Why don't Americans plant trees and bushes of stuff that they can eat in their houses instead of having useless grass?
Why don't Americans plant trees and bushes of stuff that they can eat in their houses instead of having useless grass?
87 comments
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Because having a big yard of grass that you have to mow every week while using up gasoline is the American dream and a flex for some reason.
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Littering your yard with food attracts things like rats, raccoons, squirrels, etc, which destroy property and infrastructure, spread disease, and cause injury to people and pets. I'm not saying I'm against fruit trees, but I do understand people who are. It's a legitimate concern. Some areas even have things like boars or bears which are extremely dangerous.
I'm also curious with the way you can sue people in the US what would happen if someone becomes sick after eating one of your fruits. I imagine it varies by state.
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Trees in general do all of those horrible things you mentioned.
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Dropped fruit all over the ground really encourages rats though.
My mum got a house super cheap when I was young because it had a "rat problem" it also had a peach tree in the back yard that the owner didnt pick up after. We removed literal garbage bags of peach pits from the roof space and crawl spaces of that house and garage.
Chopped the peach tree down (it wasnt a healthy tree anyway) and the problem basically disappeared in days.
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This. Fruit trees are loads of work that most amateur gardeners don’t know how to deal with them or have the time to deal with them. Gardening and farming is a shitload of work and was only made cheap and easy through the marvel of modern technology. You don’t just plant shit and get to eat lol
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Reading this made me even happier I don't have to live there
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There is a pretty great website called Falling fruit to map trees and other plants that you can pick from freely.
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Hey. Thank you for sharing this.
Websites like this are the good part of the internet.
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Probably need a permit and license
Wait...
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Grass lawns as a concept came from Europe as a symbol of wealth. If you could afford a large green lawn, you were likely rich.
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Zoning laws in a lot of places.
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Rodents mostly
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We do? At least where I live I see mango trees all over, saw a longan the other day, there are loquats all over too, and until citrus canker there were orange trees in most backyards. At my old house we had loquat, tangelo, lemon, lime, carambola and bananas, and a papaya tree.
At this house we have lemon, lime, Valencia, and sugar bell citrus trees, a fig (all of these are dwarf trees) and a vegetable garden but all are in back. In front a small lawn, a few ornamental plants and sometimes I plant bulb fennel out there.
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That will depend on what type of Home Ownership Association the house is on. Some of them mandate a well kept grass lawn and you get fined for not moving.
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It’s a stupid reason. Historically, if you were a peasant and had been granted access to land, you grew food or herbs. If however you were a lord, you got your food from your peasants. You had no need to grow your own food. So they could afford to grow lawns as a sign of wealth.
This has transferred across into the modern psyche. Lawns are a way of saying “i’m so rich, i don’t have to worry about sustenance. In fact i’ll throw money at it to maintain this slab of green rather than have it provide food, or shade.”
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It’s funny how this has come full circle - many people garden (in their back yards) to show they have the free time to do so.
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@Turturtley @Confidant6198 Its worse, because, actually, even if they wanted to, most Americans are under the tyrannical rule of a Homeowners Association (talk about liberty huh) that forces them to plant grass, and can fine them a shit ton of money if they do otherwise
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This is the correct answer. So many US'isms are bourgeois / aristocratic imitation.
Cars / wasteful transportation, lawns, sprawled out cities, high amounts of meat consumption, vacation homes / timeshares / exotic vacations, having servants, etc. These are things that are only possible for countries with huge amounts of land and resources, and not sustainable or doable for most of the world.
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It could also be seen as rising standards of living, and aristocrats were optimizing their advantage before the standards rose for everyone due to cheap energy availability.
Saying people consume meat to mimic the rich is a little silly.
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The 50s happened.
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And for whatever the fuck reason, they wanted houses like the ones found in pre-1789 France
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Trees (e.g. apple trees or others) provide great shade and help lower the temperature. They are beneficial if you feel that summer heat is getting worse due to climate change. Additionally, if you have issues with heavy rainfall, trees can help by absorbing large amounts of water through their roots. This approach can be applied in most countries.
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We do. Obviously not everyone can But I wager the number of Americans growing something edible on their space is decent. Usually it's easy stuff to grow, or someone's favorites.
Thinking about it and counting in my head I actually know dozens of people that grow tomatoes personally. They grow easily in large quantities in relatively small space and all taste better than store bought.
Citrus has been pretty plentiful my entire life too. Lemon trees especially.
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There are places where they have trees all around their houses. Like in California, where they just had been more fuel to the fires.
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I’m tryin’, man. Fruit bearing plants take a lot of work compared to the manicured suburban steriscape. They’re not super easy to grow (depending on where you live), require pruning and fertilizer, soil amendment, and unfortunately pesticides or fencing if you don’t want insects or deer destroying your hard work.
That’s way more effort than most people want to expend. HOAs or even local ordinances may also restrict what can be grown.
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Look into native plants. There are so many edible things that you can just leave in the wasteland that is your yard and they'll take over. Here in Tennessee we have pawpaws and maypops for fruit, tomatoes that pop up randomly, garden greens like wood sorrel and lambs quarters, and a bunch of other things that absolutely take over given half a chance. Sure, if you try and grow the seed packets from your local Lowes you'll have issues with pests and whatnot, but there is so much more food out there than these varieties.
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Absolutely. Already have a couple.
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I don't know what your experience with gardening is, so I might be preaching to the choir here. But if it helps, No-Dig Gardening is a method that lets nature do a lot of the hard work for you.
https://www.rhs.org.uk/soil-composts-mulches/no-dig-gardening
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I’m not super-experienced, but this is absolutely a viable method if you have somewhat decent soil to start with. Unfortunately where I live it’s a ton of clay, so getting the soil to a usable state absolutely requires digging. It’s just as much work to dig and amend vs build on top and import soil.
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European garden with some ten different berries/fruit trees and bushes - no work needed, they just do their thing (when they are big enough.) Rotate about one every three years, sometimes move some berries from one place to another.
Strawberries are a ton of work at the end of the year (not the little wild ones though,) don't do them unless you really love them.
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I mean some of us hate grass so much we started a huge reddit community about it that made it's way too lemmy.
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As someone who lives in an ex-industrial city (Birmingham Alabama), I’ve always been worried about air pollution and tainted soil (there are superfund sites nearby). I feel like every thing would have to be above ground and covered. That seems like a lot of work. Should I be worried?
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Your city has a cool vibe.
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Yeah you should. Look into soil testing with your local city, county, or University Extension office. You send in a little sample of dry soil and they email you the results. It's usually pretty cheap and will tell you if any soil is unsafe. My local library, for example, has sample boxes for free. Definitely a good idea for anyone in a place where lead paint could have been used, let alone other horrible stuff.
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oh, man I was there for the first time ever just two weeks ago. I wanted to stop at a boutique liquor store I had found listed online. I was shocked to see the number of abandoned/dilapidated structures. The liquor store actually happened to be located in a newish out-building on the same lot of one of these abandoned mansions. The store was very nice as was the staff, but I was left with a lot of questions that were all pretty-much answered when I read online that Birmingham is also known as The Pittsburgh of the South.
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In, or in the yard of? We're not talking about indoor houseplants, I assume.
If outside is what you mean, it goes back to the days of aristocracy. Having land you don't use for food was a form of conspicuous consumption, and you had sports for the elite grow up around stretches of short grass as a result, like golf and polo. The former is still synonymous with the well-off, even.
Then you have to skip ahead to the 1950's and 60's in America, where the "mid-century modern" philosophy of urban planning gains prominence. The idea was to get people out of the crowded, Victorian-style slums, which we might find quaint in hindsight, but at the time were very stigmatised. This extended to a certain disdain for cities and buildings in general, even - more nature was better. So, where do you put people? In tiny little rural estates modeled on the ones popular with aristocrats, separated by zoning laws from the other sections of the city.
The vision was that people would get home from their 9-5 jobs in the commercial-only zones in their very own car, and would hang out outside enjoying their government-mandated leisure time. The urban planners of the time probably pictured a giant croquet course going up and down a residential street, and the all-white 3.5 kid families that live there sitting outside on lawn chairs, playing friendly games against each other. These "white picket fence" suburbs had lawns, then, because you couldn't have semi-rural domestic bliss without them, according to some architects who graduated Harvard in 1920.
In practice, of course, none of that happened. Like so many other tidy ideas it failed to predict how the general public would interact with it. I've been around plenty of places like that. You know the names of your neighbor, but not much else about them, and the people a few doors down are suspect of being pedophiles or violent drug dealers. That fence line is sacred, each house becomes an island, and you're frightfully dependent on driving to get anywhere you can do basic errands. And that's not even getting into the racial issues that came out of it.
Now, in the 21st century, people assume houses have always had lawns, and messing with that formula irritates the local NIMBYs. New ideas eventually become rigid tradition, and as always it falls to the next generation to question the way things are done. Hopefully we will, but it will take a moment.
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Thanks, you explained better than I would have. I was going to go on a tangent about Louis XIV showing the other aristocrats his new "lawn" concept.
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Hey, thanks!
I have to point out, Versailles did have quite a bit of lawn and certainly helped, but the concept of decorative short grass predates it, and even existed in the some of the American civilisations using a totally different plant IIRC. The Wikipedia article notes several medieval examples.
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A lot of people are secretly cows and they actually eat that grass. Next time you say hello to someone and they respond “moo” you’ll know why.
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Probably against HOA rules in many places.
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Ok, but why?
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The real answer is because in America rich people buy houses, and then create HOAs in the housing deeds and contracts to force all future owners to maintain the house in a way that will increase the neighborhood property value forever.
HOAs exclusively fight to make houses more and more "valuable" since housing is a financial investment here
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Because of 18th century French aristocracy, no shit.
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Ismt that the universal question with moet things americans do these days? ;-)
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Growing crops is quite a bit of cost and effort and time. I have a little garden, but it's not like you just plant some seeds and you're all done.
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HOAs say “ew no that’s for the poors” and good luck finding a house that’s not in an HOA within a reasonable commute to your job
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Sadly, bad behavior from owners are the cause. I have several fruit trees in my backyard and the pest presence is high. If they aren't harvested and maintained the impact on your neighbors is high. I hate HOAs, but I get why they would prohibit it, and it's not a class thing, after all...you're a property owner.
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My HOA:
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Looks like you are stuck with fruits, grains, herbs, and ornamentals in the front yard, then, lol.
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...pretty much this: you'll be fined for anything other than well-groomed grass growing in your yard...
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Because this is illegal in most of America. You would be fined and the city would probably send a crew out to rip it all up and give you the invoice if you defied it and left it that way.
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That’s a bit extreme? I think that you are correct that this may be the case in front yards depending on location, but backyards are usually fine for whatever barring some HOA BS or unusual local rules.
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I’ve seen this happen before in real life so extreme or not, it’s definitely the norm in upstate New York at the very least. Had the city called on us while we were out of the country and we came back to all 6 of our small fruit trees dug up and tracks all over the front lawn from an excavator and a $2500 bill from the city.
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The answer is they were a wealthy European concept brought to the colonies as a status symbol. They are still associated with wealthier people which raises property values, so are enshrined in local ordinances and HOA rules.
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Bugs, pests, and animals, at least where I live. Unless you build a green house, clear the yard of all other foliage, or somehow fortify your garden, only produce with natural defenses like peppers will make it to harvest. However, I am jealous of my friends on the west coast, who don't really have to worry about bugs or other critters eating from their fruit trees just passively growing in their yard.
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If you're East Coast, I think you've just given up too early. Plenty of pests on the West Coast, too. There are also plenty of organic ways to keep them in check. Will you have perfect harvest? Never, but that doesn't mean you can't have anything at all.
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Some do. Grass just got into the pop culture as the "proper" look for a residential property. But having fruit trees is amazing, especially in spring when they are all in bloom with flowers.
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We do? Some ppl dont, we have sugarcane, oranges, lemons, eggplants, peppers, and I forget the rest, my dad/grandpa are more into gardening. Its just not realistic to do a lot, cheaper and a lot faster to go the grocery storec more variety, hoemgrown stuff is ususlly more of an addon.
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Yeah, I have a lemon tree and a small garden that gives me some herbs and some strawberries (that are pretty but don't taste great). My parents were into gardening so they always had a big garden. I remember one of the problems they had is that a single crop would ripen in a short period. Like they'd get 200 tomatoes over 2 weeks. Not ideal (unless you're into canning/jarring), but a good way to make friends with your neighbors.
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I can imagine a few reasons.
I have a dog, she needs some running around space in our yard, so we make sure she has it.
Otherwise we do have a raspberry... Thicket? In the corner of our yard, and some smaller raised beds along the edges. Every year the local squirrels steal the veggies we plant, but not the raspberries, no matter what we do.
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Every year the local squirrels steal the veggies we plant
This has been my experience as well, along with raccoons decimating all but one season's attempt at a water garden.
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When I first started gardening I had this idealistic view of, "I will just grow a surplus, if the animals take some I will still have enough." Nope. They eat everything, to the ground. They can do it in one night. There are different pests that specialize in eating the seeds, the roots, the stems, the leaves, and the fruit. Deer will "sample" entire plants just to confirm they don't like them. Squirrels will take a single bite out of every tomato. Bears will push down an entire fruit tree just to get one fruit. Energy is scarce in nature and these organisms aren't fucking around.
Took me awhile to finally admit that barriers aren't just nice, they are required.
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We get them all. Deer, birds, chipmunks. The entire garden needs to be protected by hardware cloth. The chipmunks got through the original chicken wire we had. We had to enclose the top as they climbed over. Plus the small birds eat any berries. A constant battle to be able to harvest anything.
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My landlord would get a fine from the city and it would be tacked on to my rent.
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Most people have both. A lawn is good to play on.
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I've lived in 9 states and in every neighborhood many people have food producing plants. It's one of the healthiest hobbies you can have.
I love gardening and have a small orchard and have other food plants all around my house, but I still maintain a lawn because it gets my kids outside playing sports, it's a very multifunctional space, and because covering every square inch of my property in food bearing plants would be way more work and time than we have to give. In every home (except Arizona) I've kept at least some portion of the property as grass lawn.
Some people latch on to your idea but then a few years later end up with an unmaintained berry bramble of a yard full of invasive food plants that is totally unusable. Moderation and common sense in all things.
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Plenty of people have these things called "gardens". You can grow food right in the ground with them. Fruit baring trees are also a thing people enjoy in thier yard.
Is your entire property filled with bushes or something?
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We do tomatoes, tons of peppers, and blackberries. Baby avocado and lime trees aren't fruiting yet. Someone ate our cucumber plants as soon as they sprouted.
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We do, though? I have mulberries and gooseberries instead of decorative plants, along with various edible cabbages and herbs, and clover for bees.
And that's not unusual for my neighborhood. We're always swapping for mint and zucchini and squash and eggs with our neighbors, and one time even maple syrup!
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Can speak for everyone, but we do
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They're all golf players wannabe.
And it's always greener than your neibours one
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This is why: https://youtu.be/EwVovJgwbJQ
Edit: Watch to the end, that's worst than it initially seems, and it seems bad from the start.
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AI summary, for those who can't watch it right now, like myself:
The video discusses the history of lawns and their impact on American culture:
- Lawns originated in 17th century Europe as a symbol of wealth and status, eventually making their way to America [01:31].
- The invention of the push lawnmower and sprinklers in the 19th century made lawn maintenance more accessible [02:43].
- After World War II, suburban sprawl and consumerism led to lawns becoming a standard feature of the American dream [03:37].
- Homeowners' associations (HOAs) enforce strict rules about lawn care, contributing to the pressure to maintain a perfect lawn [05:23].
- The lawn care industry has become a massive business, with homeowners spending billions of dollars on products and services [07:14].
- Lawns have negative environmental impacts, including water waste and pesticide runoff [09:11].
- The video suggests alternatives to traditional lawns, such as growing food or native species, xeriscaping, using fake turf or clover, or simply letting the lawn grow naturally [10:13].
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I know exactly what you mean, I lived in a small town in Eastern Europe and the streets are literally lined with fruit trees and everyone has a walnut tree in their yard, it’s literally free food. The cherries were the best.
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It's a matter of keeping the plants contained. I have witnessed cut down bushes and trees multiply than how they originally were before they were cut down. Try managing that in a home or somewhere smaller.
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Why aren't people everywhere?
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We have grass in the front and a backyard with fruits and veggies.
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You’re talking about a country that has no universal healthcare, record gun violence, divisive civil political unrest, low education and health compared to other developed countries, record wealth inequality, lies and propaganda coming from their federal government, policies that attack allies and work with dictatorships… and people are wondering why they can’t plant trees instead of grass?
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Grass is easier to maintain by itself
87 comments