The hard-scape movement - heating the planet one yard at a time

Home owners. "Environmentalists." Tearing out your lawn to replace it with rock or concrete. With or without drought tolerant plants. It's a terrible idea and here's why.

Removing grass and expanding the urban hard-scape surface contributes to global warming and local climate change. Your local environment will be hotter and less hospitable.

Grass takes water, yes. It also humidifies the atmosphere, creating a cooling effect. It holds moisture in the soil. And it holds the soil in place. If you don't plaster it with deadly chemicals, it provides habitat for the urban and suburban natural life cycle. You can go out and enjoy it. Grass isn't just to look at...you can interact with the habitat.

Grass watering provides water for surrounding trees. Trees that you don't think need watering are getting their water when the grass is watered. Break that cycle and you start to lose shade, moisture and oxygen giving trees. Grass too does what all plants do...it makes oxygen. Have you ever experienced the euphoria of a nice grass area? Noticed how good you feel? Taken your shoes off and gotten grounded?

Now what do rocks give? Even understanding rocks as living entities with positive energies, this is what rocks and concrete do. They collect heat all day long. They radiate it at night. They do not produce oxygen. Some rocks release other gases but no rock cools the atmosphere and produces oxygen.

The soil underneath a hard-scape yard dies. Deprived of oxygen it becomes lifeless and bone dry. The surrounding trees start to choke and falter. If you have to cut them down, you 've lost more shade, evaporative cooling and oxygen.

The movement to tear out the lawn to save water is just one more really misguided urban environmental movement. Grass is a natural cooling radiator. Rocks are heat radiators. And over time you will find that a hardscape is not maintenance free.

Grass is hardy. Water at night. Water it a little less. Be okay with it dying back in winter, plant hardy varieties, understand the appearance of dandelions to mean your soil is out of balance...they will go away when balance is restored. Stop using pesticides. They cause cancer in pets and humans. Let your little patch of lawn be a habitat for you and the rest of the living local universe.