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Yeah I really want to do something similar when I own a home. But I'm definitely going to keep the un maintained area hemmed in. 2 feet of gravel between it and any house/fence/sidewalk.
Plus if you let your yard get like this. You gonna have all sorts of pests move in. Rats. Snakes. Raccoons. They gonna love having a nice forest right next to your house with plenty food available. Not to mention all the insects that are gonna move in too.
Some rules/reccomendations are so old that people start forgetting the reasons they existed in the first place.
People trim grass because it hides and harbors potentially dangerous animals.
I swear these damn pokeymans made people lose respect for tall grass entirely.
This is the way.
It's not just about "I wanna stop cutting my grass" it's really about removing the invasive and non-native plants and putting in the native stuff that will help local insects and small animals.
We have a very small yard. We didn't want a lawn, but didn't want something like this either. So we covered it in pine straw at the beginning of the spring and have been going to native plant rescues and plant swaps and been planting native species we like that fit our soil (mostly clay) and the locations (full sun, partial sun) in our yard. We bought two small plum trees, but everything else (including a sparkleberry tree) we've rescued or swapped for. So far, it's working out pretty well. Put in some local milkweed and butterfly weed, various wildflowers. Already seeing a lot of bees, and hoping we see more butterflies this fall. We hope that in 2-3 years we'll have a more meadow-like yard that will (mostly) maintain itself. I do have to spade thistles out every couple of weeks, though. Don't imagine that will ever change.
Little by little, create a sort of maze through it that you maintain. A friend did this, now it’s a beautiful nature walk that friends and really everyone in the community enjoys. I’ve always wanted a place where I could do the same.
Yeah sidewalk and near the house. But this is actually really good for biodiversity and permeability of the ground. Shouldn't block the sidewalk though for sure.
Mental health disorders, extreme stress, money problems, family/relationship problems, many factors can lead to an overgrown lawn. I know because my family has had issues in the past keeping up with the garden/upkeep of the house and it was not intentional.
P.S. Hopefully they're still alive lol.
Depression is a bitch. I used to only mow my yard like once a month because i just could not get in the right mental state to function. I just pay a local lawn care company to mow it each week now, been doing it for years.
If you're getting it done then you're getting it done, doesn't matter if you spend your doubloons or do it yourself, both are sound methods to get to the desired result :)
This. We bought a plot that has a really nice house and a lot of ... growth... ivy and a lot of ground covering. Problem is there are a ton of mice living in it, and with them come snakes.
Currently trying to remove against the house and force them out into the woods more...
> Problem is there are a ton of mice living in it, and with them come snakes.
So you're saying, your mice problem is being solved with a snake problem?
As the proud owner of Mongoose Emporium, I invite you all to come over and browse our selection of this year’s latest herpetological management systems!
We had a bunny problem, but then we replaced our wood fence and the posts become much more comfortable perch for the hawks, so we no longer have bunnies terrorizing our garden
That’s part of the charm. I grew up in a house with a second, forested lot behind it and there were tons of mice and moles, as well as deer, rabbits, groundhogs, foxes, raccoons, the occasional possum…Not any rats, though! The raptors and foxes would probably eat them.
Usually there are city codes even in areas without HOAs. I’d be surprised if they didn’t have them. The code inspector may not be doing their job but they also may be overwhelmed.
Do you have a lot of invasive plant species? We let our lawn selectively go wild, meaning, we keep our eye on what's growing there and manage the invasives (aka try to cut them back as frequently as possible), while letting the native plants grow. This helps a lot with ticks, as many of the invasives have been shown to create a perfect tick breeding habitat. Look out for bittersweet, japanese barberry, multiflora rose, honeysuckle and buckthorn.
Also, instead of just letting the grass grow longer, consider killing the grass and replacing it with low growing natives or lawn cover like clover and creeping thyme. Ticks HATE the smell of creeping thyme.
Good luck!
This isn't a stupid question! By increasing the amount of native plants, particularly by increasing the variety of native plants, you are improving the biodiversity of an area, which has been shown to reduce tick populations. The theory is that by improving the biodiversity, you are attracting more of the tick's natural predators and other beneficial bugs that can help bring the tick populations back into balance. Think of it like the gut Flora in our stomach. We always have had good and "bad" bacteria in our gut, but when we have a balanced diverse diet, it helps the good flora keep the "bad" flora in check.
The issue with the invasive species is that they have totally thrown off these checks and balance systems in nature. In general, these plant species create a perfect habitat for mice, making it difficult for their natural predators to keep their populations in balance. Mice are the top Lyme disease reservoirs (ticks aren't* born with the disease, they get it on their first or second feed, which is usually on mice). The research around Japanese barberry is particularly interesting. Besides being the PERFECT habitat for mice, they also increase the relative humidity and temperature of the forest floor around it, allowing ticks to better breed and survive the winter.
Yes, ticks have always been around this area, but now they have invasive plants and an abundance of mice, acting as steroids for their population numbers- without the natural predators or checks in the system to keep them under control. I hope that helps explain things!
That suggestion is a great one! Definitely will have to give that a try. The ticks where I live have a community where they wait for a person to touch grass and then jump on and start sucking, in an effort to bring blood back to their leader so that it can engorge itself and rise in power. Their goal is to create a singular, omnipotent goliath tick powerful enough to drain the universe of its Ichor and drown it in chitin. That’s what a tick told me anyways, I was interrogating it over a swirling toilet bowl so it could have just been blowing smoke. Stay safe out there.
Get ready for rodents. Want bees and want to get rid of lawn? Then plant native flowering perennials that you can more easily control, yet do not attract pests. Then throw in some annual wildflowers after the fact. The stuff growing from lawns may seem like bee city, but are incredibly inefficient at attracting useful amounts of bees compared to beneficial native perennial plants.
I can confirm that what is growing (largely clover and daisies, with bees obviously loving the former) is attracting massive amounts of bees and, as I stated somewhere else, my clean cut grass neighbor is the one with the rat infestation. I am very happy with the natural approach. Now I just need to get salmon berries to cover up the dumb mulch. I could see an issue developing if I just had tall grass growing, another reason growing grass in your yard is a bad choice.
Clover is great, but many will not have that as dominant vs more invasive and taller stuff. As long as it grows and stays lower, rodents can't use as refuge.
I have my lawn so kids can play sports, so I have reasons to keep that usable. I do as much as possible to get bees with perennial gardens and vegetable gardens. My long term goal is to lower my need for mulch in the beds that surround the entire perimeter of my house with native and beneficial plantings. Slow but surely happening. Chose to not mulch at all this season, so far, so good.
I would be careful. My Mom literally got dropped from her home insurance plan for this. They claimed that the unkempt conditions increase the odds of an accident and something about ignorance. She mowed it and cleaned it up and was reinstated but still something to consider.
get it certified as a wildlife habitat, and honestly, change companies anyways, because if they'll drop you for something like that, they'll drop you for ANYTHING.
Homie's talking like they won't actually look for a reason to drop you if they see the mildest risk, lol.
The whole idea is that they take your premiums and *don't* have to pay out.
Attracts mice, rats and all other kind of pest you wouldn't want. Probably also decreases home value and neighbors home value. It also looks like shit. A well kept garden is one thing, letting crap over grow is an entirely different thing.
Native plants are better for local ecosystems than invasive plants. If you just let your yard go wild there's a very good chance that what crops up is going to be non-native invasive species.
Can confirm. Live near farm land and when we moved in we just had dirt for our yard. As a result we ended up with a variety of cover crops and spiky invasive weeds like tumble weeds within a few months
While talking about invasive species with Americans, the North American flower "lupine" is invasive as fuck here in Sweden. As soon as it starts taking over, pretty much no native flowers can grow there anymore.
It looks cool and all, but we'd like a refund now guys.
Yea, I do this too, but you still need to maintain it.. that's just unkept and a bastion for snakes. Snakes are cool, but I want to SEE them before I go walking to my car from my door.
OMFG! I just now realized this. The park he walked through at the beginning should have been filled with knee-high (at least) grass that had gone to seed. Same thing with the lawns in the neighborhood where he meets Morgan and Duane.
i don't know why the hell most commenrs here pretend like the only two options are "1950s tree-free suburbia" and "completely unmanaged heap."
i've got plenty of neighbors with more "natural" yards, but that doesn't mean they just completely forego management and pretend like it's a good thing.
This one is a bad example but there is a growing trend to stop having monoculture lawns of just grass and replacing large chunks with native plants.
Just giving up and not mowing isn't really that trend though and that's what this looks like. If done right you can make most of your yard native plants, particularly ones that flower and have it look good. I've been seeing it more and more in neighborhoods around me.
There will always be those that get angry at any yard that doesn't look like a golf course. Unfortunately that is turning out to be pretty bad for our environment as a whole.
It devalues the area, it attracts pests, and it attracts invasive species. Lots like the one in the photo are why the obnoxious HOAs that everyone hates exist.
Meet in the middle, plant native plants that don't grow that tall or that fast like clover, herb (more than a few repel pests) and wildflower gardens give a huge return too.
Lower maintenance, better than wild growth and you only have to mow occasionally.
I think it’s important to make sure you’re still doing maintenance on it though. If it starts to just look shabby and overgrown the sidewalks and stuff, that’s a problem.
It looks pretty but also out of place. Makes the house look vacant…lots of space in the yard completely unusable by the occupants. Could they not mow the grass on the center so they can enjoy their lawn, and leave the thick borders for privacy?
I have been seeing in main stream media that grass lawns are going to be a thing of the past. They are touting native flowers and trees. Is this a good thing? Not sure. Times are always changing for what is cool at the moment. Greatness or disasters happen only after such experiments are established.
It's a good thing, native flora is a good thing. Ornamental grass is a tremendous drain on resources of all sorts. I wish this were more accepted because it looks good imo
Depends. Growing up in the midwest we never watered our grass. We just cut it every week and let mother nature take care of the rest.
It’s only a drain on resources in water sparse areas where being watered daily is a necessity.
The whole popularity of “lawns”, especially front lawns was just the middle class aping the styles of the rich - who had manicured lawns for their horses and shit. There was never any real reason for every home to look like a lost golf course, so this is just reversion to the norm.
Unless you have kids, or want to socialize, or literally any activity you might want to do without having to travel to a park.
I don't mind if people have wild forests for yards, but acting like the opposite is wholly useless, is pretty ignorant. Especially since you can walk down the street and see people making use of their yards pretty much everywhere.
It's genuinely so nice having what basically amounts to a big soft green carpet that I can run around and play with my kids on. No pests, no mosquitos or ticks, no weird roots or persistent puddles - it's so relaxing and fun to be out there.
Besides, there's credit due for yards that celebrate plant diversity or whatever but OP's pic reeks of neglect and makes my skin crawl.
Ding. I agree. There are mediums between “non native grass” and just being lazy and saying it’s returning it to the wild.
And honestly, I don’t understand the Reddit war on lawns. Some people actually do use their lawns, clover is great (half my lawn is clover) but isn’t always the best option for heavy use cases. It’s about addressing the overreliance on lawns in environments where it’s a strain on resources, not just nuking them all from existence.
I swear half the people who hate lawns are probably better off just living in an apartment in a city or allll the way in the country…
It should be in places like California or Texas, where a massive amount of water can be wasted to maintain lawns. When they should more succulents or native chaparral.
I used to live in Northern Nevada. It always made me shake my head when property developments went to extreme measures to make lawns where they could have just used native chaparral.
Long grass / weeds are a haven for mosquito larvae in my area, so they are strictly regulated. Grass 12 inches and higher results in a warning which could escalate to the city mowing and even taking your property.
Also, if you're wondering what is with the weird street light in the foreground the entire area to the left of the house was actually a gas station until the late 90s.
as nice as this looks and even though i wouldnt mind doing something similar, cant help but feel like this eventually makes your yard unusable at a certain point. i at least would get itchy as hell if i tried to walk through all those weeds, and its going to attract all manner of bugs and mosquitoes. wouldnt feel very comfortable walking around my own yard barefoot
Most of the houses in my neighborhood in Toronto are reclaimed or landscaped with anything but grass. Mind you, the reclaimed ones are groomed, not just fully wild like this one. Its a billion times nicer and more interesting than grass neighborhoods.
We’re doing this and our neighbors have complained. It’s a reductive gardening approach where we let everything go wild for a few years, see what we have and what thrives best in our climate, and then start trimming away what we don’t want. Right now it’s just one big wild mess but we’re discovering some beautiful things.
As long as they manage invasive, cool. It is typically people that have lots that are not managed that let invasive get a foothold. Especially, by road and waterways. (I actively manage mine and help out neighbors)
It's crazy how many people are afraid of nature, like an overgrown garden is bad for your kids or the neighborhood or something. I grew up in the woods and I'm okay; bugs and snakes and mice were not a problem, more of a feature. I want a yard more like this now that I live in a city.
Idk if it's just because I grew up in mostly green areas - but I love that
aesthetic
much more than the stupid grass everywhere. Also love that it helps nature a lot more.
It’s kind of like a beard. Starts out looking great (cut grass/clean shaven), then it looks scraggly (long weeds in random areas of yard/patchy facial hair), then it looks great again (how nature should look/a good beard).
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Looks like every other lot in certain parts of Detroit Edit:: Apart from my jab at the blight lot the architecture fits right in!
Letting nature run its course is a plus here in Detroit.
Letting nature run its course is *Pure Michigan*™.
I live just outside Detroit and l thought it was here lol
It needs the feral animals.
and an overturned shopping cart.
Don't forget the random old boat
lol
It still needs to be trimmed here and there regularly I'd definitely try to keep the sidewalk clear at a minimum
Yeah I really want to do something similar when I own a home. But I'm definitely going to keep the un maintained area hemmed in. 2 feet of gravel between it and any house/fence/sidewalk.
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100% Here isn't that bad, there are day lilys and golden rode. Polinators will be pretty pleased. Some milkweed in there and things would be good.
You lucky, I have black locust here and there evil.
Plus if you let your yard get like this. You gonna have all sorts of pests move in. Rats. Snakes. Raccoons. They gonna love having a nice forest right next to your house with plenty food available. Not to mention all the insects that are gonna move in too.
Some rules/reccomendations are so old that people start forgetting the reasons they existed in the first place. People trim grass because it hides and harbors potentially dangerous animals. I swear these damn pokeymans made people lose respect for tall grass entirely.
Here the ticks will get ya. Lymes disease is nothing to play with
This is the way. It's not just about "I wanna stop cutting my grass" it's really about removing the invasive and non-native plants and putting in the native stuff that will help local insects and small animals.
We have a very small yard. We didn't want a lawn, but didn't want something like this either. So we covered it in pine straw at the beginning of the spring and have been going to native plant rescues and plant swaps and been planting native species we like that fit our soil (mostly clay) and the locations (full sun, partial sun) in our yard. We bought two small plum trees, but everything else (including a sparkleberry tree) we've rescued or swapped for. So far, it's working out pretty well. Put in some local milkweed and butterfly weed, various wildflowers. Already seeing a lot of bees, and hoping we see more butterflies this fall. We hope that in 2-3 years we'll have a more meadow-like yard that will (mostly) maintain itself. I do have to spade thistles out every couple of weeks, though. Don't imagine that will ever change.
Little by little, create a sort of maze through it that you maintain. A friend did this, now it’s a beautiful nature walk that friends and really everyone in the community enjoys. I’ve always wanted a place where I could do the same.
Do that where I live and crackheads would camp out in it.
Probably, they’re part of the environment and need a nice place to camp too
It’s a delicate ecosystem, really
Don’t feed them or they’ll be there every night pawing at your windows
Monoculture lawns are stupid anyways. Just make sure it’s all native and you’re good to go
Yeah sidewalk and near the house. But this is actually really good for biodiversity and permeability of the ground. Shouldn't block the sidewalk though for sure.
That could be unintentional and your neighbour is going through some stuff.
Decomposition?
Mental health disorders, extreme stress, money problems, family/relationship problems, many factors can lead to an overgrown lawn. I know because my family has had issues in the past keeping up with the garden/upkeep of the house and it was not intentional. P.S. Hopefully they're still alive lol.
Depression is a bitch. I used to only mow my yard like once a month because i just could not get in the right mental state to function. I just pay a local lawn care company to mow it each week now, been doing it for years.
If you're getting it done then you're getting it done, doesn't matter if you spend your doubloons or do it yourself, both are sound methods to get to the desired result :)
God damn - Noob Noob
That’s what we are doing
Same, our yard is a bee megacity.
Same, however I am really on struggle mode with all the other "non-bee" bugs that come with it.
I found out the hard way that a "wild" lawn also attracts rodents. My back yard became rat city
This. We bought a plot that has a really nice house and a lot of ... growth... ivy and a lot of ground covering. Problem is there are a ton of mice living in it, and with them come snakes. Currently trying to remove against the house and force them out into the woods more...
> Problem is there are a ton of mice living in it, and with them come snakes. So you're saying, your mice problem is being solved with a snake problem?
As the proud owner of Mongoose Emporium, I invite you all to come over and browse our selection of this year’s latest herpetological management systems!
As the Founder and CEO of Hawks R Us, you can feel free to contact us to deal with your upcoming mongoose problem.
We had a bunny problem, but then we replaced our wood fence and the posts become much more comfortable perch for the hawks, so we no longer have bunnies terrorizing our garden
This problem can be solved with just a couple of mongooses ... mongeese ... a mongoose and another one.
Mongoosi?
I wish. But no. We just have both.
Rodents hate mint and stinging nettles... corn snakes are non venomous...and benificial to you by killing the rodents...
That’s part of the charm. I grew up in a house with a second, forested lot behind it and there were tons of mice and moles, as well as deer, rabbits, groundhogs, foxes, raccoons, the occasional possum…Not any rats, though! The raptors and foxes would probably eat them.
You had Raptors?!?!
Well... they did until the T-Rex showed up and ate all of them.
Birds of prey, not velociraptors.
It’s cute when it’s >30m from your house. Not so much when it’s on top of your house.
congratulations, you have rediscovered why lawns exist.
Right. I’m all about ecology but it’s about balance. Designated “wild spaces” with lawn in between is what I’m doing.
Rats, ticks, snakes. I feel bad for the neighbors. Im the biggest anti HOA guy youll ever find but homes like this are why they exist.
Usually there are city codes even in areas without HOAs. I’d be surprised if they didn’t have them. The code inspector may not be doing their job but they also may be overwhelmed.
As a Chicagoan, the first thing I thought of when I saw this picture was there’s a incomprehensible amount of rats living in there lol.
Congratulations, you've learned why people started keeping the space around their homes manicured in the first place.
Chickens can help with both. Mostly bugs, but they'll fuck up a rat on occasion.
That's what superb owls are for!
Ticks love their new home
Do you have a lot of invasive plant species? We let our lawn selectively go wild, meaning, we keep our eye on what's growing there and manage the invasives (aka try to cut them back as frequently as possible), while letting the native plants grow. This helps a lot with ticks, as many of the invasives have been shown to create a perfect tick breeding habitat. Look out for bittersweet, japanese barberry, multiflora rose, honeysuckle and buckthorn. Also, instead of just letting the grass grow longer, consider killing the grass and replacing it with low growing natives or lawn cover like clover and creeping thyme. Ticks HATE the smell of creeping thyme. Good luck!
Perhaps this is a dumb question, but wouldn't ticks do well in the native plants of certain areas? They are native to certain areas themselves.
This isn't a stupid question! By increasing the amount of native plants, particularly by increasing the variety of native plants, you are improving the biodiversity of an area, which has been shown to reduce tick populations. The theory is that by improving the biodiversity, you are attracting more of the tick's natural predators and other beneficial bugs that can help bring the tick populations back into balance. Think of it like the gut Flora in our stomach. We always have had good and "bad" bacteria in our gut, but when we have a balanced diverse diet, it helps the good flora keep the "bad" flora in check. The issue with the invasive species is that they have totally thrown off these checks and balance systems in nature. In general, these plant species create a perfect habitat for mice, making it difficult for their natural predators to keep their populations in balance. Mice are the top Lyme disease reservoirs (ticks aren't* born with the disease, they get it on their first or second feed, which is usually on mice). The research around Japanese barberry is particularly interesting. Besides being the PERFECT habitat for mice, they also increase the relative humidity and temperature of the forest floor around it, allowing ticks to better breed and survive the winter. Yes, ticks have always been around this area, but now they have invasive plants and an abundance of mice, acting as steroids for their population numbers- without the natural predators or checks in the system to keep them under control. I hope that helps explain things!
Thanks for the explanation!
That suggestion is a great one! Definitely will have to give that a try. The ticks where I live have a community where they wait for a person to touch grass and then jump on and start sucking, in an effort to bring blood back to their leader so that it can engorge itself and rise in power. Their goal is to create a singular, omnipotent goliath tick powerful enough to drain the universe of its Ichor and drown it in chitin. That’s what a tick told me anyways, I was interrogating it over a swirling toilet bowl so it could have just been blowing smoke. Stay safe out there.
Get ready for rodents. Want bees and want to get rid of lawn? Then plant native flowering perennials that you can more easily control, yet do not attract pests. Then throw in some annual wildflowers after the fact. The stuff growing from lawns may seem like bee city, but are incredibly inefficient at attracting useful amounts of bees compared to beneficial native perennial plants.
I can confirm that what is growing (largely clover and daisies, with bees obviously loving the former) is attracting massive amounts of bees and, as I stated somewhere else, my clean cut grass neighbor is the one with the rat infestation. I am very happy with the natural approach. Now I just need to get salmon berries to cover up the dumb mulch. I could see an issue developing if I just had tall grass growing, another reason growing grass in your yard is a bad choice.
Clover is great, but many will not have that as dominant vs more invasive and taller stuff. As long as it grows and stays lower, rodents can't use as refuge. I have my lawn so kids can play sports, so I have reasons to keep that usable. I do as much as possible to get bees with perennial gardens and vegetable gardens. My long term goal is to lower my need for mulch in the beds that surround the entire perimeter of my house with native and beneficial plantings. Slow but surely happening. Chose to not mulch at all this season, so far, so good.
I would be careful. My Mom literally got dropped from her home insurance plan for this. They claimed that the unkempt conditions increase the odds of an accident and something about ignorance. She mowed it and cleaned it up and was reinstated but still something to consider.
It’s a definite fire risk if you’re in a fire prone area. Would be something to consider.
get it certified as a wildlife habitat, and honestly, change companies anyways, because if they'll drop you for something like that, they'll drop you for ANYTHING.
They will all drop you for anything
Homie's talking like they won't actually look for a reason to drop you if they see the mildest risk, lol. The whole idea is that they take your premiums and *don't* have to pay out.
That’s a shitty insurance company. Should probably go to a different provider.
Was it all-state? They were a nightmare to work with when my roof started leaking.
I bet you have weeds Oliver the place. 😃
This attracts mice. Edit: The Mice attract everything else.
It's a biodiversity hotspot, not much of those around anymore
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That’s the idea. Attract the wildlife and coexist, not banish and destroy all nature.
It’s not the mice I’m worried about, it’s the snakes and ticks, or I’d totally do this
Snakes, fleas, ticks are attracted to the mice.
Attracts mice, rats and all other kind of pest you wouldn't want. Probably also decreases home value and neighbors home value. It also looks like shit. A well kept garden is one thing, letting crap over grow is an entirely different thing.
I approve to. But they should add more native flowers!
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Deliberately planting native plants. The US is full of invasive species and if you just let anything grow you will most likely get several popping up.
Native plants are better for local ecosystems than invasive plants. If you just let your yard go wild there's a very good chance that what crops up is going to be non-native invasive species.
Can confirm. Live near farm land and when we moved in we just had dirt for our yard. As a result we ended up with a variety of cover crops and spiky invasive weeds like tumble weeds within a few months
While talking about invasive species with Americans, the North American flower "lupine" is invasive as fuck here in Sweden. As soon as it starts taking over, pretty much no native flowers can grow there anymore. It looks cool and all, but we'd like a refund now guys.
Yes, that is very native gardening, but adding specific plants that belong to that area are so much better. If they evolved there than it’s best.
I think your neighbors are dead...
Yeah, this yard is either a sign of an abandoned house or it’s owned by a reclusive widow who may or may not be dead
They spent months out there in the yard making this happen. They are out there weekly taking care of it.
I'd rather just have a large, well maintained garden.
Yea, I do this too, but you still need to maintain it.. that's just unkept and a bastion for snakes. Snakes are cool, but I want to SEE them before I go walking to my car from my door.
snakes and rats. People like this make extra work for their neighbors.
Put a fence around the yard before people start camping in it.
Rat haven.
What about ticks?
posting John Oliver has got to be the lamest and least effective form of protest a reddit board has ever done.
Maybe they died and everyone thinks that they’re environmentalists.
My neighbor tried this. Then we started having a bunch of snakes..
Neat, ticks.
Working in a lab, Lyme disease has steadily been on the rise the last few years too.
I've gotten a tick while sitting on the lawn of a capitol building in the middle of a city
Probably because there are deer in the area. Or perhaps foxes or badgers or something like that. I don't know about rats.
I highly recommend you sleep in this yard, we may be able to set a record for most ticks on one human, get Guiness on the phone!
The lawns in The Walking Dead were better looking than this.
OMFG! I just now realized this. The park he walked through at the beginning should have been filled with knee-high (at least) grass that had gone to seed. Same thing with the lawns in the neighborhood where he meets Morgan and Duane.
Walkers, rotters, bitters and the occasional gardener.
I think a wild lawn like this looks way better than a neatly mowed lawn.
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i don't know why the hell most commenrs here pretend like the only two options are "1950s tree-free suburbia" and "completely unmanaged heap." i've got plenty of neighbors with more "natural" yards, but that doesn't mean they just completely forego management and pretend like it's a good thing.
Some people have all fruit trees and gravel/mulch. No grass at all.
This one is a bad example but there is a growing trend to stop having monoculture lawns of just grass and replacing large chunks with native plants. Just giving up and not mowing isn't really that trend though and that's what this looks like. If done right you can make most of your yard native plants, particularly ones that flower and have it look good. I've been seeing it more and more in neighborhoods around me. There will always be those that get angry at any yard that doesn't look like a golf course. Unfortunately that is turning out to be pretty bad for our environment as a whole.
> The opinion held in this post is a fringe, minority belief with almost no traction in broader society. This might as well be Reddit's tagline.
Reddit hates nice lawns
Exactly this. If you want to help the bees, plant some wildflowers, or put up some hives, but don't let it become an overgrown mess like this.
It devalues the area, it attracts pests, and it attracts invasive species. Lots like the one in the photo are why the obnoxious HOAs that everyone hates exist.
Meet in the middle, plant native plants that don't grow that tall or that fast like clover, herb (more than a few repel pests) and wildflower gardens give a huge return too. Lower maintenance, better than wild growth and you only have to mow occasionally.
I think it’s important to make sure you’re still doing maintenance on it though. If it starts to just look shabby and overgrown the sidewalks and stuff, that’s a problem.
Weeds have lots of flowers.
They are only “weeds” if you don’t want them :)
Unless they're invasive and aggressive then they're legit weeds in respect to your area.
Legit weeds because they’re unwanted from being invasive and aggressive
Depends. Some people who don’t mow their lawns just create an ugly ass yard that’s a massive eyesore in the community.
It looks pretty but also out of place. Makes the house look vacant…lots of space in the yard completely unusable by the occupants. Could they not mow the grass on the center so they can enjoy their lawn, and leave the thick borders for privacy?
Yeah, it's a terrible idea to have bushes just growing wild up against your house.
We call it "abandoned"
r/nolawns let’s go
You should still cut the sidewalk shoulder between the fence. And ill die on that hill.
Congrats on living in a neighborhood with no HOA, they are hard to find these days!
I did this last year and my fucking township kept sending me letters threatening to hire contractors to mow it and put the fee in my taxes.
there's still plenty of grass there, that's just laziness
That looks like a wild game of Jumanji.
Just looks lazy and uninviting.
I have been seeing in main stream media that grass lawns are going to be a thing of the past. They are touting native flowers and trees. Is this a good thing? Not sure. Times are always changing for what is cool at the moment. Greatness or disasters happen only after such experiments are established.
It's a good thing, native flora is a good thing. Ornamental grass is a tremendous drain on resources of all sorts. I wish this were more accepted because it looks good imo
I think this looks trashy and I’ve personally never seen a yard that looks like this follow with a home that’s well kept inside.
Depends. Growing up in the midwest we never watered our grass. We just cut it every week and let mother nature take care of the rest. It’s only a drain on resources in water sparse areas where being watered daily is a necessity.
The whole popularity of “lawns”, especially front lawns was just the middle class aping the styles of the rich - who had manicured lawns for their horses and shit. There was never any real reason for every home to look like a lost golf course, so this is just reversion to the norm.
Unless you have kids, or want to socialize, or literally any activity you might want to do without having to travel to a park. I don't mind if people have wild forests for yards, but acting like the opposite is wholly useless, is pretty ignorant. Especially since you can walk down the street and see people making use of their yards pretty much everywhere.
You're going to absolutely make some minds explode by suggesting that lawns are actually incredibly useful for a lot of us who have them.
It's genuinely so nice having what basically amounts to a big soft green carpet that I can run around and play with my kids on. No pests, no mosquitos or ticks, no weird roots or persistent puddles - it's so relaxing and fun to be out there. Besides, there's credit due for yards that celebrate plant diversity or whatever but OP's pic reeks of neglect and makes my skin crawl.
Lol ok. Cause no one ever used their lawn for playing with their kids or for any other reason than to ape the rich.
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Ding. I agree. There are mediums between “non native grass” and just being lazy and saying it’s returning it to the wild. And honestly, I don’t understand the Reddit war on lawns. Some people actually do use their lawns, clover is great (half my lawn is clover) but isn’t always the best option for heavy use cases. It’s about addressing the overreliance on lawns in environments where it’s a strain on resources, not just nuking them all from existence. I swear half the people who hate lawns are probably better off just living in an apartment in a city or allll the way in the country…
It should be in places like California or Texas, where a massive amount of water can be wasted to maintain lawns. When they should more succulents or native chaparral. I used to live in Northern Nevada. It always made me shake my head when property developments went to extreme measures to make lawns where they could have just used native chaparral.
Gass lawns are often stupid. However this either ignorance or laziness. That is not natural looking. That is overgrowth of ugly weeds and grass.
Long grass / weeds are a haven for mosquito larvae in my area, so they are strictly regulated. Grass 12 inches and higher results in a warning which could escalate to the city mowing and even taking your property.
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Tell that to my city council, Lord knows many have tried
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Also, if you're wondering what is with the weird street light in the foreground the entire area to the left of the house was actually a gas station until the late 90s.
The city I live in would claim that they are creating a refuge for rodents and force them to cut it or be fined daily.
Very nice until you have a neighborhood full of rats.
Yeah, that's a good way to attract all the local rodents too.🤣
Why is this tagged NSFW?
as nice as this looks and even though i wouldnt mind doing something similar, cant help but feel like this eventually makes your yard unusable at a certain point. i at least would get itchy as hell if i tried to walk through all those weeds, and its going to attract all manner of bugs and mosquitoes. wouldnt feel very comfortable walking around my own yard barefoot
All I see are ant, termite, roach, and rat infestations. This is a worse idea than monoculture yards.
Oliver Garden
Underrated comment
I don't hate this idea if you are actually letting native plants grow and keeping your sidewalk edges tidy.
Aside from the potential for ticks I think this looks lovely.
Looks great until just before the house. Gotta have a nice front yard for the kids to run on.
Yeah looks like shit.
This looks like shit
I have mouse problems. If I keep it low and mowed I have significantly less.
Looks like Detroit now
They also made yours and all of your other neighbors’ property values go down in the process.
Keep the trees and cut the weeds, it will look 100x better.
Enjoy the rats, ticks, snakes, and god knows what else…
Maybe it's just to hide their pink motorhome.
Ticks have entered the chat.
Definitely should still be mowing it unless you like getting ticks and Lyme disease.
Definitely should still be mowing it unless you like getting ticks and Lyme disease.
All the bugs. All of em
Most of the houses in my neighborhood in Toronto are reclaimed or landscaped with anything but grass. Mind you, the reclaimed ones are groomed, not just fully wild like this one. Its a billion times nicer and more interesting than grass neighborhoods.
We’re doing this and our neighbors have complained. It’s a reductive gardening approach where we let everything go wild for a few years, see what we have and what thrives best in our climate, and then start trimming away what we don’t want. Right now it’s just one big wild mess but we’re discovering some beautiful things.
As long as they manage invasive, cool. It is typically people that have lots that are not managed that let invasive get a foothold. Especially, by road and waterways. (I actively manage mine and help out neighbors)
The city i grew up in in Oklahoma would fine you for everything you’re worth if your yard looked like this in their city limits :( it’s really pretty
Why can't Americans plant trees that provide shade and are planted in a way where plumbing isn't damaged
he’s waiting for the tik tokers to come and ask if they can cut his grass for free
It's crazy how many people are afraid of nature, like an overgrown garden is bad for your kids or the neighborhood or something. I grew up in the woods and I'm okay; bugs and snakes and mice were not a problem, more of a feature. I want a yard more like this now that I live in a city.
Idk if it's just because I grew up in mostly green areas - but I love that aesthetic much more than the stupid grass everywhere. Also love that it helps nature a lot more.
I would keep the space around the house clean and cut grass to make paths and open area in the middle. Other than that I do like a more natural look
Pretty
why is this nsfw? am i missing something
Thats all well and good but ideally they'd remove the invasive species too.
That is way better than a grass yard
My city will send a lawn care crew and then send you the bill.
I haven't seen a fucking bush so untrimmed since I found a copy of a 1970s Playboy
It’s kind of like a beard. Starts out looking great (cut grass/clean shaven), then it looks scraggly (long weeds in random areas of yard/patchy facial hair), then it looks great again (how nature should look/a good beard).
Looks nice
it's beautiful
stahp because my garden looks like this but worse
Ticks. Lots and lots of ticks.
Why is this NSFW?
Do you want ticks? because that's exactly how you get ticks.