The 2023 Ugliest Lawn Competition winner has a horribly ugly lawn – that is environmentally friendly.
In October 2023, we wrote about the Ugliest Lawn Competition, which encourages homeowners to save water and stop maintaining their lawns. The Ugliest Lawn Competition stemmed from the irrigation bans in Gotland, Sweden, that prevented residents from watering their lawns. It has since grown to include submissions from the USA, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Croatia, and Australia.
Ugly lawn submissions for 2023 closed in December, and the winner has recently been announced. The Ugliest Lawn Competition winner was Kathleen Murray from Sandford, Tasmania. Katheen’s lawn was chosen because it really highlighted water conservation. Kathleen’s lawn had deep, dry divots that had been created by three wild bandicoots. Bandicoots are small to medium-sized, terrestrial, largely nocturnal marsupials native to Australia.
Kathleen’s lawn also featured plants that had been shriveled brown and had no sign of watering. Not watering her lawn is not only a good way to save money but also important to conserve extra water for her family. Katheen lives in an area where there is no main water. She collects rainwater and depends on water delivered by a tanker, which can take up to two weeks to arrive. In any case, she is not wasting water on her lawn. Katheen was awarded a diploma and a recycled t-shirt with the text “Proud owner of The World’s Ugliest Lawn.”
The Ugliest Lawn Competition is a fun way to encourage people to take climate action by literally not doing anything. The competition also allows society to move away from the well-manicured, water-intensive, green lawns and make these areas more climate-friendly.
Maintaining lawns consumes more than 3 trillion gallons of water a year and 59 million pounds of pesticides, which can leach into the soil, contaminate water sources, harm local ecosystems, and pose health risks to humans and pets. And if you live in areas where water isn’t accessible all the time, it’s just not worth it.
Lawns also reduce local biodiversity because they limit habitat and food sources for wildlife. Many critters seek refuge in tall grasses, and this could quickly be wiped out by a lawn mower. Lawns, especially in urban areas, may contribute to the urban heat island effect, where vast expanses of closely mowed grass absorb and retain heat, leading to elevated temperatures in surrounding areas.
The Ugliest Lawn Competition is an extreme example of how we can eliminate lawns. While we should normalize leaving a lawn to its natural form, there are several ways you can convert your grassy lawn. Here are a few ideas:
- Plant drought-resistant plants. These are plants that can survive during long periods without water. Some examples include succulents like aloe vera, agave, and cacti, as well as lavender, Russian sage, yarrow, and ornamental grasses. Check which plants would work the best in your area.
- Plant native plants. These are plants that are native to your area and will help attract local wildlife and pollinators. They are also well-adapted to your climate and require limited water.
- Convert your lawns to a vegetable or produce garden. Not only will you attract pollinators, but you will be able to consume what you eat.
- Create a rock garden. A rock garden, also known as a rockery or alpine garden, is a type of garden design that incorporates rocks, stones, and often other natural elements like gravel, along with a variety of plants. This is great if you don’t have time for lawn maintenance.
We can adapt our gardens and move away from lawns in many ways. As the Ugliest Lawn Competition continues to grow in popularity, it may become the new normal for people to leave their lawns in their natural state or convert them to something that will reduce resources and benefit ecosystems and biodiversity.
I understand the argument against watering lawn too much but getting rid of all of it or not water it at all is causing it’s own huge problems as well as I will explain below and my frustration with all of this.
I can’t help but wonder why starving the vegetation around your home which often includes both the grass as well as plants, trees etc.. from a regular drink during a warming climate is more important than humans focusing on our own waste (and the support of it) of water on a daily basis? Cars being washed regularly, corporations bottling water, and even more of it by adding sugar/flavors to it and selling it in bottlings made with fossil fuels, creating objects of short term consumption, all while people have stopped watering the life around their homes and then we wonder why when an ice storm(another fun part of climate chaos) drops our trees onto our homes and/or businesses, or forest fires burn hotter and take everything with it, even metals. These are the same trees, bushes, vegetation that due to human behavior are getting a lot less water from increased climate temps and massive evaporation rates compared with years past. Also the same trees/vegetation (flora) that prevent overheating of the earth beneath them and provide shade for us, lower energy bills in summer, which for lower income people is essential to not become homeless. I agree that where feasible lawns should be minimized, and not managed with pesticides on anything should be the rule, only mulch to feed plants, trees etc. But most people in the Pacific Norwest, Oregon, have beds of local plants and trees around their homes and businesses that help urban wildlife are natural to the area (or like us ‘invasives’, have become a part of our communities) and provide ground cover which is really important as we know from understand the benefits of regenerative agriculture. Most people water all of those plants together with one sprinkler (other than the wealthier folks) that is placed in the center of the lawn (which was created by massive corporations who build the development that required lawns in the development). So, while no longer watering their lawns, we are seeing a mass die off of trees, shrubs and ground cover and can be sure that while this die off is occurring and heating up our urban spaces, water is continuing to be used to create useless things that aren’t good for us to drink, eat or buy for entertainment, while there little to no requirements or pressure for this to end or be more sustainable in terms of water use.
So while so many of our cities lose the plants and trees due to less watering or campaigns that don’t consider the entire picture of our actions, we really should focus on more on systemic(Corp./consumption) and accountable ways to decrease water consumption. This short sightedness will continue to impact nature (all of it). Grass is still ground cover, having less of this type would help (diversification)but when alive it still keeps less particulate matter from getting into our air particularly in hot dry summers and capture carbon. This focus on not sharing water with the nature around us will never make sense, unless you literally have only enough water to survive, but what then about the nature around us (invasive types or not) they still play a role in keeping more carbon in the ground, more oxygen and less particulate matter in the air, more moisture and coolness for the soil/microbes, hydrological cycle, which we can’t want to lose. When the soil gets too dry for too long, and it is underneath the lawn that surrounds a lovely big tree, even if you try to water just the tree, the soil cannot absorb the water, it must have regular soft sprinkles on the ground all around the roots for the soil to eventually be able to absorb enough water to provide the tree enough to stay healthy and what about those microorganisms in the soil? They too must get enough water to survive or you will (and we have) create desertification in our yards in our communities and across the planet.
Let’s come up with actions to give up more water for the nature around us and ask corporations to do the same. Mental health also requires being able to look outside and see something that gives you hope, that provides the gifts of viewing life on our planet, even at the micro level. We should focus more on giving up activities and behaviors to minimize our societal water use, specifically to ensure that the nature around can survive the hottest months of the year because it is imperative to our mental and physical well being. Also, in places like the Pacific Northwest, rain in the winter and sun in the summer =grass growing wildly, just as meadows do in places where there are less trees around and have edible and beautiful wildflowers with the grasses which can flourish. How about planting wildflowers and plants that produce edibles like berries, herbs and food crops and digging up sections of lawn to do so (because eradicating lawn completely is very difficult here without using damaging chemicals) and many people can’t afford to get help to take out their lawn which is a huge task depending on the size of the lot and caring for what else is living currently within it. Here’s some information on mitigating heat islands to check out:
-Urban Heat Islands-https://www.epa.gov/heatislands/using-trees-and-vegetation-reduce-heat-islands
-Grass as a heat island mitagator-https://nevadacurrent.com/2022/09/19/removing-grass-may-increase-urban-heat-study-finds/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S161886671200061
-Diversifying lawns/grass with other low grow ground cover to increase cooling and biodiversity in urban areas.