dohboi wrote:To add to my series of "X is/are Killing the Planet," please welcome the abomination which is the lawn:
America’s Killer LawnsHomeowners use up 10 times more pesticide per acre than farmers do. But we can change what we do in our own yards.https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/opin ... ction.html
When I lived in South Florida while I was harnessed in the world of commerce we bought a home in a new cul de sac suburb. There were identical mail boxes out on the street and each home was sterile and manicured. My nephew visited us shortly after we moved in and when we first pulled into the street he saw the mailboxes streaming by and he said our neighborhood looked like a video game! I will always remember his comment and to this day it makes me laugh.
Anyway, our property was the only one in the entire area that removed all the grass. I landscaped with 100% natives, tropicals and fruit trees. I was a member of the International Heliconia Society back then and filled the property with heliconias and gingers and the diversity of plant species on our 1/4 acre lot was more than 1000. Including the 250 species of orchids in our screened in porch.
The neighbors gave me weird looks.
We were also the only ones in the neighborhood who opened their windows and turned off the air conditioner when late fall dropped the temperature.
South Florida is a weird place where mono culture lawns are drenched in petro chemicals and folks get boob jobs and botox and all kinds of plastic surgery. Folks move from air conditioned homes to their air conditioned cars to their air conditioned place of work. Retirees are lured to Florida because of the great weather but never seem to be out in the natural air as they stayed in air conditioning 24/7. Bizarre really.
It is a fake new world that nobody questions. Those years I felt like I was living in a freak show. My 1/4 acre lot was my therapy and it was a chaos of biodiversity. Beautiful actually.
And now here in this wilderness I kind of like to landscape with more order, putting in a few straight lines here and there. It's funny, back there in Florida the video game neighborhood forced me to landscape in pure chaos. Here in the cloud forest with so much wilderness I like straight lines when planting.
Glyphosate, the herbicide in Round Up, is something I never would consider using when I lived in Florida. Here in Panama I do use it sparingly around the common area but not on edibles.
Funny how that works out.
Patiently awaiting the pathogens. Our resiliency resembles an invasive weed. We are the Kudzu Ape
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