In the U.S. , green , weed - destitute lawn were seldom see before the late nineteenth century . Prior to this , the front yards of rural U.S. home feature “ gardens ” of packed earth and small-scale flowerbed planted withedible and medicinal plants , watered by buckets ( garden hoses were n’t yet excogitate ) . At the time , a green lawn in the American front yard was an idea promoted by wealthy travelers to Europe and England who became enamored with the classical Romanist - style landscape architecture . This style of landscape gardening , learn only on the large land in Europe , featuredenameled meadssloping away from straggle mansions ( much like the landscape gardening see at the U.S. White House ) .
What is an enameled mead?
Green expanses of cultivated grasses first appear about 900 years ago during the Middle Ages on majestic estates in Great Britain and Northern France . Both countries have clime with soft winters and warm , humid summer , which is idealistic for naturalise many different types of grasses . During the Middle Ages , lawn were n’t always the Brobdingnagian belt of green grass we think of as lawns today – they were also “ room ” in a walled garden mean for entertain or sit .
An enameled mead is a landscaping technique date to the Middle Ages in which low - growing perennial flowers are plant in and wall by mowed grass in caricature of a lifelike hayfield . It was none other than England ’s King Henry II , who dominate from 1154 to 1189 , who it ’s trust , first ordered his laborers to slice up tracts of hayfield turf and transplant them to his palace gardens .
observe only on immense estates that could start the high maintenance , a flowery mead of the Middle Ages included areas of turfgrass from a local hayfield with various aboriginal perennial flush plant methodically inside the grassy areas . An U. S. Army of gardeners keep the grass mowed low with hired man shears and scythes or grazed by sheep . The flowery Margaret Mead , often surrounded by hedge within a walled garden , contained luxuriant lawn and track on which mass of wealthiness and royal position strolled , danced , and commix .
Flowers in the enameled mead may have included lily of the valley , poppies , cowslips , primula , violets , daisies , ordaffodils . Later , meads evolved to include clean clover , Anthemis nobilis , thyme , yarrow , ego - heal , and other groundcover industrial plant and dope . The flower and pasture planting were call “ enameled ” because , at a distance , the effect paint a picture the look of enameled jewelry . This landscaping style was still in practice on European and English estates in the eighteenth and 19th centuries and became the enviousness of flush travelers from the U.S.
How front yard gardens became lawns in the U.S.
In the U.S. , birth a lawn , much less mowing it , was not potential for most home gardeners in the eighteenth or nineteenth century unless they were extraordinarily moneyed . For instance , U.S. President Thomas Jefferson was among the first to contain the European style of lawn on his estate at Monticello .
Maintaining a lawn became potential in 1830 with the invention of the reel mower when an English applied scientist named Edwin Budding modified a machine used for slew the nap on velvet in textile factories . But Budding ’s reel mower was less than idealistic for mowing , as it dig out up the grime along with shearing the grass . But others improved upon Budding ’s contraption , and finally homeowners of more modest means could maintain a turfgrass lawn with theirnew bobbin mower .
With the technology to maintain them , lawns became more coarse in temperate parts of the U.S. However , in drier region , lawn irrigationwas still a challenge until the invention of the garden hose and sprinkler in 1871 . But even with these cash advance , the immature , weed - free lawn was yet to take the position of the front yard garden .
Who invented the American lawn?
allot toMichael Pollan‘s article , Why Mow ? The compositor’s case Against Lawns,“If any mortal can be said to have invented the American lawn , it is Frederick Law Olmsted . ” In 1868 , Olmsted plan Riverside , one of the first design suburban residential area in America , just outside of Chicago . Olmsted ’s design qualify that each star sign be fix back 30 feet from the route with no walls between them – he had an aversion to the walls between English houses . Each home in Riverside featured one or two Tree and a lawn that flow seamlessly into the neighboring lawn – this created the stamp that all the homes were in a individual parking area .
In an attempt to make Olmsted ’s landscape pattern ideas more accessible , Frank J. Scott , an influential landscape architect , published “ The Art of embellish Suburban Home Grounds ” in 1870 . This was the first Scripture devoted to “ suburban home embellishment ” . Arguably , it did more than any other book to influence the fashion of the suburban landscape in America , with ideas such as , “ A smooth , intimately shaved open of grass is by far the most all-important element of beauty on the grounds of a suburban house “ .
Golf drove the development of the American lawn
Even with figures like Olmsted and Scott promote theideaof the lawn , incredibly , the biz of Golf helped push the development of the modern American lawn . In the first decades of the 1900s , the USDA and the U.S. Golf Association collaborated to develop combinations of lawn pasturage adapt to a variety of climate in the U.S.
With the nation ’s first golf course appearing in New York in 1888 , golf exploded , as did the desire for one ’s own grass - like greensward . In fact , F. Lamson - Scribner , a aged agrostologist at the USDA wrote , “ lawns are the most riveting and delightful lineament in landscape gardening , and there is nothing which more strongly bespeaks the character of the owner than the discussion and adornment of the lawns upon his place . “[1 ] And so , the thought of a green , grassy , weed - free lawn as the indicator of social course of study and fiber was officially stick in in government publication .
The American Garden Club and post-WW2 development seals the deal for the American lawn
In the early 20th century , it was the American Garden Club that generalise the front yard lawn through a series of contests . The garden club ’s banner was “ a plot with a single character of grass with no intruding weeds , save cut down at a superlative of an inch and a half , uniformly unripened , and neatly inch . ”
This was exceptionally poor advice , which only focused on aesthetics and not on the appropriate grasses or plants for the appropriate billet . Hence , the unintended upshot of defilement from pesticides to control the “ weeds”,groundwater defilement from fertiliser use , and gentle wind pollution from gasolene - power lawn mowers andleaf blowers .
It was during the grammatical construction boom after World War 2 and the creation of rotary top executive lawn mower when a lawn in the front M became the norm – the garden was moved to the backyard . Housing growth like Levittown , with thousands of cooky - cutter monovular dwelling with small selfsame lawns , became the model for suburban development and a well - incline , manicure lawn , with no “ weeds ” , and cut at just the veracious height , show your idolatry to the community and superbia of ownership .
And that is how we got here today:31,360,000 acre ( 49,000 square mile , according to NASA)of monoculture of gage in our yards that require high-pitched maintenance , demand Brobdingnagian resources , and do not support pollinators or wildlife . lawn are , in ecological terms , a wasteland . Do I have one ? Sure , but it shrinks every year , pay over to ever larger repeated garden that butt on my home , 6 raised garden beds for veggie and fruit ( in the backyard naturally ) , and a pollinator garden at the alkali of a River Birch tree . These are immeasurably more interesting to look at and corroborate far more wildlife than a knit , green area of grass I have to endlessly mop .
