Lawn grass is one of the most common plant species in the world. The US, for example, grows four times more lawn grass than corn. In anthropology there is this half-joking idea that wheat domesticated humans. By now we could claim that lawn grass has domesticated humans. Even worse: lawn grass has parasitized humans. Why? A lot of work, water, resources and maintenance goes into lawns and they aren’t even particularly useful to us, like wheat or corn. Well, lawns do provide some benefits, they reduce urban heat (plus there is nothing nicer than green islands in asphalt jungles) and they help take a tiny amount of carbon dioxide out of the air. However, planting bushes or trees would be so much more efficient for this purpose. Let’s face it, the net effect of lawns is an environmental disaster rather than a benefit. Lawns are the number one irrigated “crop” in many parts of the Western world, using higher amounts of water per acre than rice. And this isn’t where our sad story ends: lawn maintenance incurs huge environmental costs (e.g. lawn-mowers) and lawns take away valuable resources from bees, birds and our impoverished fauna in general. Keeping large lawns comes close to committing an environmental crime. So, why do people keep lawns?
Ever since I was a kid I was astonished by people’s OCD-like relationships with their lawns. Why did it have to be so clean-cut? Why did people start their lawn-mower each Saturday almost simultaneously? When you heard the first sound/noise of a lawn mower, you could be sure that soon a second one, third one, etc. would follow. I freely admit it: I am a lazy bugger when it comes to gardening. I can’t be bothered to mow the lawn more than once a month and even then I am not particularly conscientious about it (risking some disapproving looks from my neighbours, who keep their lawn spotlessly clean). A friend of mine told me that a neighbour once asked her if she knew what a lawn-mower is when the grass started growing too high. Why are some people so obsessed with lawns whereas others like me don’t care or even loathe them. Don’t get me wrong, I love lawns in urban parks, but I don’t see their point in the countryside or suburbs.
Closely shorn grass lawns first emerged in 17th century England at the homes of large, wealthy landowners. Basically, they were a status symbol: look here we are so rich, we own so much land that we don’t need to cultivate cereals or we don’t need it for our sheep or cattle. So, a lawn was what my favourite economist Thorstein Veblen conspicuous consumption. Well, of course, a huge lawn also meant that you could afford a gardener. Considering the cost of property nowadays, this effect is even larger and before the invention of lawn robots, the lawn was also a sign of conspicuous leisure (the larger the lawn the more time you needed to invest in it). Of course, as status symbols have shifted, lawns aren’t the number one status symbol anymore and lawns are more a sign of conformism than wealth nowadays, but all told, lawn care is big business in the United States, with Americans spending about $76 billion a year on their yards.
However, this still does not explain why some people like me care so little about lawns. Before the www came along I was an avid reader of magazines, all kinds of magazines: news, politics, history, computers, and even motorcycles. However, whenever I came across gardening magazines I was dumbfounded by the sheer number of different magazines on offer, jealous because for my own interests there was often nothing to be found. WHSmith (UK) currently has 13 different gardening magazines with titles such as Amateur Gardening, BBC Gardeners' World, Kitchen Garden, Modern Gardens and Garden News. I have never ever read even a single one. Nor have I ever planted anything at all.
There is an interesting article about gardening and personality on 16Personalities “How Does Your Garden Grow? Personality Type and Gardening Style”. I was not surprised that INTPs and INFPs (my personality type) are the least likely to have a green thumb (true). So who does?
Executives (ESTJs) are firm believers in keeping up appearances, especially in the garden. It’s likely that they value impeccable landscaping and a nice variety of well-maintained flowers and ornamentals. If they have food crops, they’re likely to prioritize a good harvest.
Altruistic, generous, and community-oriented, Consuls (ESFJs) are likely to create gardens that are beautiful, inviting spaces. They are the most confident green thumbs of all the personality types, and they love to help others improve their gardening skills.
I won’t be going through all 16 MBTI personality types here. Suffice it to say that judging J-types tend to enjoy gardening much more than perceiving P-types. Anybody familiar with MBTI will have a hunch as to why this may be so: gardening requires a lot of planning and routine work, which is exactly the strength of J types. I have argued that the P/J distinction in MBTI represents the evolutionary difference between nomadism (P) and sedentism (J). In particular SJ types seem to be best at gardening according to the article. I have argued that SJ types are evolutionary horticulturalist/farmer types whose personalities are adapted precisely to this kind of subsistence mode. In the Big 5 inventory these farmer types are particularly high in conscientiousness and agreeableness: precisely your nice neighbours with the impeccably short-cut grass.
Now, even though I personally hate gardening, I have nothing against people who love it. On the contrary, my wife loves gardening and it’s a wonderful hobby that relaxes her and provides us with fresh veggies and fruits. However, I think it’s high time to rethink lawns. Just because they are omnipresent and we have this conformist tendency doesn’t mean they have to be there. In fact, I think the world would be better off without them. It may seem such a radical idea for most people out there, I guess, but the world did fine without lawns until recently. Lawns are the epitome of our desire to control nature rather than live with nature, but it is a desire that comes at a high price, not merely for people’s wallets.
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