The Grass Isn’t Greener

On monoculture, identity, and the tiny wings that hold us together; May, 2025 (images and captions available in Ella’s Substack article)

“In nature, nothing exists alone.”

— Rachel Carson

This week, I got a text from my landlord: “The lawn will be mowed on Thursday.” I imagine many tenants welcome this kind of update—tidy rows, neat edges, the smell of cut grass in the air. Not me; I felt dread.

Mowing season has arrived.

Across the country, millions of mowers are revving up in suburban garages, rural barns, and city parks. Turf is trimmed, weeds are doused in chemicals that send bare feet and pets indoors for days, and yet another season of green conformity begins.

The American lawn, for all its visual polish, is far from benign. In fact, it may be one of the most overlooked environmental liabilities of our time.

We’ve normalized something deeply strange: carving out vast tracts of land, planting a handful of shallow-rooted grasses, and pouring on water, fertilizers, herbicides, and insecticides year after year. As turf displaces more ecologically valuable land, it invites a steady parade of pollution, including the two-stroke and four-stroke engines which power the maintenance machines that never seem to rest.

It’s quiet. It’s orderly. It’s catastrophic.

“A weed is just a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The lawn is a surprisingly recent feature of the American landscape. Its roots trace back to medieval Europe, where small grassy clearings were used for communal grazing. By the 17th century, lawns took on a more decorative form—walkways and meadows planted with chamomile and clover—eventually evolving into the iconic closely-clipped English lawn: a symbol of wealth and status. These expanses signaled that the landowner could afford not to grow food and work the land.

It wasn’t until 1830, when Edwin Budding invented the mechanical lawnmower, that lawns became attainable for the middle class. Within roughly a decade, finely trimmed grass wasn’t just for estates and manors. Families across England began sculpting small green replicas in their backyards. America, not far behind on this trend, took to it like no other.

Fast forward to today, and the lawn is now the largest crop in the United States—more than corn, wheat, or soybeans. A NASA-led study in 2005 found that there were 50,000 square miles of turf grass in the United States, covering an area nearly the size of Iowa. Two decades later, there’s little doubt that number has grown, yet public data on lawn coverage remains surprisingly scarce.

The quiet spread of this monoculture has been largely unchallenged, sprawling across suburban developments, corporate campuses, golf courses, and public parks with little regard for biodiversity or climate resilience. The biggest issues occur when there are few barriers between lawns—pollinators, birds, and countless other species lose essential pathways to nest, hide from predators, forage, and rest. Without these key species, we are in deep trouble.

As Paul Robbins writes in Lawn People, it’s not just the land that’s consumed, but also our time, energy, and identity. “The lawn,” he notes, “receives more care, time, and attention from individuals and households than any other natural space.” Here's the thing: this didn’t happen because people want to destroy vital habitat.

It would be a mistake to shame the average American homeowner, exhausted from a full day at work, just trying to tidy up their yard. Having grown up on the South Fork of Long Island, I can assure you that uber-wealthy estates—often with sweeping acres of excessively fertilized grass—are responsible for even more outsized impacts. From June 1, 2023 - May 31, 2024 one 3 acre ocean front home in Sagaponack used fourteen million one hundred and eighty thousand gallons of water to irrigate their lawn, over 100 times as much water as the typical household in Suffolk County.

But even then—are they truly to blame? Is it helpful to think in terms of blame at all?

Lawn culture is upheld by a dense web of social expectations, aesthetic ideals, HOA regulations, and profit incentives. Marketed as the pinnacle of beauty, tidiness, affluence, and civic pride, the manicured lawn has become an unquestioned standard. But monocultural turfgrass creates ecological dead zones—replacing complex, life-sustaining habitat with a kind of synthetic stillness. And the damage doesn’t stop at the lawn’s edge: runoff laced with fertilizers and pesticides flows into waterways, harming aquatic life and polluting marine ecosystems. Yet nowhere is this loss more devastating than for our pollinators.

I didn’t always know the science, but I felt the problem deeply—even as a teenager.

In high school, I was a quiet kind of eco-vigilante. I used to hand-make anti-pesticide flyers and stuff them into my neighbors’ mailboxes. (Technically illegal. Spiritually righteous.) That same year, I took on a personal restoration project: turning a chunk of lawn at my mom’s rental home into a wildflower meadow.

With the help of a family friend, I tore up the sod and scattered native seeds—bee balm, coneflower, goldenrod, aster. That first summer, I mostly watched foliage unfold, with only a few shy blooms—a typical start for young perennials. By the next spring, the yard erupted in color. I filled field journals, pressed specimens into makeshift herbariums, and began learning the names of the bees who arrived—tiny sweat bees, fuzzy bumblebees, metallic green creatures that hummed like the edge of a song.

My mom, a free spirit who treated “no” like a foreign language, let it slide. Her landlord, however, was not so generous.

The day she came by to inspect the property before we moved out—barely concealing her panic at the "mess" of blossoms—I happened to be the only one home. After a lap around the property, she marched up to the front door, flustered.

“What happened to my yard? This is not what the HOA recommends!” she shouted. (I kid you not.)

I tried to explain: about native plants, biodiversity, the plight of pollinators. I spoke with the fervor of someone freshly out of AP Biology and full of purpose. She wasn’t impressed, but the exchange planted something in me: the realization that aesthetic norms can be a kind of ecological violence, and that pushing back—even in a rented backyard—mattered. I was in tears by the time my mom got home. I had just tried (and spectacularly failed) to convince a furious landlord that goldenrod was a gift to mankind.

“To truly know the world, look deeply into the smallest things.”

— Rudolf Steiner

These days, it’s common to hear people say they’re “saving the bees.” Often, what they mean is honeybees—Apis mellifera, a domesticated European species. This is an understandable case of misplaced heroism.

While honeybees are crucial to agriculture, they aren’t native to North America. In fact, their proliferation—especially in urban areas—can outcompete native bees for limited floral resources. They’re livestock, not wildlife.

Native bees—like leafcutters, mason bees, digger bees, sweat bees, and the fuzzy, endangered rusty-patched bumblebee—are far more efficient at pollinating many plant species. It’s not a popular opinion, but it would be remiss not to mention that wasps matter too. From paper wasps to parasitic wasps (unsung heroes of natural pest control), many play crucial roles in ecosystems—and even in agriculture. More often than not, these pollinators don’t live in colonies, and certainly don’t produce honey. They nest in the ground, in hollow stems, in the quiet edges of our yards that often get trimmed away.

When we talk about “saving the bees,” we need to broaden our lens. We need to save the spaces where all types of pollinators can live.

So, What Can We Do?

Let’s be clear: grasses aren’t the enemy. Grasses on rooftops can help cool urban heat islands, regenerative grazing on pastures has been shown to effectively sequester and store carbon (check out Carbon Cowboys), and like most plants, grasses can help slow stormwater runoff and even dampen noise pollution. The issue isn’t grass—it’s what we’ve chosen to grow, how we grow it, and what we’ve excluded to make room for it.

This is the upside of such a widespread problem: it’s easily solvable.

Just 10 square feet of mindfully selected flowering plants can create vital habitat for a host of bees, wasps, butterflies, moths, and beetles. A single patch of goldenrod, bee balm, aster, milkweed, or butterfly weed, can host dozens of species. If you replace even a third of your lawn with wildflower meadows, native shrubs, or no-mow zones, your yard becomes not just beautiful, but an incredibly beneficial ecosystem.

If you have children, dogs, or simply like the feel of grass underfoot—keep some lawn! No one’s asking you to rip it all out. Conservation groups suggest that 1,000–2,000 square feet is more than enough space for recreation. (On average, the residential lawn in the United States is approximately 10,000 square feet.) The rest of your yard can work smarter—cooling the soil, building organic matter, absorbing carbon, and feeding pollinators.

It’s not too late to change. With what is at stake, we have to want something better than green conformity.

We need a new American yard—one with room to run, yes, but also room to grow wild. And if it means less mowing, fewer sprinkler repairs, and more time in a hammock, all the better.

The Value of Stillness

Written for Cornell Marine Program; February, 2024

Mindfulness can open the doors to a life otherwise unseen by the busy mind, especially to the wonders that only offer themselves to a slower and arguably wiser way of living. There is a value to stillness; it is the essence of clarity. For example, when observing a waterbody after a storm, overtime the sediments fall and that which exists within become visible. This is a metaphor I often use to welcome the gap between body and mind. To pause in the in-between where no thoughts exist, and everything of that moment is born. On Monday, February 5, we applied this very practice to observing the marsh at Cedar Beach through Back to the Bay’s first Guided Meditation and Marsh Walk. Led by two members of our amazing team - Kimberly Manzo and myself, Ella Gatfield - participants welcomed “The Value of Stillness” through attuning to the present, assimilating to their surroundings, and later learning about the workings of the marsh in winter.

While walking the marsh before participants arrive, a Snowy egret provides Kim and I company. This small white heron is the ideal mentor when it comes to embracing stillness. In the practice of meditation, one is carving out space between stimulus and response - between thought and action. The heron stands incredibly still, completely attuned to its surroundings. From this state of stillness, undistracted by action, a well-informed decision is often made. For the egret in the marsh, this tends to be reflected as a successful catch of fish or crustacean. He flies away into the cloudless sky as our guests arrive well dressed for the cold but fresh air. We circle by the edge of the marsh, and I lead the group into a guided meditation, shifting attention to each of our 5 senses. The senses aid our connection of inner-self to the outer-world. As we attune to our final sense of the meditation (sight) we each open our eyes to a different view of understanding, and proceed to explore the marsh at our own accord.

Kim, our Marine Educator and habitat maven, gathers us back together to lead us through the marsh. She explains that while the salt marsh cordgrass (Sporobolus alterniflorus) appears to be dead, their plant parts underneath the salt ponds are very much alive. The top half of the plant is brown, yet it provides nutrients to the lower half of the plant where the rhizobial roots connect to the poorly draining mineral soils. The salt marsh cordgrass exists in a semi-dormant state, providing habitat for Killifish and Fiddler crabs, which burrow into the sediment and root systems to avoid freezing, entering a near catatonic state.

The plants of the salt marsh grow based on salt tolerance, with Sporobolus being the most tolerant - it is able to thrive being inundated by the tide twice a day. The middle zone of the marsh is made up of plants such as salt meadow cordgrass (Sporobolus pumulis), which can tolerate occasional salt exposure and flooding. The highest elevations of the marsh, made up of cedar trees and other native plants and shrubs, are able to withstand limited salt exposure. Some of these plants boast a rusty hue, and others, bay berries that are a welcome source of nutrients to many birds and animals. With deciduous foliage fallen, the visibility of resident birds and those who migrate south for winter are apparent, all the more in striking colors and songs. Blue jays, Cardinals, Chickadees, Canadian geese, and others make their presence known. In the distance I hear a Downy woodpecker, perhaps searching for insects in the bark or staking its territory.

Long Island is experiencing an especially stormy winter this year, with strong winds and heavy precipitation. While there has been some coastal destruction in parts of the Island, in moderation, winter storms help to churn up and incorporate the decaying plant matter back into the marsh sediment to be composted. This process provides essential energy for spring growth. The marsh helps protect us from winter storms by capturing floodwaters and slowly releasing them back into our larger waterbodies, filtering storm runoff in the process. Marsh grass also sequesters carbon from the atmosphere - a process often referred to as Blue Carbon - playing a critical role in mitigating the effects of climate change, such as rising atmospheric temperatures (largely a result of fossil fuel). In short, marsh habitat is a precious resource that is home to many vital species, provides a buffer against coastal erosion, and helps regulate global warming.

As we wrap up our mindful marsh ecology tour, we see Seagulls dropping shells on the pebble-ridden shoreline of Cedar Beach, eager to snack on the meat hidden inside. We share conversation about Horseshoe crabs and Piping plovers, and compare observations made over the years.

When we slow down, we lay the foundation for speeding up with greater intention and awareness. When we do so, we see all kinds of things we were missing, out in the world, and inside ourselves. As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus said, “the only constant in life is change”. With the rate of ecological devastation increasing largely due to climate change, we can all play a part in bettering where the story leads. To me, this shift in understanding is a kind of liminal space - the precipice of greater awareness yet to be comprehended. Regarding environmentally-forward conversation and implementation, this can evoke a sense of vulnerability and fear. I know it does for me, but I believe life’s most turbulent moments are where the best and most enduring transformations occur. That is, when we choose to see them for what they are; to accept what the in-between offers up, utilizing it as a template to move forward with greater intention.

Next time you find yourself by a body of water, in the woods, or looking up at the night sky, observe where you are and feel your relationship to the universe as a whole. As we deepen our connection to Nature, and cultivate a greater awareness of Self (oneness), we can take environmental processes and systems that are abstract or hidden beyond our view less for granted. This sense of gratitude will not restore biodiversity or remedy rising atmospheric temperatures, but it seems unlikely that we can solve any significant environmental problems without it.

Lines as Circles

Written for Orion Magazine’s Environmental Writers Workshop; June, 2024

Under exceptionally good viewing conditions, if a person has 20/20 vision, they can see the Triangulum Galaxy. At around 3 million light-years away, it is thought to be one of the farthest objects visible from Earth by the human eye. If I look to the horizon from land or water, with an unobstructed view, I can see roughly 3 miles into the distance. Bound by this irregularly shaped ellipsoid, everything past the horizon line curves out of view. Wishful, I look to the night sky, then I sigh, releasing atoms of carbon into the world. I cannot see past what light pollution and poor air quality permits; an established perimeter of a crime scene. I turn to the familiar faces of our galaxy. Hello Moon. Hello Jupiter. Hello stars.

Some beings integrate the world with senses that humans do not have. I observe three little brown bats hunting for pray, knowing, but not understanding, that they use echolocation. I observe a mighty honeybee hard at work, navigating to patient flowers. Research suggests she can sense electric fields generated by plants by the way her hairs are deflected. The list of senses us Sapiens live without continues.

I strive to synthesize the world. To understand what I will never understand. In my minds eye, I am a carbon atom - taken in from the atmosphere by organic matter, stored in roots of summer’s restlessness. Respiration. Cycles. Severed into halves; quartered by vertical lines. The line cuts into the Earth’s crust. The living, the dead, and the very dead.

• The living is organic matter, and is the easiest for us to quantify: plant roots, residues, manure, and more, that are in the soil.

• The dead is the active carbon pool. It is where nutrient and aggregate glues are found. It is food for our future. It is food for our past. It is food for our failures. It is food for our promises. It is food for our food.

• The very dead is more commonly referred to as soil humus. It is where I link to others. In a healthy soil ecosystem we remain here, Earth’s largest terrestrial store of organic carbon. I am a part of the recalcitrant pool. The very dead, those most resistant to decomposition.

My eyes guide me up, up, up. Hopeful that tonight I will find the Triangulum Galaxy. Instead, ancient stories burned by genocide, greed, God, rise like smoke to the causal plane. Do I have a seat at the table? I feel the Earth warming. Others who have suffered far more than I, they need a seat. They need to rest. My Papap who died for something worth fighting for. The African elephant who starved while sitting with her breathless calf. All of the beings who are currently fighting, willing or otherwise. I smell soil’s whisper, and feel the familiar face of someone who is worth the risk. Wrinkles marking time. Ridges guiding safe passage. I close my eyes and I synthesize the world: God. The line that severs limbs, links carbon, and gives me a reason for hanging on, is an arc of a circle whose radius is infinite.

Lone Seed

2023

Barren soil, delicate seedling alight -

Arrival by autumn winds savage gust. 

Hostile land lacked protection, alone

Amongst all things. Germination triumphs;

Seedling persists. Peaceful soldier rooted 

In lone night. Snow shells naked land, seedling

Hides in fright. Despite truant sun dark, seed

Plants roots deep, finding feeble life beneath. 

Spring awaits song, the seedlings must unite.

Battle ground scarred in past Thistle, absent

Thorn, sparks anew. Gathered roots in soil, joined 

By love of what is now a bud, brings life

To barren land above. Ecosystem 

Anew thanks to the flower that is you.

At Sea

2023

Numbed by life’s pain

She divorced her name

And headed out to sea

Limited in the quality of mercy 

Floating, astonished in the abyss

It was home that she missed

The scent of a flower 

Hot tea at morning hour

Nameless, she couldn’t recall the color of her eyes

But could see her own demise 

As she thinned to the bone

her inner Casper shown 

She sent waves to the shore

Begging to be heard 

The only to listen

Was an Albatross bird

Salt ridden currents

Peppered in her tears

Caught in rip tides 

Searching for someone near

Swallowed and spit out by Blue Beast

She knew the voyage ought to cease

But if it wasn’t for the sea

Her spirit wouldn’t be free

The whales, they were grand 

One even shook her hand

Wishing her good luck 

They know man often runs amok 

Her heart the size of a fist

Tried to persist 

As she headed back to land

To place her feet on stable sand 

But safety had drifted far

Too far estranged to be reached

So she conversed with reality 

And took the back seat 

Succumbed to the present

Kissed by seaweed wind

She smiled faintly in golden sun 

She knew her days were nearly done  

Confiding in expanse horizon;

In refracted moonlight gleaming farewell

She pondered on existence 

Cyclic nature of finiteness  

No longer angered at man for inflicting pain

Delivered to her out of spite and vein 

She leapt out of her vessel and said hello

To a wondrous world down below  

Yet the real plot twist

Is that this woman still exists

And her story is told through me 

For I hear her call when at sea