Sources: Why the American Lawn Really Sucks
Claims:
1: When European Colonists arrived in the new world, they encountered a thin selection of cereals:
Cronon, 1983
Hussey, 1974
Robbins, 2007
2: Livestock from the old world expects old crops; Annual Grasses were nutritionally weak and needed to be replanted.
Cronon, 1983
Scholz, 1975
A map of Virigina, n.d
3: Most Common North American Turfgrass Species.
Robbins, 2007
4: Unintended weeds also spread (Couchgrass, Knotgrass, and the Dandelion).
Robbins, 2007
5: Poa Pratensis (Perennial Cool Season Grass High Yield, technically an invasive, most popular grasses in the United States).
Stier et al., 2020
Poa Pratensis, n.d
Dürr et al., 2005
6: Turfgrasses coevolved with grazing mammals. Grass anatomy.
Robbins, 2007
Stier et al., 2020
7: Grazing mammals grit hypothesis.
Jardine et al., 2012
8: Grass outcompetes plants that have to grow from the top.
Robbins, 2007
Stier et al., 2020
9: Monocultured grass needs to be trimmed if you want to keep it green and keep it at a manageable height.
Steinberg, 2006
10: Involuntary Servitude for Lawns.
Monticello, n.d
11. Monticello Location, Thomas Jefferson, Architectural Masterpiece, Single Handedly designed by President of United States.
Monticello, n.d
12. Monticello is the location of one of the first American lawns.
Micsak, 2007
Monticello, n.d
13. Formalized idea of a lawn was the brainchild of Andre Notre.
Thompson (2006)
Crew (2016)
14. Jefferson would travel through England as the American minister for France and see William Kent's work.
Micsak, 2007
15. Who is William Kent?
Bassin, 1979
BellisVintage, 2016
Brownell, 1989
Claremont Fan Court, 2014
Mckellar, 2015
Victoria and Albert Museum, 2014
William Kent Landscape Garden Designer, n.d
16. William Kent and another man [Capability Brown]…
Wild, 2013
17. The most important feature that Kent largely popularized was a Ha-ha.
William Kent’s English landscape revolution at Rousham, 2014
Ha-Ha – Number One London, n.d.
18. Ha-ha
What is a ha-ha, n.d
Monticello, n.d
19. Years of incremental improvements.
Steinberg, 2006
20. After World War 2, that the American lawn really began (GI Bill)
Steinberg, 2006
Jenkins, 1994
21. Riverside setbacks.
The Planning Concept for Riverside, n.d
22. Setbacks United States vs European Alternative.
Vialard et al., 2021
23. Spend any time in Northern Europe, and you'll be overwhelmed by large green billowing fields of pasture.
Scholz, 1975
Stier et al., 2020
Robbins, 2007
24. Difference between natural and naturalized.
Stier et al., 2020
25. New grass requires new interventions.
Steinberg, 2006
26. Large scale efficiency gains in the landscaping industry.
Steinberg, 2006
27. Pesticides irrigation contracts.
Stier et al., 2020
28. Leaves are actually desirable for a lawn.
Steinberg, 2006
29. Leaf blowers have engines that go thousands of revolutions per minute 3x the speed of a car engine.
Gustafsson, 2006
Volckens et al., 2008
Walker et al., 2016
30. Nitrogen fertilizers algae bloom.
Paerl, 2014
31. You can be legally fined for not mowing your lawn.
Archive, 2022
Can You Be Fined for Not Mowing Your Lawn, 2022
Can You Be Fined For Not Mowing Your Lawn? - Lawn Holic, 2022
Jason, 2021
Mashnitski, 2012
Second federal court upholds $30K in fines for Dunedin homeowner’s tall grass. (n.d.)
32. Lead Arsenate brain damage.
Shavit, 2010
33. Neonicotinoids.
Science, n.d
Milman, 2022
34. Carbaryl.
Carbaryl—An overview, n.d
2007/344/EC, 2007
California to restrict consumer use of the pesticide carbaryl, n.d
ECHA, n.d
35. Pesticide tradeoff for native ecoystem and agriculture
Sharma et al., 2019
Citations:
Cronon, W. (1983). Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England. Hill and Wang.
Hussey, J. S. (1974). Some Useful Plants of Early New England. Economic Botany, 28(3), 311–337.
Robbins, P. (2007). Lawn People: How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are. Temple University Press.
A Map of Virginia. With a Description of the Countrey, the Commodities, People, Government and Religion. Written by Captaine Smith, sometimes Governour of the Countrey. “A Map of Virginia. With a Description of the Countrey, the Commodities, People, Government and Religion.” Travels and Works of Captain John Smith, President of Virginia, and Admiral of New England, 1580-1631. (n.d.). Retrieved September 15, 2022, from http://www.virtualjamestown.org/exist/cocoon/jamestown/fha/J1008
Scholz, H. (1975). Grassland Evolution in Europe. TAXON, 24(1), 81–90. https://doi.org/10.2307/1219003
Stier, J. C., Horgan, B. P., & Bonos, S. A. (2020). Turfgrass: Biology, Use, and Management. John Wiley & Sons.
Poa pratensis. (n.d.). Retrieved September 15, 2022, from https://www.fs.usda.gov/database/feis/plants/graminoid/poapra/all.html
Dürr, G., Kunelius, H., Drapeau, R., McRae, K., Fillmore, S. A. E., Mcrae, R., & Fillmore, K. (2005). Herbage yield and composition of Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.) cultivars under two harvest systems. Canadian Journal of Plant Science, 85. https://doi.org/10.4141/P04-121
Jardine, P. E., Janis, C. M., Sahney, S., & Benton, M. J. (2012). Grit not grass: Concordant patterns of early origin of hypsodonty in Great Plains ungulates and Glires. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 365–366, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2012.09.001
Steinberg, T. (2006). American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn. W. W. Norton & Company.
Micsak, R. (2007). A Comparative Study of Thomas Jefferson?s Travels to England and Their Influences on Monticello. https://ecommons.cornell.edu/handle/1813/7887
Monticello—History of Early American Landscape Design. (n.d.). Retrieved September 15, 2022, from https://heald.nga.gov/mediawiki/index.php/Monticello
Thompson, I. (2006). The Sun King’s Garden: Louis XIV, Andre Le Notre and the Creation of the Gardens of Versailles. Bloomsbury Publishing USA.
Crew, J. (2016). The Gardens of Versailles: Landscaping a Political Facade. IUSB Undergraduate Research Journal of History, 6, 21–26.
Bassin, J. (1979). The English Landscape Garden in the Eighteenth Century: The Cultural Importance of an English Institution. Albion, 11(1), 15–32. https://doi.org/10.2307/4048315
BellisVintage (Director). (2016, May 31). William Kent’s Elysium: Rousham House and Garden. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4pS-NdLL7A
Brownell, M. R. (1989). Review of William Kent, Landscape Garden Designer: An Assessment and Catalogue of His Designs. Architects in Perspective. [Review of Review of William Kent, Landscape Garden Designer: An Assessment and Catalogue of His Designs. Architects in Perspective., by J. D. Hunt]. Eighteenth-Century Studies, 23(1), 83–87. https://doi.org/10.2307/2738625
Claremont Fan Court (Director). (2014, June 20). Garden History Lecture 2010—William Kent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWxAaxUNnB8
Mckellar, E. (2015). Review: William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain and William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 74(1), 128–129. https://doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2015.74.1.128
Victoria and Albert Museum (Director). (2014, February 24). William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vogpr7l_gLc
William Kent Landscape Garden Designer: An Assessment and Catalogue of His Designs - ProQuest. (n.d.). Retrieved September 15, 2022, from https://www.proquest.com/openview/03fa30e0ec1cd6d801fa5c5d50e9c5cb/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1818121
Wild, A. M. (2013). Capability Brown, the Aristocracy, and the Cultivation of the Eighteenth-Century British Landscaping Industry. Enterprise & Society, 14(2), 237–270. https://doi.org/10.1093/es/kht018
What is a ha-ha? (n.d.). National Trust. Retrieved September 15, 2022, from https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/what-is-a-ha-ha
William Kent’s English landscape revolution at Rousham. (2014, March 21). Financial Times.
Ha-Ha – Number One London. (n.d.). Retrieved September 15, 2022, from http://numberonelondon.net/2010/10/ha-ha/
Jenkins, V. (1994). The Lawn: A History of an American Obsession. Smithsonian.
11-1-4-2: THE PLANNING CONCEPT FOR RIVERSIDE: (n.d.). American Legal Publishing Corporation. Retrieved September 15, 2022, from https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/riversideil/latest/riverside_il/0-0-0-9181
Vialard, A., Wir-Konas, A., & Araldi, A. (2021). Frontages and setbacks: A comparison of English and North American suburban houses. ISUF 2020 Virtual Conference Proceedings. https://doi.org/10.26051/0D-342B-VKNV
Gustafsson, R. U. K. (2006). A Practical Application to Reduce Exhausts Emissions on a Two-Stroke Engine with a Tuned Exhaust Pipe (SAE Technical Paper No. 2006-32–0054). SAE International. https://doi.org/10.4271/2006-32-0054
Volckens, J., Olson, D. A., & Hays, M. D. (2008). Carbonaceous species emitted from handheld two-stroke engines. Atmospheric Environment, 42(6), 1239–1248. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2007.10.032
Walker, E., Banks, J. L., Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard School of Public Health, & Harvard School of Public Health. (2016). Two-Stroke Engines in Landscape Maintenance: A Growing Public Health Problem. INTER-NOISE and NOISE-CON Congress and Conference Proceedings, 252(2), 99–105.
Archive, V. A., & feed, G. author R. (2022, January 13). Judge fines cancer patient, 72, for overgrown lawn: ‘I’d give jail time if I could.’ New York Post. https://nypost.com/2022/01/13/judge-fines-cancer-patient-72-too-weak-to-mow-lawn/
Can You Be Fined for Not Mowing Your Lawn? (2022, June 27). The Lawn Mower Guru. https://lawnmowerguru.com/can-you-be-fined-for-not-mowing-your-lawn/
Can You Be Fined For Not Mowing Your Lawn? - Lawn Holic. (2022, June 26). https://lawnholic.com/can-you-be-fined-for-not-mowing-your-lawn/
Jaoson, M. (2021, November 3). Is It Illegal To Not Mow Your Lawn- Do You Know The Law? https://www.insidetheyard.com/is-it-illegal-to-not-mow-your-lawn/
Mashnitski, A. (2012, June 18). $1,000 Fine For Not Mowing Your Lawn. FindLaw. https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/law-and-life/1000-fine-for-not-mowing-your-lawn/
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