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)

Sorry! I thought I had not saved it properly, I didn't realize that I was directly going against your revert. Like Megan said we are editing the page for a class project - The addition regarding Levittown was very well sourced, I would be happy to make a list of the sources I used. The most helpful book was one called American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn by Ted Steinberg. Lawn People by Paul Robbins was also helpful. What do you think of Megan's suggestion regarding having a section specifically for lawn in the US? Levittown, while american, was instrumental in creating the lawn that we are so familiar with today and I do feel that it should be included in this article, but realize that I may not have gone about it the right way. Give us your thoughts HiLo48! Thanks. Lia.Fosse (talk) 21:11, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, I'm in Australia. Lawns have historically been very popular here too, although recent major droughts have led to some changes on that front. I know that our tradition came from the UK. (Cricket grounds, lawn tennis, and all that.) It may have come via the USA. I simply don't know. Obviously the Levittown activity affected American lawn usage, but did it go beyond that? Unfortunately the source used, being a printed book, is virtually impossible for any casual reader to check, especially outside it's land of publication, although I don't doubt your good intentions in using it. So yes, I am concerned about purely American content with no indication of its relevance to the rest of the world. A section specifically about Lawn in the USA would help, but even then it's in danger of unbalancing the article in this global encyclopaedia. HiLo48 (talk) 21:32, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

I certainly see what you are talking about. However, in the spirit of collaboration, I think it is important for you to understand that we have these printed books, recommended to us by our professor, available to us and are using them to add valuable verified information to this article. Wikipedia is all about everyone coming together, with different sources available to them, and putting those sources together in an unbiased manner. Now, about the American/North American content, that is something we have to write about given the subject matter of our class for which we are doing the assignment. The mass produced suburban landscape is something that was fine tuned in the US, unlike anywhere else in the world, and the suburban aesthetic developed in North America in the early 20th Century influenced its appearance throughout the world. We would definitely love to see you add information on the lawn in Australia, and we would love to be able to focus on other areas in the global context as well, but we are bound by the guidelines of our class assignment. We are planning on creating a specific section pertaining to North America to avoid further confusion in the community. Lia.Fosse (talk) 21:57, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

HiLo48, while I understand your concern about US-centric material, America does occupy a large place in the history of the lawn. I think the students were correct to identify the post-war suburban movement as important in the development of the modern lawn. And an offline source really isn't grounds for reversion, unless you have some indication that it is an unreliable source. Are you really suggesting that editors should not use print sources because a user in Australia might have trouble accessing a copy? This would involve some major WP policy changes. The Interior (Talk) 06:21, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

No, and that's a disingenuous suggestion. It was the combination of US-oriented material AND my inability to see the source to see if it explained how those US events may have had global impact. I'm pretty sure I explained that. All we have is a number of editors here telling me that what happened in Levittown was important globally, and that's not really good enough. HiLo48 (talk) 06:28, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

If you need to verify what the book says - it is available in Australia [1]. My opinion is based on my reading of a separate source, The lawn : a history of an American obsession, which covers the Leavittown development also. So we have more than a couple editors "telling" you something, we have a couple editors who have read reliable sources on the topic asserting that the sources find certain events important in the history of the topic. I'm a bit confused as to what kind of bar you are setting for inclusion. The Interior (Talk) 06:45, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

So, where is that new source, and what does it tell us about how that "American obsession" impacted on the rest of the world. I'm not arguing that it didn't (I don't actually know), just that to include the American stuff without some well sourced connection with the rest of the world seems undue. That link may well exist, but it hasn't been shown here yet. HiLo48 (talk) 06:51, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Not all topics will have a uniformly global emphasis. Certain things are more important in certain cultures, and our coverage will reflect that without shortchanging our global mandate. Lawns are not a central feature in Chinese homes, for example, or homes in Brazil. But they are a dominant landscape feature in North America, and Australia. In both places, they are associated with suburbia (true in Australia, right?). This is what the Levittown connection is about. If several reliable sources are making this connection, it's not undue for us to include it. I'm not sure what you mean by "where is that new source". It's sitting at the Vancouver Public Library, where I returned it after researching the history of lawns for an ill-fated documentary project on the the European chafer beetle. The Interior (Talk) 07:05, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

We should also look at this content in context with the larger expansion being planned by the students; what may seem undue on its own will read differently when it is part of a larger treatment of the history of the lawn (see outline above). Can we re-assess this when the rest of the content comes in over the next week or two? The Interior (Talk) 08:47, 3 April 2012 (UTC)