the sidewalk and front door.
It’s time for homeowners across the nation to own up: The practice of mainstream American landscaping is harmful and overdone.
This is not simply a problem because it is uninspired, but because it disrupts the natural ecosystems these suburbias occupy. These closely cut lawns supply little biomass to the environment, shooing away insects, and in turn birds and larger mammals.
Without tall grass, an abundance of trees and greenery to eat and live in, native animals are driven from their environments, destroying the original ecosystems of the land.
Decorative, nonnative species are a further complication that suburban American landscaping presents to their environments. Though they may cater to the look provided by Google images, invasive shrubs, bushes and vines choke out native plant life. They disrupt the surrounding ecosystem and introduce alien pollens to the environment, causing unfavorable plant migration and human allergy reactions.
Biodiverse landscaping gives back to the environments we live in, allows us to live more harmoniously with the ecosystems we disrupt, and looks better than the empty squares pasted before the doormat of every suburban home.
There are a multitude of options for those looking to spruce up their lawns with native species. Here in Vermont, consider rudbeckia, a wildflower that promotes local pollinators with sunshine-yellow blooms, and cephalanthus occidentalis, a sturdy shrub to add fruit-filled height bushes to your landscape.
These were found with but more three taps of my mouse than it took to find pictures of the aforementioned suburban American housefront.
The ability to maintain a groomed, homogenous lawn is a symbol of organization or status. All I see are native plants and wildlife displaced, runny noses from invasive pollens, and unimaginative gardening. After Western colonization, a small step to rehabilitating our environment could start right on our front lawns. It’ll be easier on our ecosystems, and on our eyes.
For more information on beautiful, biodiverse landscaping, check out resources from the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, e-newsletters from Vermont Invasives, and local nurseries that carry native Vermont plants.
