Talk:Lawn

Initial comments

In the criticisms sections, it's wrong to say that they filter groundwater, because those who criticize lawns aren't comparing them to dirt lots, they're comparing them to unmanaged grassland. ASWilson 22:17, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

can anybody provide a link to statistics quantifying how many lawns there are, or better still, how much labor and materials go into lawns? It seems like it is on the scale of the Apollo Program!

History of Lawns: Bocce

I read this in an article of a streetwise newspaper (located in Chicago) in Nov. 07: The predecessor of Bocce was a game in Egypt (where you roll a ball as close as you can to a target), was picked up by Greece, then was picked up by the Romans, who spread it through Europe, which was then later a favorite of the English aristocracy. But Bocce was originally a game played with balls on clay or sand, and the English had no such land, so they made close cut grass to play their game, which later became "bowling" from the french word for ball (boule I think). And from there, close cut grass for games became a thing of the rich Europeans (~1600s), and then became the modern lawn of the U.S. today. If you go to China or India or whereever, lawns as they are here are not a common thing - but are more common now than they were before because of westernization. So it's interesting that lawns really are cultural, and trace their roots back to the game Bocce. In fact, before the 1600s or so (think Feudal Europe) noone even cared about lawns, so they're actually a relatively recent thing historically in culture.Ashi Starshade (talk) 22:55, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Grass is Greener?

I commented out a section on the page today offering to explain the "grass is always greener" idiom. I was skeptical about it and the little diagram (which I otherwise enjoyed) didn't win me over. Could we get some sort of reference supporting this claim from a popular science publication of some sort? --Blick 20:15, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

It is the explanation I've always heard. I don't have any references to hand to cite, though - MPF 11:44, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I could not find a scientific reference, but WIKI itself has the "grass" in the List_of_idioms_in_the_English_language - but I think that leaving the drawing in (along with comments here) might eventually get us a reference better. Pls undo my edits if you don't agree - Hulkster 04:02, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not only sceptical, but fairly convinced of the oposite: that the idiom doesn't draw from a fact.

I highly doubt that the origins of this idiom are as elaborate as proposed. Grass usually covers the ground below very well so the block representation isn't very realistic. Even snug lawns (typical of Britain) usually have good soil coverage.

More likely, the idiom is simply a paralell to the human trait of baseless feelings of inferiority to others. --Swift 20:11, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

vs. bare dirt

One positive benefit of a healthy lawn is that of a filter for contaminants and to prevent run-off and erosion of bare dirt.

In comparison to bare dirt, a lawn may be 20 degrees cooler on a hot day...

Well it is usually not true that if there were no lawn, there would just be bare dirt! You must also compare the natural vegetation. P.S., degrees C or F? Jidanni 19:41, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Globalize tag

Agreed the page has a strong US slant which needs to be addressed. The ext links in particular all had a strong US east coast POV (not even valid for the whole US, let alone the rest of the world), so I've removed them as being unhelpful. - MPF 11:44, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

• Near a year is enough for this tag hanger to have fixed the deficiencies he objects too. Removing today. // FrankB 19:07, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Sure don't see many lawns in Asia, where most of the world's people live. Perhaps add a table of lawn lunacy intensity per country. Jidanni 04:48, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Global warming

Do mention lawns' role in global warming and their carbon footprint. Jidanni 04:51, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Grass Maintenance

This sounds too much like a How To section in my view. However I dont know how to add that. Anyone else agree? ClamsonJ (talk) 15:21, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree. And I put a {{howto}} tag on it. Joe 03:49, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

External Links

Again, same as the sod section, I don't see how including an external link to a page that gives valid lawn care tips without any sales information could be considered vandalism. Here is the page in question: http://www.evergreenturf. com/lawn-care/ index.php or http://www.bcinstantlawns.com or http://www.fraservalleyturf.com or http://www.golawngo.com 70.184.122.73 (talk) 18:58, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

This article contains lots of useless / un-reliable references

This article seems to be having lots of spammy contents with unwanted / un-reliable references than that of useful contents

I think this article has to be re-written from the scratch —Preceding unsigned comment added by BrownyCat (talk • contribs) 15:28, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

History 396 Proposed Edits

Introduction: Additions regarding social and environmental significance.

History: Expansion on the history of the lawn, its social significance and effects, and the spread of the industrial lawn. Divided into proposed sections: Origins (etymology, manor houses, 17th C. Jacobean gardening, early landscape gardening), 18th and 19th Century, 20th Century, and 21st Century.

The Lawn in Popular Culture: Addition of this new section with a subsection titled Social Implications. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Masalisbury (talk • contribs) 20:51, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Environmental Concerns: Added sections on Chemical and Erosion impacts.

We are a group of students taking an Environmental History of North America course at UBC, and we are working on this article as part of an education program called Wikipedia:Canada Education Program HIST 396, the banner to inform the community should be added soon. Masalisbury (talk) 19:16, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Levittown and the Levitt and Son's company

Lia.Fosse added a couple of paragraphs on this matter. I reverted, with the Edit summary "Reverted addition of exclusively American content in this global article. Seems undue, and difficult to check source." That still reflects my opinion. Lia.Fosse then just reverted my revert, with the same Edit summary he had used in the first place.

Apart from the bad manners of completely ignoring what I had written, I find this type of revert extremely annoying. This is meant to be a collaborative project. Lia.Fosse's actions are anything but. HiLo48 (talk) 19:38, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

My apologies, Lia and I are working on a class project as mentioned above. We are trying to retain the global nature of this article as best we can in the material we would like to add. Perhaps we should add a section specifically on the lawn in the USA? I do think Levittown is an important development regarding the ubiquity of the lawn and is worth being mentioned. I appreciate your input, and again I just wanted to apologise for the confusion. Masalisbury (talk) 22:57, 1 April 2012 (UTC)