IS YOUR LUSH LAWN KILLING MOTHER NATURE?.

• Author: Hightower, Jim

Growing up, I learned a lot of valuable lessons from the example set by my OF Texas Daddy: a strong commitment to the common good, a healthy work ethic, and a lively sense of humor. But there's one thing about him I've rejected: his determination to have a perfect yard of thick, verdant, St. Augustine grass.

Lord, how he worked at it, laying sod, watering, fertilizing, watering, weeding, watering, spreading pesticides, watering, mowing, more watering. But it was too hot, too dry, and too infested with blight, bugs, slugs, and such. He was up against Texas nature, and he just couldn't win.

So I've gone in the opposite direction, slowly nurturing a natural yard of native trees, drought-tolerant plants, flowering perennials, low-maintenance upkeep, and a general live-with-nature ethic in my little landscape. I'm hardly alone in my maverick rejection of the uniform green-grass imperative.

Sometimes little things can be a big deal. In considering ways to protect Mother Earth from the global environmental rampages by us humans, look out your window. In many cities and most suburbs, chances are, you're looking at a lawn--a grass-carpeted yard that looks almost the same as the one next door, creating an aesthetic that is repeated, block after block. Of course, some see a lush expanse of green grass to be the ultimate in landscaping beauty, and there are even those who consider a well-manicured lawn to be a measure of moral character. But at what price?

Beauty and piety aside, the spread and intensification of lawn culture has become an environmental extravagance that is already unsustainable in whole sections of our country, and it adds up to a steadily increasing burden on the Earth's essential resources. While turf grass itself looks natural, planting and keeping it alive year-round across thousands of square miles is not.

And there's nothing "green" about the deluge of pesticides, fertilizers, growth stimulants--and endless rivers of water--applied again and again, yard after yard, trying to keep each of these plots verdant. And--oh, the irony!--their "green" includes eliminating bees, doodlebugs, butterflies, and, well, nature. One statistic tells the tale: Americans use more than seventy million pounds of pesticide annually to maintain their lawns. That's ten times more poison per acre than all of America's farmers use on their crops.

Just glance around you, and...