How do you maintain your lawn or garden with climate change in mind?

Question

Recently, we bought a reel mower. I hoped it would suffice for our half acre, but it doesn't seem sustainable, i.e. doesn't do well with taller grass, prone to rusting/squeaking.We also have some clover, which supposedly keeps weeds at bay, but it isn't working.How can we maintain our lawn and gardens without using gasoline powered equipment or environment damaging chemicals?

mytailorisrich · Accepted Answer

Plenty of electric lawn-mowers available. Newest models are battery powered. In general, I don't think that using a gasoline-powered lawn mower is a big deal for climate change, though.
Personally, I think that keeping my gasoline-powered lawn mower than must consume a grand total of 5L per year (I'm in the UK so the grass basically stops growing from about now until March, and although I have a large garden for local standards it's not half an acre...) makes me emit less than throwing it away and replacing it with a new battery-powered electric one. Mileage may vary, of course.
It is said that for nature the best thing to do is actually to get rid of lawns, as least some of them, and to replace them with richer ecosystems. So perhaps one option, since you seem to have space, would be to reduce the size of the lawn (which obviously makes mowing it easier) and to plant a meadow and whatever other plants.

mikro2nd · Answer

Goats or sheep. Goats are not so good if you have trees you value, so a couple/3 sheep? Plus you'll get to harvest some wool.OK, so I'm being a little tongue-in-cheek... Another answer is: Get rid of the lawn. Sheet mulch and plant food-producing trees for a food-forest.

muzani · Answer

My dad used to buy an electric grass cutter. It's called by a lot of different names but this is the wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_trimmerIt's still a lot of work though, so we just paved over it. Maybe next time I'll try artificial grass that does need maintenance.

runjake · Answer

I live in a rural area and quite a few people use a scythe to cut their lawns and it does a pretty good job (albeit not &ldquo;upscale suburb&rdquo; good) plus it looks like great exercise.There are plenty of examples on YouTube to learn technique from.

How do you maintain your lawn or garden with climate change in mind?

Goats or sheep. Goats are not so good if you have trees you value, so a couple/3 sheep? Plus you'll get to harvest some wool.
OK, so I'm being a little tongue-in-cheek... Another answer is: Get rid of the lawn. Sheet mulch and plant food-producing trees for a food-forest.

My dad used to buy an electric grass cutter. It's called by a lot of different names but this is the wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_trimmer
It's still a lot of work though, so we just paved over it. Maybe next time I'll try artificial grass that does need maintenance.

I live in a rural area and quite a few people use a scythe to cut their lawns and it does a pretty good job (albeit not “upscale suburb” good) plus it looks like great exercise.
There are plenty of examples on YouTube to learn technique from.