To think grass should be gone

[Fucksandflowers]

And be replaced with chamomile or thyme or pearlwort or moss or wildflowers or anything but grass!

It requires huge amounts of water, huge amounts of weedkillers, regular cutting, offers limited wildlife value and it’s responsible for over 90% of hay fever reactions (the other 10% being weed and tree pollen)

I’ve just come back from walking the dog.
My feet, legs, chest and hands are covered in an itchy red rash, my fingers have swelled up and my throat is itching. Not to mention the sneezing and pee dribbles (3 kids...)

I am already taking antihistamine every 4 hours!

Really fed up, obviously have to try and get stronger antihistamines from the doctor.

Why is grass so popular?!

Mine is mainly daisies and moss!

Mine is chamomile ❤️

It requires huge amounts of water, huge amounts of weedkillers, regular cutting, offers limited wildlife value

Does it? I never water mine, don't use weedkiller, rarely cut it (my neighbours must love me, they all have annoyingly well manicured lawns!) and the frogs, slow worms, lizards, hedgehogs, owl, bats, as well as all the bugs and so on I see in my garden suggest the wildlife are doing ok.

The reason it’s so popular is because a large amount of animals we consume eat a grass based diet.
Cows, sheep, deer ( not that I have eaten myself.) and chickens. If we didn’t have grass we wouldn’t have these animals.
If your looking at these animals just as a source of food then a LARGE amount of the animals we base our diet one wouldn’t be available. Xx

It requires huge amounts of water, huge amounts of weedkillers, regular cutting, offers limited wildlife value

I’ve never watered mine, the rain does it! Never used weed killer on it either. Mowing it is a pain in the arse though!

Everyone who doesn’t water it, doesn’t it go brown and yellow in the summer?!?!

It comes back green eventually. I wouldn't put fresh water on my lawn.

No!

I don't water mine but I'm in Scotland so we often get more rain. I have cats so I'm a bit scared about putting lots of weed killer down. Next door takes good care of his so he doesn't have the daisy problem I have

I love mowing lawns.

Mainly because I love the mowings which I use to make compost.

I don’t water mine and even during the last hot summer it only went brown for a short time then came back. I keep rabbits on it. It’s not a pristine lawn but looks fine and kids enjoy it. I don’t worry about weeds and cutting the grass just makes it all blend in. We have no allergies but unless you got rid of everyone’s lawn I suppose it’s something you can’t avoid!

lawn has regular bath complete with shampoo, shower gel etc :) put hose in bath & let flow on to grass - but all sorts of plants cause allergies & hay fever (misnamed I think) including trees & blossom & ugh rapeseed

Never watered or fed our lawn. Anyone who
uses weed killer for appearance needs to have a good long think about their priorities imo

Nope, never watered/weedkillered/de-mossed ours either. Last year it went impressively brown and crispy, but it was green again by October.

I've never put weed killer on mine. Seldom put water on it as the garden is three acres and that would be a full time job, Cutting it is easy as we have a ride on, and there is a huge amount of wildlife on it, from the wild rabbits, the pheasants and other birds pecking in it, the deer who wander round and bizarrely like to lay on it, the bees going round the little flowers in it. I don't see your issue.

But you seem to be seriously allergic. I don't understand why you don't have stronger anti histimanes already and aren't prepared?

Trees cause my hayfever chamomile wont grow in my garden grass is grass 🤷‍♀️

Everyone who doesn’t water it, doesn’t it go brown and yellow in the summer?!?!

Yes, and I let it. Water is too precious to waste on keeping grass green.

It always recovers when the autumn rains kick in!

Same as Lightsinotherpeopleshouses. I love a green lawn with wildflowers, don’t water mine, but I have a couple of trees that shade it during the summer. Sorry about the hay fever, but YABU.

We water ours with the DC's bath water in the summer and the rain takes care of it the rest of the time. Mowing is indeed a PITA and DH doesn't do it nearly often enough. Ours has also recently been taken over by some kind of wild flower... so it's hardly perfectly manicured, but the DCs play on it when they want to. I was told it's better for the environment than artificial, and I do love having other plants around that bring bees into the garden, not just a lawn which doesn't do much.

mine doesn't because our garden is shady. But it will always come back even if it did.

I have never used weedkiller on it.

But it sounds like you aren't talking about the grass in people's garden? Where were you walking?

Never feed it, never weed-killer it, never water it, mow some of it and leave other bits to grow long (that's really increased the range of invertabrates we see.)

I'd like less lawn in general because I perfer a more diverse plant range, but especially when the kids were younger the lawn got a lot of use.

If you have to water your lawn, OP, I'm guessing you aren't in the UK

Hopefully changing my front grass to chamomile as I'm going for a cottage herb garden feel (if you have chamomile how do they cope with limited direct sun? Our front only gets evening sun and so about an hour or two of direct sun before it's behind the houses opposite) but back garden we're keeping grass. Only watered it when it was turfed to get it established and fill in patches with seed. Mown fortnightly for tidiness. I look like a Looney but I do a good stop to flush out any critters hiding in the long patches just in case (successfully relocated a toad when they were doing their pond migrations earlier this year)

But you seem to be seriously allergic. I don't understand why you don't have stronger anti histimanes already and aren't prepared?

I’ve told doctors already how bad it is, they just tell me to take over the counter antihistamine or prescribe me Loratadine or some other over the counter crap..
I have been taking the tablets every 4 hours.
They are making no difference.
I will be making another appointment mind to try again.

I think instead of whinging about grass it would be better to prepare yourself than allow youtself to get into thr mess you currently are, but also find another route to walk your dogs that isn't grassy.

Because honestly it just sounds bonkers. It's like juggling with knives and then complaining they were sharp and cut you.

Fucks we have recently had fexofenadine prescribed for DD and it seems to be doing the trick.