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!

too busy eating avocado toast

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.

They’re all golf players wannabe.

And it’s always greener than your neibours one

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?

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.

There is a pretty great website called Falling fruit to map trees and other plants that you can pick from freely.

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 become rigid tradition, and it falls to the next generation to question them. Hopefully we will, but it will take a moment.

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.

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?

I want to grow my own potatoes, bananas, and coffee once I get my own house in the tropics

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.”

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-modern-brain/202002/the-strange-psychology-the-american-lawn

You think we own shit? Lawns are the landlord’s landscaping equivalent of white paint: inoffensive but dull and useless

Canadian here, that’s getting more and more common over here. There’s a ton of HOA bullshit here too but I’ve been seeing more and more food gardening in Vancouver, but that might also be because food is expensive as fuuuck here.

The 50s happened.