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John Green | The Anthropocene Reviewed
Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
Kentucky Bluegrass
More land and more water are devoted to the cultivation of lawn grass in the United States than to corn and wheat combined. […] Almost one-third of all residential water use in the U.S.—clean, drinkable water—is dedicated to lawns. […] on. The U.S.’s most abundant and labor-intensive crop is pure, unadulterated ornamentation.
The word “lawn” didn’t even exist until the 1500s. Back then, “lawns” referred to expanses of grass shared by communities to feed grazing livestock, as opposed to “fields,” which denoted land used to grow plants for human consumption. But by the eighteenth century in England, ornamental lawns similar to the ones we know now had emerged.
Grass clippings and other yard waste constitute 12 percent of all the material that ends up in U.S. landfills. And then there is the direct financial outlay: We spend tens of billions of dollars a year on lawn maintenance. We do get something in exchange, of course. Kentucky bluegrass provides a good surface for soccer and games of tag. Lawn grass cools the ground, and offers some protection from wind and water erosion. But there are better, if less conventionally beautiful, alternatives. One could, for instance, devote a front yard to growing plants that humans can eat.
In contrast to proper gardening, lawn maintenance doesn’t involve much physical contact with nature. You’re mostly touching the machines that mow or edge the grass, not the plant matter itself. And if you’ve got the kind of Gatsby lawn we’re all told to reach for, you can’t even see the dirt beneath the thick mat of grass. And so mowing Kentucky bluegrass is an encounter with nature, but the kind where you don’t get your hands dirty. I give Poa pratensis two stars.
— John Green. The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet [2021]