Grass is, and has always been, a status symbol. Grass has its roots in 16th century English farms, where wealthy landowners planted grass for their livestock to graze and where sports could be played on grass. Turns out grass as a status symbol has its origin in the European aristocracy. The first gardens were grassy fields that surrounded English and French castles.
The castle grounds had to be kept away from trees so that the soldiers who protected them had a clear view of their environment. It wouldn't help if enemies could stealthily approach the castle through the forest. Heavily cut lawns first appeared in 17th century England in the homes of large, wealthy landowners. While sheep continued to graze in many of these parks, landowners were increasingly dependent on human labor to care for the pasture closest to their homes.
Before lawnmowers, only the wealthy could afford to hire the many hands needed to cut and remove weeds from lawns, making grass a mark of wealth and status. The use of grass to create an illusion of order or to inflate a sense of personal success suggests that they can act as psychological shock absorbers. Like the moats that surround castles, our well-maintained courtyards become barriers between the worlds we create within our home and the harshness of external reality. And while the downside risk of these types of mental stories may not seem significant on its own, the damage associated with lawn maintenance is more than just psychological.
In places like Southern California, there's no reason for conventional lawns to exist, and in the midst of an ongoing mega-drought, cities are offering purchases for homeowners to turn their grass lawns into native vegetation or shady, landscaped rocks. For a culture increasingly obsessed with golf in the 1950s, the perfect lawn rose to become an icon of the American dream, wrote Ted Steinberg, professor of history at Case Western Reserve University and one of the leading scholars of American turf. And finally, in the post-World War II era, there was a boom in the construction of working-class housing that implemented front gardens to imitate upper middle class housing, bringing grass to the working class. The anxiety and pride involved in maintaining a better lawn than your neighbor's is a frequently talked about obsession, but it's still a very real obsession for many people across the country, as having a good lawn is often seen as a symbol of prosperity, discipline and freedom.
Yes, England has a perfect climate for grass, since it rains all the time, they are very pleasant and green, although parts of southern Europe do not have grass. In addition, Americans are reported to use 80 million pounds of fertilizers and pesticides on their lawns every year. And, of course, there's maintenance; mowing the lawn at least once a week is generally recommended, and the average American can spend about 70 hours a year caring for the lawn and garden. Without lawnmowers, a lot of labor was needed on large lawns to cut and remove weeds from lawns, making a nice, tidy lawn without animal droppings a status symbol.
This idea is becoming increasingly relevant in the context of viable grass alternatives, such as gardens, low-maintenance vegetation covers and, more generally, xeriscaping, a landscape conservation technique that, in addition to its ecological aspects, can be much more cost-effective than a traditional lawn. Since a large piece of land dedicated to a lawn meant that the labor needed to maintain it could be paid, and he wasn't bothered by the loss of income from not planting a more productive crop in place of grass, grass became a way to demonstrate his wealth and power. .
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