May 102013
Beautiful No-Mow Yards: 50 Amazing Lawn Alternatives
What has your perfect green lawn done for you lately? Is it really worth the time, effort, and resources you lavish on it? Armed with encouragement, inspiration, and cutting-edge advice from award-winning author Evelyn Hadden, you can liberate yourself at last! In this ultimate guide to rethinking your yard, Hadden showcases dozens of inspiring, eco-friendly alternatives to that demanding (and dare we say boring?) green turf. Trade your lawn for a lively prairie or replace it with a runoff-redu
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Price: $ 14.67
Out with the lawn!,
The decades-old practice of maintaining a boring plot of grass is finally seeing the light of day as homeowners are learning that they are not only labor intensive but bad for the environment as well. There is a fear that the alternatives are expensive and time-consuming but as this book shows, it is not as intimidating as it sounds and there are various types and options to choose from. All types of gardens seem to be covered here – shade, xeric, edible, patios, children’s gardens, meadows and prairies, ponds, etc. Part Two discusses ways to achieve a no-mow garden – how to convert a lawn to a garden, how to design it and how to maintain it. Part three profiles plants that can be used and are arranged by mounding, mat-forming, fill-in and minglers. Each type of garden discussed is illustrated with an actual garden and the story behind it. Most of the gardens profiled seem to be in the Minnesota and midwest areas and none in the Southeast region. Still, the same principles apply and most of the same plants can be used.
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|THE definitive helpful and inspiring work on reducing lawns.,
Originally published at GardenRant.com
In the last year or so, we’re hearing that there are better uses for our land than turfgrass, that unless it’s needed for sport or play, you can save on resources and probably your labor, too, by switching to an array of alternatives – meadows, vegetable gardens, native grasses, and so on.
All good! Well, mostly good – because that well-intentioned advice isn’t easy to actually implement, without a LOT more information. Which groundcovers? Which native grasses – and native to where, anyway? How much do the alternatives cost, can they be walked on, and how much work does it really take to maintain them?
My mixed reviews of much of the lawn-free cheering has me wildly cheering the thoroughly researched and honestly reported definitive book about reducing or eliminating lawns by Evelyn Hadden. Beautiful No-Mow Yards contains exactly the kind of info that’s needed, and its gorgeous photographs (most by Evelyn and the wonderful Saxon Holt, too) are deeply inspirational to anyone looking to make their yards more interesting, more beautiful, and more wildlife-friendly.
Readers of GardenRant are no strangers to this subject, but may not be familiar with the author. Well, Evelyn is THE original lawn reformer, having written Shrink Your Lawn and created the Less Lawn website back in 2001. She’s a pioneer whose cause has caught on.
What’s in Beautiful No-Mow Yards
Photos and stories about gardens sunny and shady, flat and hilly, a “shockingly simple meadow garden”, a “patio for pennies”, rain gardens, edibles, ponds, terraces, hellstrips and more.
“Smarter lawns” using fine fescue mixes, carexes, and other low-resource grass types, including where each type works best and what it takes to install and maintain them.
Real gardeners and the truth about their attempts to replace their lawns, failures and all.
How-to chapters for killing the lawn, designing alternatives, and maintaining them.
An illustrated guide to groundcovers by type.
It’s a important, beautiful, and superbly written. Great job!
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|50 Reasons to Rethink Your Lawn,
[Originally reviewed at Fine Gardening Magazine website - authored by Billy Goodnick at Cool Green Gardens blog]
Beautiful No-Mow Yards: 50 Amazing Lawn Alternatives, by Evelyn J. Hadden (Timber Press) has it all: A compelling rationale for ignoring the siren song of the “perfect” lawn, inspirational stories from gardeners and designers enthusiastically embracing this timely trend, and step-by-step instructions for creating easy-care, planet-friendly patches of paradise.
That’s why we’re giving a copy away.
The back cover of this beautifully photographed, idea-packed book provocatively asks, “What has your lawn done for you lately? Is it really worth the time, effort, and resources you lavish on it?”
I’ll give you a minute. Close your eyes (unless you’re driving while reading on your smart phone) and ponder these questions that many otherwise sensible gardeners overlook. Though Hadden isn’t a zero-tolerance, anti-lawn zealot (she makes the case that as a recreational surface, sensible “smarter lawns” are the still best choice of garden floors), it’s hard to read this book and not want to run outside and Kevorkianize that patch of green that sucks the life out of precious weekends and strains checkbooks.
Evelyn is a passionate gardener with a strong connection to the natural environment. In favor of the often chemically-treated, paralyzingly boring monoculture that is turfgrass, she reminds us of the effervescent diversity of a mixed meadow. She entices us to experience the subtle beauty of a living carpet of ground covers, the utility of water-purifying rain gardens, and the family fun that comes from a space where children can play and explore.
In part one, Design Inspiration: The Many Possibilities, Evelyn taps into her hands-on experience working on her own 5-acre lot on the outskirts of the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. She’s been using this living lab to refine her ideas for creating a naturalistic landscape, and doing it with a chemical-free approach. She also includes the experiences and words of dozens of gardeners and designers from every growing zone, offering examples of no-mow solutions for every situation. (I’m honored to have one of my favorites designs included in the Xeric Gardens section.) Among the ten other approaches are sections titled living carpets, shade gardens, rain gardens, play areas, edible gardens, and for those not willing to completely sever their turf attachment, smarter lawns.
It’s one thing to offer impassioned words of inspiration, and quite another to get down to the dirty, soul-satisfying work of bringing the vision to reality. Part two, How to Get There, offers ways to convert an existing lawn into a no-mow garden using eco-friendly methods. And since these types of yards might be a new concept for folks who’s gardening experience is limited to breathing mower fumes, there’s plenty of advice for getting started. Hadden is no Pollyanna, and faces head-on some of the initial bumps (or clods) on the path to a lawnless garden. The key is what the author calls “partnering with nature.”
“The most successful no-mow yards work like a natural system, made up of not just plants that are native to the area, but based on the ecology of the site,” Hadden says. “I combine plants that would naturally associate with each other. By understanding how plants grow on their own, it increases the chance they’ll thrive without a lot of fuss.”
Part three offers an encyclopedia of plant choices grouped by growth habits: mounding, mat-forming, fill-in, and minglers. Each plant’s listing includes the recommended zone, place of origin, growth habits and character, behavior, and preferred soil and lighting.
I haven’t mentioned the luscious photography that adorns every turn of the page, many by superstar garden photographer Saxon Holt. These images provide design inspiration as well as intimate details of scores of beautiful plants.
I’m especially grateful that Evelyn wrote this book, not me. Rather than a raging rant about the evils of these insidious Blades of the Devil (I’m minding my manners in case there are children present), the author approaches her topic with eloquence and tolerance for those who aren’t yet prepared to go cold turkey. She’s a skilled writer, weaving her natural storytelling ability with fact-filled, practical gardening information. This book will benefit any gardener ready to step into a new adventure.
You can learn more about Evelyn Hadden’s work and find out how to schedule a talk, at her website, LessLawn.com.
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