# Better Homes and Gardens



## Chaska Ñawi

(I couldn't really think of a good title for this thread.)

What surrounds your home?

In most parts of Canada and the U.S. there is an almost indecent obsession with lawns.  Magazines are littered with ads offering various fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides.  We are given to believe that lawns should not contain such offensive items as dandelions or clover, even though the one helps break up the soil and bring minerals to the surface and the other fixes nitrogen.  Many of our rural neighbours own lawn tractors, which allows them to maintain two or three acres of lawn.  Each new section of lawn garnered from woods, hayfield or rough land is a miniature environmental disaster .... multiply them and you have millions of acres of manicured land, useless to most species of life.

In the cities there are pockets of rebellion where gardeners plant meadows instead of lawns .... but many meadow plants, such as milkweed and goldenrod, are often considered noxious weeds and mowed by the municipality.  In some areas, especially where the immigrants are from the Azores or China, you see a burgeoning vegetable and fruit garden instead of lawns.  One thing you do not see is much is walls and fences dividing one lawn and garden from the next.

What is around the houses where you live?  Fences? Lawns? Flowerbeds? Vegetables?  All of the above?


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## tvdxer

Lawns are very popular here, as they are in most of the U.S.  Some out here in this "semi-rural" area have gigantic lawns that I wonder how they manage to mow (and they do, scrupulously).

However, people (such as my family) plant vegetable gardens as well.  Typically not in view of the road, however.


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## Lello4ever

In Italy this culture is not very widespread, as not many families live in a house with a garden ad so on, a lot live in an apartment or a flat. Anyway I think most have lawn with flowers and some trees sometimes (in country houses lemon/orange trees are quite common).


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## cuchuflete

I live in a very small rural village.  Most houses are a few hundred years old, and were built close to the street.
What is typical in front of the houses is a small lawn, with at least one or two very old maple trees or chestnuts or oaks, and often there are evergreen shrubs near the house.  Some have small flower beds. Side and back yards offer endless variety, with everything from vegetable gardens to rusting old school buses and tractors.
Open fields and forests are what's most common.

My own home is an eyesore to some, and an exuberant exception to others, according to their personal taste.
The front yard has the requisite patch of lawn (lots of crab crass, vetch, dandelions, ajuga, violets and other fine weeds) with dozens and dozens of daylilies in all shapes, colors, and heights.  There are old maples and a mountain ashe, and some mock orange bushes.  The back is an acre or more of blackberries, raspberries, and the beginnings of an apple orchard. Of course their is a fine variety of burdock and thistle, wild daisies and wild asters, and lots more daylilies.   All that's really needed to make it nice would be a few hundred more daylilies.



I use no fertilizer or artificial chemicals, as I don't want to poison my well or those of my neighbors.


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## PhilFrEn

Hi all .

I had several home this last years, in 3 different towns, 2 different countries.

I come originally from France, where I used to live almost 20 years in Annecy, a nice town at the feet of the mountains (Alpes). There we have a quite big and pure lake and mountains in the same field of vision, we are almost surrounded in fact ^^. This town owes the title of relatively green town, even if it is less and less true. However, when going a little bit up in the mountains, there you are in a paradise. I've made almost everything "walkable" around, and nature is really a second nature (ha ha) for most of people living over there. Nobody who cares about forests and animals will let a single paper after having pic-nic  or a walk in mountain . That was my life before.

However I lived 3 years in Marseilles, in the south of France. There is 2 things, either you live down town, where dirty streets and cars made a nice couple, or you lived a little bit ouside in the "Calanques", where the nature is protected (officially). Here also is a paradise. You can wlak along, and suddently cross the way of a wild pigs family  (can be dangerous if you try to cuddle the smallest, the parents can...run fast to make you understand the life ). Na jaa very nice.

And now my life is in Bremen, DE. This a perfect example of relatively green town. The town is clean, people go by bike (old, youngs, me... ), even if it is raining most of the time, great. When you want to breath, you go along the river, and there you can ride your bike for hours without being on the road, great. However, what I see from my window in only buildings, not bad or dirty one, but it's not my nice home-town mountains . Life brings you were it wants .

Tschüss, Phil.


PS: sorry I've written a book, don't have to read everything , it also maybe uninteresting.


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## Chaska Ñawi

Getting down to my own home now, it is not unlike Cuchu's description, minus all the daylilies.  Because we're rural, it's surrounded by a patch of Cuchu-esque lawn, ornamented by small holes where the skunks come to dig.  We only have a push-mower, so the lawn is small and the rest of the land is meadow, dotted with ash and sumac thickets.  We break all the rules of Better Homes and Gardens by planting vegetables in the flower beds and flowers in the vegetable beds.  The house sheltered by lilac bushes and old apple and pear trees.  

Our only lawn ornaments are mobile: a flock of chickens and muscovy ducks.  In this part of Ontario, the most popular lawn ornaments are painted plywood cutouts of little boys peeing into the shrubbery, or of little old ladies bending over and showing their slips and saggy drawers.  Black silhouettes of deer and dogs are also popular.  Most people take down their Christmas and Easter decorations sometime in May.

The rusting cars and tractors are more of a rural phenomenom; in the cities they're replaced by rusting hibachis and patio furniture.


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## Etcetera

In Russiancities, lawns surrounding typical blocks of flats are quite rare, although trees are very common. 
And if there's a lawn, or a bed of flowers, it's usually some of the house's inhabitants who spend their free time on growing them. I'm really glad that the number of people who look after their houses' environment grows with every year; a few years ago most people wouldn't give a damn what surrounds their house...
My Mum's aunt lives in a house oh her own in a rural "district" of St Petersburg (it's actually a village, but it's officially considered part of the city). She grows vegetables in her garden - and a lot of flowers, too.


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## Binapesi

In the neighbourhood I live, people have lawns, fruit trees and everytime-green trees in their back-front gardens. Some of them (add my mother) grow vegetables in their gardens. The most common trees are pine, poplar, plum, apple and fig trees. You can also see orange, date palm, pomegranate, grapes .. 

The landscape isn’t very harmonious but they don’t look bad. You find out in a day that a plum tree happens to grow in a corner of your garden.  
  We have ants in our garden. They have a huge nest in the front-garden and they get out in summers. I like watching them move in a smooth way and carry the staff they find along the road.
  Mum likes flowers very much, so the house is surrounded by flowerbeds and flowerpots. Through we don’t live in apartment, it’s easier to be in green.
  In central places, the buildings generally don’t have gardens. There are lawns and trees near the roads and in the parks.
  Countryside is always green anyway.


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## alexacohen

Hello:
In my very rural village there are no lawns. Just wild grass and wild flowers, and whatever non-wild flowers the neighbours like. Roses, specially. 
Lots of fruit trees, cherry trees, apple trees, plums.
Most of us grow a little vegetable garden, too. 
All the properties are walled. They have to, because the wolves and the wild boars would enter our properties if they weren't. 
Almost everyone has ducks, hens, a horse or a pony, and of course dogs and cats.
We have to cross the forest to go to the other scattered small villages inside it. They are very much like mine.

Alexa
Little red riding hood.


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## Silvia B

Lello4ever said:


> In Italy this culture is not very widespread, as not many families live in a house with a garden ad so on, a lot live in an apartment or a flat. Anyway I think most have lawn with flowers and some trees sometimes (in country houses lemon/orange trees are quite common).



I am sorry but that's absolutely fake.
Italy is full of little villages, and they all have green around.
Where I live (Veneto region) almost everyone has his own garden with flowers, trees, or vegetables. 
We are not very used to live in flats and if that happens we find it really hard to live that way.
That's why people usually live in a flat when they get married (to save some money at the beginning) but as soon as possible look for a house.


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## alexacohen

Silvia B said:


> I am sorry but that's absolutely fake.
> Italy is full of little villages, and they all have green around.
> Where I live (Veneto region) almost everyone has his own garden with flowers, trees, or vegetables.
> We are not very used to live in flats and if that happens we find it really hard to live that way.
> That's why people usually live in a flat when they get married (to save some money at the beginning) but as soon as possible look for a house.


Hello:
Excuse me. I do not live in Italy, but I just can't see how can you say something is "fake" simply because it cannot be applied to the particular place where you live. 
I live 1/2 month in Northwestern Spain. Lawns are very difficult to maintain. It rains so much that grass and weeds grow too fast.
The other half month I live in Southeastern Spain. Lawns are very difficult to maintain. There are water restrictions, and you can't waste water that is precious. 
I can say both that here in Spain we don't have lawns because we have too much water, and that here in Spain we don't have lawns because we have very little water.
Both are true and I have not moved from the same country.
Each one of us gives his/her opinion according to own experiences. They may contradict yours, but they are not necessarily "fake".
Alexa


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## Kajjo

German situation: Many houses have small lawns in front, but not all excessively cared for, many combined with flowers, shrubs, bushes. Back gardens vary greatly, mostly with a lot of shrubs and trees, some lawn, many flowers. Some people grow vegetables and have orchards, but not as often as some 30 years ago. All gardens are _clearly separated _from their neighbors by fences, walls or hedges, no trespassing possible or wanted, not even for dogs, cats somewhat tolerated.

I just design my new garden and we will have only paving, shrubs and bushes, some flowers in the front, a lawn to play on in the back, combined with a lot of bushes and trees on the periphery. Mainly optimised for evergreens and easy care.

Kajjo


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## Calamitintin

I live in a quite small city in France, and all I see is plants, flowers, vegetables and trees everywhere. Lawn is just to connect the vegetable corner to the flowers one . For those who don't benefit from the joy of a garden, there is still the opportunity to grow flowers at the window!
In Germany where I live, there a back garden, with only lawn (but we are only temporary renters so maybe it's not a good example, we don't grow any plant). But, the walls surrounding are extremely hig, 3 or 4m...Far enough to protect us against everything (but noisy birds ).
++
Cal


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## Austinese

I live in central Texas and reside in a house with a lawn in the front and back. The lawn is populated by a type of grass called St. Augustine which is a variety that can tolerate the hot, humid climate that we have here. My lawn is small by American standards, but I have no problem with this. Substantial effort is required to maintain grass, and the larger the lawn, the more effort one must expend. Grass must be fertilized, weeded, watered, and mowed. One also has to worry about trimming back trees on your property, because many varieties of grass are not shade-tolerant -- my grass needs a minimum of four hours of direct sunlight per day or it will slowly die out. Another worry is soil compression caused by people walking too often in particular areas of the yard.

I mow my lawn myself, and one can buy a decent mower for $200 US. The main expense for me is watering the lawn, which can amount to several hundred dollars in extra expense during the 4-5 very hot months that we have here.

Bottom line -- if you see a middle-aged American who looks distraught, there's a good chance that he is worrying about his lawn.


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## Musical Chairs

My house only has a fence on two sides. One side is open to the street and the driveway, and one is just trees. My family doesn't do much to keep the lawn very neat. It's just mowed once in a while and there aren't many weeds. One of my neighbors does go out of his way to make sure his lawn looks very nice, and I often see him outside doing SOMETHING (spreading fertilizer, trimming things, etc) and his grass is like carpet. It's nice I guess, but I think it's enough to have it look decent.

My house in Japan just has rocks around it, but there are gardens on two sides (not vegetables/fruits). The plants mostly take care of themselves. Other houses in my village have rice fields in front of them or around them. My grandparents grow vegetables/fruits (cucumbers, tomatoes, figs, etc) in front of their other house.


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## Silvia B

alexacohen said:


> Hello:
> Excuse me. I do not live in Italy, but I just can't see how can you say something is "fake" simply because it cannot be applied to the particular place where you live.
> I live 1/2 month in Northwestern Spain. Lawns are very difficult to maintain. It rains so much that grass and weeds grow too fast.
> The other half month I live in Southeastern Spain. Lawns are very difficult to maintain. There are water restrictions, and you can't waste water that is precious.
> I can say both that here in Spain we don't have lawns because we have too much water, and that here in Spain we don't have lawns because we have very little water.
> Both are true and I have not moved from the same country.
> Each one of us gives his/her opinion according to own experiences. They may contradict yours, but they are not necessarily "fake".
> Alexa



For the same reason I wrote. I read that "in Italy" (general) "people do not have gardens etc etc"
This was a general phrase which was not true. To explain that I said that "where I live" (not everywhere) things are different.
Right?


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## TRG

I live in a relatively new subdivision (single family housing development) and all the houses are nicely landscaped with ornamental shrubs (azalea mostly) and good sized lawns which are mostly of a grass called centipede.  Nearly everyone waters the grass during the hottest months, but water here is not expensive.  I would not describe people here as being indecently obsessive  about their lawns.  After all, a well landscaped house is aesthetically very pleasing and the expense is not exorbitant.  If someone in my neighborhood were to decide to not maintain their lawn they would, at some point, be called to account for their behavior by the neighbors.  When you buy property here you must agree to some standards of upkeep, so if you decided to, say, just not mow your grass at all anymore, it would not be well tolerated.  Also, you cannot park your boat in the front driveway and just leave it there, and if you want to put up a fence, you must get permission from the neighbor hood architectural committee.  It must sound like we are the "Home and Garden Nazis", but it's really quite nice.


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## Silvia B

TRG said:


> I live in a relatively new subdivision (single family housing development) and all the houses are nicely landscaped with ornamental shrubs (azalea mostly) and good sized lawns which are mostly of a grass called centipede.  Nearly everyone waters the grass during the hottest months, but water here is not expensive.  I would not describe people here as being indecently obsessive  about their lawns.  After all, a well landscaped house is aesthetically very pleasing and the expense is not exorbitant.  If someone in my neighborhood were to decide to not maintain their lawn they would, at some point, be called to account for their behavior by the neighbors.  When you buy property here you must agree to some standards of upkeep, so if you decided to, say, just not mow your grass at all anymore, it would not be well tolerated.  Also, you cannot park your boat in the front driveway and just leave it there, and if you want to put up a fence, you must get permission from the neighbor hood architectural committee.  It must sound like we are the "Home and Garden Nazis", but it's really quite nice.




It is almost the same here with new houses. You must follow some "rules" to keep the standard that eveybody requires. And, fx, you cannot put out cloths to dry in the front of the house, or hang out awnings if the others don't etc.


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## gurseal

alexacohen said:


> Hello:
> In my very rural village there are no lawns. Just wild grass and wild flowers, and whatever non-wild flowers the neighbours like. Roses, specially.
> Lots of fruit trees, cherry trees, apple trees, plums.
> Most of us grow a little vegetable garden, too.
> *All the properties are walled. They have to, because the wolves and the wild boars would enter our properties if they weren't.*
> Almost everyone has ducks, hens, a horse or a pony, and of course dogs and cats.
> We have to cross the forest to go to the other scattered small villages inside it. They are very much like mine.
> 
> Alexa
> Little red riding hood.


There are woods to the east and northeast of our grassy yard, and the property is not walled. In winter, we have to clear away the underbrush and overhanging tree branches at the edge of the neighboring woods. If this is not done, the edge of the woods could serve as hiding place for creepy, crawly things such as snakes that bite and are venomous.  I'm glad that I don't have to mow the lawn during the warm months. The wooded area makes me paranoid. There could be a black bear lurking when the lawn is being mowed. Or a big cat or python that escaped from its owner. You never know what kinds of animals are kept by the owners of the immediate or outlying areas.


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## cirrus

Lawns are also a national obsession in the UK.  Here in London a walled garden is an ideal and increasingly more and more of us are going down the organic route. Mine has to deal with bulbs coming through it each spring, not to mention the dog widdling on it every day - as result I had to buy a particular sort of grass supposedly up to the challenge of daily mistreatment by dogs.  It makes me realise I too have become mildly obsessive about it - implying Galicia is too wet for lawns made me raise my eye brows. For me I would have said it was ideal.


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## sokol

In Austria:

- Rural areas, small villages: the classical thing would be a meadow surrounding the house, with apple and pear and cherry trees and whatnot, and a small area reserved for a vegetable garden and some flowers too. However this is becoming rare already and even in the countryside the 'urban' kind of garden is spreading, that is:

- Urban or semi-urban areas, insofar as they consist of houses where only one or a few families live, usually have a garden surrounded by a fence, a wall, whatever, and inside this fence you may find all sorts of vegetation but mostly lawns and flowers and trees not bearing any edible fruits. But there are also:

- 'Schrebergarten' settlements where (usually) people living in big housing schemes (with several or even hundreds of families living in them) are taking on a lease on a very small plot of land; they build a hut there and grow vegetables and fruit, or many also just grow a lawn and flowers there. In towns where this is allowed (it is in Vienna; it isn't in others like Linz) many people even move in on their leased piece of land and give up their city flat.

- As for the big housing schemes, sky-scrapers where hundreds or thousands of people live in: those (at least the newer ones) are usually surrounded by lawns, flower-beds and trees, and those usually are not surrounded by fences.


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## tvdxer

To expand upon what I said well over a year ago...

Lawns are of course an American obsession.  Given that we are largely a suburban nation, with most households being surrounded by a plat of land of variable size, this is no surprise.  And many people here do take their lawn very seriously - there are a ridiculous amount of lawn cleaning products out there, fertilizers, chemicals, etc, though I would guess that the majority of people don't actually use them.  Rather I think most are satisfied with keeping their lawn short, and if they live in a dry climate, watered.  To mow their lawn, most people seem to own some sort of mower, usually motorized.  At times they are even sit-down carts (especially in more rural areas like the one I live in), sometimes called "riding lawnmowers" or "lawn tractors".  

Some people also intensively landscape their yards (which seems to be more common in Europe, where land ownership appears to be rarer or at least more difficult), planting flowers, bushes, vegetable gardens, and the like and installing monuments and little ponds and leaving very little space for plain lawn, but this is quite rare compared to simple lawns.  However, it looks much better in my opinion.  My guess is that lawns are easier to manage.  Also, something should be said of those who neglect their lawn and allow the grass to grow wild and high.  This is considered very rude to neighbors who actually mow their lawns.  Sometimes it indicates a house that isn't being occupied nor cared for.  

Maintaining a lawn has certain advantages.  Insect populations near one's house seem to be reduced, at least in the country (rural areas).  They're great for kids - I (and I would assume the majority of Americans in general) have great childhood memories of playing sports and other children's games on mowed grass.  And there's something special to a lot of people about the smell and healthy, green appearance of a freshly mowed lawn.


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## jinti

Here in New York City, a lot of private homes have small (very small) front and back yards.  

Some people plant gardens over the entire yard so they don't have to worry about cutting the grass or where to store a lawn mower for just a few square meters of lawn.  

Others cement over their yards (and some then follow up by painting the cement green.  Truly bizarre.).  The paved-over yards can then be used for parking or for contemplating the fact that the homeowner doesn't have to spend time on lawn care.


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## kirsitn

tvdxer said:


> And there's something special to a lot of people about the smell and healthy, green appearance of a freshly mowed lawn.



Apart from concrete, there's hardly anything that's more boring and sterile than a lawn in my opinion. One billion identical plants that need constant attention to look decent - and they don't even serve as food for butterflies... What a waste of space! 

I see the functional aspect of having a certain amount of lawn for playing/lying in the sun etc, but the idea of spending gigantic areas on nothing but grass is just depressing. My ideal garden would have a small patch of grass with a sitting area, but the rest would be filled with lots of different flowers, edible stuff, bushes/trees and preferably also a patch of wildflowers to keep the local wildlife happy.

Edit: Forgot to add the cultural aspect... I'm probably more interested in gardening than the average Norwegian, but most Norwegians who have a garden tend to have a mixture of lawn and flowers. You rarely see gardens with nothing but lawn - except in the countryside, but then it's not really a lawn, but rather just a mixture of long grass and wildflowers.


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## Cheesee = Madness

I live direcly on the edge of a golf course (Its in town surrounded by houses, and most of the people in the houses own memberships) so people here are indecently obsessive  about their lawns, cutting them constantly.


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## tvdxer

kirsitn said:


> Apart from concrete, there's hardly anything that's more boring and sterile than a lawn in my opinion. One billion identical plants that need constant attention to look decent - and they don't even serve as food for butterflies... What a waste of space!
> 
> I see the functional aspect of having a certain amount of lawn for playing/lying in the sun etc, but the idea of spending gigantic areas on nothing but grass is just depressing. My ideal garden would have a small patch of grass with a sitting area, but the rest would be filled with lots of different flowers, edible stuff, bushes/trees and preferably also a patch of wildflowers to keep the local wildlife happy.
> 
> Edit: Forgot to add the cultural aspect... I'm probably more interested in gardening than the average Norwegian, but most Norwegians who have a garden tend to have a mixture of lawn and flowers. You rarely see gardens with nothing but lawn - except in the countryside, but then it's not really a lawn, but rather just a mixture of long grass and wildflowers.



I agree with your preferences.  My uncle, for example, barely has any land at all, and that which he does have he plants with beautiful flowers - right in front of the sidewalk.  However, I was explaining why I think Americans like their lawns so much (and pointing out an advantage I saw in them).


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## katie_here

There are different types of gardens here, from really large ones, down to window boxes. There is even the phrase of an English Country Garden!. 

We had a spate of TV programmes about gardens and how to do them and a lot of peeople decided to dig up their lawns and put down stones, wooden decking and bark chippings.   Creating outside eating areas and water features.

I have a lawn and for the most part, it's pretty much in tune with nature, I have clover, daisies and dandelions all growing in their time.  I also have few trees including Apple, Pear and Cherry trees. 

I think basically our gardens are dictated by fashion and the fashion is whatever gardening show is on TV.    Every year on TV there is the Royal Horticultural Society's show, which tends to set the trend for those who are fashionable about their gardens.


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