Not just the bees, all bugs in North America have seen a 75% die off in the last 20 years.
Big shocker that songbirds, which eat those bugs, have also seen a massive die off.
Despite those deniers that still blame housecats, the true culprit is almost certainly pollution and pesticides.
Despite those deniers that still blame housecats
Both things can be true. They aren’t mutually exclusive.
Also we have less pollution and pesticide use than we did in the 60s and 70s. Why is it just becoming a problem now?
less pollution? that cannot possibly be true. according to dr google 1970s world population was 3.7b, now we’re more than double that
I’m the US, the EPA was created in the 1970’s. We definitely have less pollution (of certain types) today than we did in the past. Some notable examples of how disgustingly polluted American skies and waterways were in the past:
Coal Production has also been declining
And then of course less visible examples like the Montreal Protocol stopping corporations from depleting the ozone layer.
My point is in terms of greenhouse gas production we are much higher than in the 60’s and 70’s, but we have massively improved in a lot of areas. Of course there is still room to improve.
I bet that while we have less general pollution and less dumping trash in the environment kinda things, we have developed much more potent insecticides. And if those insecticides do not degrade within a few weeks they will accumulate in the earth and the water.
Edit: Wikipedia about one type of modern pesticides: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoid
Yeah, pretty sure your lawn has almost nothing to do with insects vanishing. It’s much more likely the insane amounts of highly potent pesticides we put directly into our food chain. Those pesticides obviously aren’t classified as pollution so we aren’t polluting, we’re killing the environment on purpose.
Btw. The development and use of neonicotines corelate quiet nicely with the drop in the insects population.
I’d say and cars just think about how many bug splatters you see on an average decent trip on the highway now multiply that by the millions of cars on the road daily. It’s not the root cause but it certainly didn’t help
Oh certainly can’t help. But we know that the pesticides and herbicides have carryon effects to unintended species. Ones that the parent companies that invented them didn’t report on because they don’t kill those species. Ones that don’t necessarily kill them, but lead to things like the white nose fungus running amock in bats, or lead to Colony Collapse Disorder or other infections in bee colonies.
Why would white nose fungus and pesticides be linked in the slightest? The issue with that is tourists who don’t want to admit they’ve been driving from national park to national park visiting each cave along the way without sanitizing anything. Same reason Zebra Mussels are spreading so rapidly. Just like people blaming 5G for COVID: It’s easier to externalize blame rather that come to terms with the, frankly, minuscule amount of spores that are needed to destroy the entire roosting colony.
Im gonna dig a pit in my backyard and make a pond. Its gonna be a lot of work but it will all be worth it when i sit out on my patio in the morning sipping coffee to the sound croaking frogs, buzzing bugs, and chirping birds.
You will want to be careful doing that. It needs to be big enough to have differential temperature so the water moves, therefore aerating it. Without air in the water nothing but mosquitos can live or breed in it. Also, depending on the soil and whether you are above the water line, you may not be able to keep enough water in it between rainfalls.
I’m sure you can look up how to do one properly, I just want to to be aware it’s not as simple as dig a hole and fill it with water, because that will do more damage than good.
Of course I’ve been doing a lot of research dont worry. And also I’ll be using a pond liner
Same in Europe
“it’s your neighbors fault for having a lawn!”
meanwhile monsanto……
I find grass so useless. Every boomer parent I’ve known is just obsessed with it, too. They think that not having a green, green monoculture lawn means you’ve failed morally or something, and that it’s how they show the neighborhood how responsible they are. One GF’s dad came over to our random Winconsin lawn of grass and weeds and strawberries and was “I WOULD JUST PULL THIS ALL UP AND START OVER”. Uh… no?
Then I had an across the street neighbor (guy with a bumper sticker “I’ve never seen a FLAG burned at a GUN SHOW”) who would mow his lawn every single day with a riding mower. You couldn’t even tell what part he had done yet. I went out of town for two weeks and he rode over and mowed my lawn. I left my backyard just go and it was awesome… after a few years, birds started nesting in the middle of the prairie, and I had flowers growing I’d never seen anywhere else.
Did you sue? I’d have been livid enough to try to sue. IANAL, but at a minimum I would hope that would be trespassing.
Some places have bylaws on maximum lawn height and you can actually be fined for letting it go. That’s how insane people are about lawns.
I thought it was virtually all places. I’m surprised the other guy could even let the lawn go native.
Not everywhere is in an HOA. And many people allow native vegetation on purpose to give local wildlife something to eat (see OP).
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I mean that’s probally overkill, that person was either OCD or was thinking he was doing them a favor. That sounds like a great way to have a pissed off neighbor and a potentially hostile neighborhood
I’d feel a little different (still pissed) if it was a next door neighbor who extended their mow. But to cross the street and change someone’s property without permission is already hostile to me.
I doubt that I could have demonstrated real harm, or even proved that he did it. I got back into town a week later and my brother, who had been watching the house, said “huh, the guy across the street mowed the front yard”.
By the letter of the law it probably is, but if they hadn’t expressly been told not to it won’t go anywhere.
It seems like people used to suburbs see that as the pinnacle of life but of course that’s not true.
In my experience rural areas get it because they are farmers and beekeepers with an understanding that working with nature is the way to go
I get it as a dog owner with only a courtyard. But he goes on long hikes in the bush and big walks a few times a week. It’d be nice to give the little fella a patch to hang on while I’m at work. And I mean a patch—I hate mowing and any yard work motivation in me is for citrus, chilli, and grapes.
Dogs will happily lay in high grass.
There is the risk of tick transmission of Lyme disease in tall grass. I suppose you can pretreat to prevent contraction, but mowing grass means you don’t have those threats/hazards to worry about.
I still hate lawns and wish more would be native, but I wonder if there’s a way to grow a native lawn such that you invite the good wildlife and keep out the bad. Would need a biologist to chime in
One of the 10 plants in this article would work. And one of them is bound to be native to your area.
My yard was very low with ground cover. I actually did mow the front, I just didn’t care if it was grass or a bunch of random other plants. I had a dog when my gf lived with me, but at this point, didn’t. There were so many rabbits and deer I actually just grew my vegetable garden on the front porch in containers.
do you have kids? they love playing outside. barefoot. and a nice lawn is a paradise for bare feet. not to mention the actual process of mowing (electric mower) is very peaceful and good for my mental health. super therapeutic.
Sure, but we also want those kids to have food when they grow up, don’t we?
hot take: you can have bee gardens AND a lawn
Or you can have a clover lawn, which is nice for insects as well as kids.
Kids don’t dislike long, unkept grass either, as long as you keep the thistles out.
seems pretty naive to think that it’s joe homeowner that’s the problem, and not insecticides and fertilizers from mega farm corporations like monsanto. let me know where to mail my apology letter lol
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It seems to be something that retired people love, to keep them active and give them something to do (a sense of purpose besides grandchildren?). I don’t mind yardwork myself, but I don’t feel like it’s virtuous or something. I also understand that a chemical-sodden monoculture isn’t really the best for humans and wildlife.
My mother used to try to get us… oh, she still does… to come “PULL WEEDS”. As kids it made sense, like okay, she wants us to get away from the video games and be outside and do whatever she’s saying, but at this point…
That guy was an asshole for doing that to you. I wonder if that might be considered trespassing. Dunno if you can have any civil remedy served to you, or if it’s even worth it, but still sucks.
How tall did the grass get? Did it pollinate, and if so, was it noticable for allergies? Were you still able to walk through it?
I’m wondering what sort of plant you could let grow where you could still walk through easily. Maybe clover?
Low height ground cover type plants grew naturally there. Clover, alfalfa, strawberries, unknown other plants, with an occasional thistle. Larger plants (whatever they were) would grow on the periphery. When he mowed my lawn it was maybe about a foot high.
We were surrounded by acres of forest where plants grew wild, so if there was a problem with pollen, it wasn’t the .4 acres of my front lawn. Myt front lawn, I did mow occasionally. The back I let grow wild and yes, one could still walk through it.
One of the lame things about lawn is that people don’t let them go to seed. If grass goes to seed, it not only regenerates itself, but also provides food for birds and squirrels. I was on an acre and a half across the street from this guy, and bounded by 30 feet of trees on ones side and 200 feet of forest on the other.
Aren’t these allergies sometimes caused because you’re not exposed to the stuff? Like how it is for peanuts.
I don’t know, but I wouldn’t want people who come over to cough uncontrollably even if I was used to it.
Is there a nolawns community here?
Weirdly enough, it’s small on reddit, and the biggest are on Facebook ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Facebook users typically skew older, so people that are more likely to have established careers, larger spaces and yards to work on. I feel like a lot of Redditors and Lemmings are young and live with parents or in apartments, and are thus less likely to have a yard to care for.
That being said, anyone with a deck or porch can pot a plant or two to try and help local pollinators.
I started doing clover in my yard a year ago and there are so many bees and butterflies now. My neighbor was like “why are you doing that yo your grass??? The previous owners took so long to make that yard look nice”
what do you do about weeds? does the clover stand up to traffic and dogs?
I dont really do anything about weeds anymore. I let the dandelions do their things. I have some patches of crab grass but it doesnt bother me. The clover doesnt grow very high but when it is full bloom you can tell when it is walked on in high traffic. We have wild turkeys too and they will roost on the clover and it leaves imprints in the ground but it springs back after a day or so.
I couldn’t find a source for this, but I heard that we were convinced to think of dandelions as weeds by the makers of a herbicide so that we would accept the collateral damage.
Dandelions were brought to North America as a food crop. We can eat every part of the plant. They’re an invasive species, but not what I would consider a weed.
Anything can be a weed. All a weed is it a plant growing is the wrong spot in the eyes of a human.
Agreed, but Monsanto would love us to believe all kinds of plants are weeds so we buy their chemicals.
A field of dandelion flowers is beautiful.
And also, a field of invasive species that drove out the native plants… Just saying.
Theres only one plant in my yard i consider a “weed”. It grows almost like a carrot or a parsnip. But it grows a long thick root straight down and has a small leafy part on top. And when you pluck them out it leaves a cone shaped hole. No clue what it is but ive been calling it a tuber lol
Lol, you don’t put Roundup on your lawn unless you don’t want a lawn anymore.
2,4D is the stuff that kills “weeds” but not grass.
Oh ok, I must have remembered wrong. I edited to be less specific.
Oh ok, I must have remembered wrong. I edited to be less specific.
Anecdotal evidence. There’s a patch of grass on my land next to a public mailbox that I struggled for years to keep from being a mud pit.
Haven’t seen a bare patch of dirt since I planted the clover. Holds up great to foot traffic.
does the clover spread?
Mine has from what I can tell but ive also seeded it a couple times a year.
We have a chemical free yard that I also plant clover in. The high traffic areas are more clover than grass, which makes me think it holds up better. The clover also turns green earlier in the spring and stays green longer of we’re having a dry spell in the summer. Clover helps keep the grass happy and the pair seem to do a decent job keeping dandelions down, but we have them in our yard too. They don’t bother me at all personally and our kids like them. Thistles are not that common in our yard, but when they pop up I’ll spot treat them since they’re painful to walk on.
Could be worse
This does not require mass weed killer, pesticides, and water though?
Weed and grass killer, yes, otherwise you have patches growing up.
Weeds are very easily pulled without damaging anything in a rock garden. Also it doesn’t require fertilizer or water (except for a very small amount for those small bushes).
You can pull weeds by hand.
Honestly, that may be better. At least it doesn’t use water and it would be fine in a very dry environment out western US.
Native plants would still be even better though.
I live in the desert (Utah). My yard will look like this soon. It’s too expensive to water our lawn so we’re going with a xeriscape.
Looks like it would make a decent buffer in case of wildfire too
Looks like an example of xeriscaping, or gardening with a minimal need for irrigation. Not the best I’ve seen, but at least it’s water-conserving.
Is the native landscape a rock garden? If you live in the Mojave: Go nuts, but that black rock is going to bake your house and drive up your carbon dioxide usage. Plants breathe just like animals do and that increases humidity locally, and in dry climates that can be a significant cooling effect. Essentially cheap evaporative cooling.
I feel like this can still be a native lawn depending on which biome it’s in. Seems more desert like than a prairie/forest type “native lawn” you might traditionally think of.
But yeah native can look different depending on location so I might be ok with this
I will admit there is something very pleasing about looking at a well trimmed yard. That said, the percent of the earth’s land surface covered by manicured lawns is tiny. The ag industry would love for you to believe your lawn is the problem. It isn’t. The problem is the monoculture farm land. Acres of fields with only one type of crop. And probably other things like pollution and such. But industries love to play the “you are the problem” card to divert from themsleves.
Yes, but also: Every little bit of help, well… helps.
Don’t let those industries playing the blame game discourage you from dedicating a part of your yard to a bunch of flowers, because then the problem would get ever so slightly worse.
Yeah but you could easily have a patch of lush green grass the size of this one in your lawn and also some nice flower beds, bushes, trees and whatever else. Most people want some of that, not just a plain garden with no features. The problem isn’t peoples’ yards, it’s pesticides.
This is the correct answer, this shit is „your carbon footprint“ all over again
“Walk to work, ignore corporate consumption, and use only the highest quality refined petroleum products, and go easy on the avocados.”
This + a massive over usage of pesticides
Remember it’s not just about saving honey bees! Honey bees are domesticated, which means that humans will make sure that they have food and shelter and appropriate medicine and care throughout the year to ensure they make honey.
Saving “the bees” moreso means saving wild, native, often times solitary bees like bumblebees or carpenter bees that don’t produce honey but that also aren’t domesticated - they have no safety net that humans give them.
Those bees along with all other pollinators like bats, birds, and other insects are the ones at risk!
Still, we should all consider growing native yards to return habitat back to these dying species!
I stopped cutting my grass and now I have rats :(
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Or, like, insects.
Tons of blackberries.
lmao my guy rats literally eat everything
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they eat seeds, overgrown grass develops seeds. man this thread is ridiculously misinformed lol even on RATS
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Bold to assume we own yards
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I have lived at my current property for nearly 7 years now, and while I cut the main area up against the house once a week, I typically let the rest grow out for a month. Never used sprays other than flea and tick for my dog’s yard, and never even pulled weeds.
Still, it’s almost all completely homogenous grass. Not sure what species, but it doesn’t grow very high. 3-5 inches. No wildflowers have encroached, no other grasses except clover, not even weeds other than dandelion. The only other thing that grows anywhere is some English ivy that’s pissing me off all over the house. Every time I pull some out and dig up the root, I find more a few days later.
Still, MUCH higher insect, pollinator, and other wildlife activity vs my previous residence. It’s been nice seeing fireflies again, even if it’s still nowhere near what it was when I was a kid.
Our yard is about 3" of top soil on top of basically solid clay. When we moved in a little over a decade ago I tried taking on the dandelions, but I quickly pivoted to planting clover. Now we have tons of the stuff, fewer dandelions despite no chemicals (not that I really mind them anymore), and our yard smells fantastic in mid to late spring when all the clover is in full bloom. Tons and tons of bees, crickets, etc. We re-did a flower bed and intentionally planted swamp milk weed and red crocosmia in it. They look fantastic together and the bees absolutely love it, not to mention the butterflies.
But yeah. About English ivy. Been fighting that stuff for years…
I only mow at the last possible second to not get a fine, has been working really well for my yard. I have seen flowers, corn, and a beautiful assortment of creepers and clovers start taking over the sterile grass. My neighbors neighbor seems to get butthurt. They take care of my direct neighbors yard whom I share a chain link fence with, she loves my vines with the flowers and strange gourds that wind around the fence. Neither of us planted it but the people who tend her yard destroy it 😭if we just let everything happen naturally some very cool things start to crop up. I’ve seen some absolutely massive grasshoppers and a bunch of praying mantis as well. My bee hotel never attracts anything but I’ve seen plenty of bees about which makes me happy.
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I prefer a garden full of grown weeds than a clean grass cutted one. If a weed can grow and prosper without me watering it once a day, I think they deserve the right to be there more than anything my father ever planted on his yard that would die without getting water for 3 days or too much rain water.
Agreed, except thistle plants can go fuck themselves. I rip those out at least once a month and they keep coming back and crowding out the plants I want.
ironically one of the better weeds for pollinators
That figures… I’ll be working to overseed clover next year, so that should help make up for it.
Are you actually growing native plants or do you just not care that you’re growing a massive amount of invasive on what we would call marginal lands?
uhhhh most weeds provide almost zero food for pollinators. literally just as bad as grass.
It looked like that for exactly one summer. Not it’s mixed again. And the lower half of the property is literal wilderness anyway. A mother deer with two fawns likes it a lot. The other plots are also completely mixed, and so large that we just have sheep on there to avoid mowing. Bonus: They’re tame, fluffy, cuddly and warm.
if I didn’t take care of my lawn, I’d have invasive Bermuda grass getting into everything and it would kill all the other plants. I’ve also looked into overseeding with mini clover but I’ve read that it doesn’t tolerate traffic well. open to any suggestions as I’m fighting a losing battle with fescue and the damn Bermuda.
Fescue is amazing grass. I suggest overseeing with an aggressive ryegrass if you really have issues, but just let the Bermuda grass be. Otherwise add in some microclover seed for good measure.
But I thought grass is bad
Monoculture anything is bad. For example, many parks will have tons of trees but if you pay attention you’ll likely on see the same handful of species.
