Post by @stefano

@stefano "They'll find somewhere else" - what, like they can grab a map of places and jump on a bus?"

What a horrible attitude to have.

@MiaMarkTwo@syzito.xyz Exactly. That's why I stopped. Somewhere else can definitely be my garden.

@stefano There's a lot of them about in my garden this year, for the first time (or at least the first time that I've noticed).

I admit to screaming like a girl every time one hops out of the long grass though 🤣

@stefano my "lawn", currently. In the dry heat the grass stops growing but the hawksbeard is thriving. It opens its flowers for a few hours midday, and the solitary bees love it. So I leave it, even though most people probably don't like the "weeds". 😄

@fedops@fosstodon.org it's beautiful! Nature, as it should be.

@stefano I haven't mowed in 4 weeks now, and I can see the clover taking over where the grass is drying out, it's an all-you-can-eat buffet for bees and other pollinators :D My goal is to eventually have no more grass, instead clover and other "weeds" over the next months/years.
There is tons of research about why lawns are terrible and mostly cargo-culting due to "people have lawns because people have lawns".
So happy to see other people thinking about it!
https://blog.nwf.org/2024/04/why-we-shouldnt-have-lawns/

@yvg @stefano

CelloDad has been nurturing a corner where the clover is abundant - hoping to make it spread. He now judges lawns by how much clover grows on them 🙂

My own take on US lawn obsession is that it's a holdover from colonial times: everyone hates the colonisers but also wants to emulate them: Americans want that Downton Abbey lawn (but don't have the Downton Abbey climate that makes it effortless to have such a lawn).

@stefano I think that’s the right attitude. I do the same thing here with those and other unwanted creatures—including frogs and spiders.

@stefano That neighbor's thinking is what gave us RoundUp.

I wish more people thought of themselves as someone in an ecosystem and not as someone having dominion over their patch of whatever.

@stefano that's a fantastic attitude Stefano, especially in modern times where some insects seem to be on the decline and thus leeding to decline in other animals who depend on insects as food source.
This detachment from nature that we humans have going on is not a good thing, I think.

@stefano Do you have a free space for ticks as well? I have a few I'd like to leave in your care if you don't mind!

@h4890@merovingian.club oh well, crickets are enough 😆