Americans seem to wear their laziness as a badge of honor (duuude….. i’m soooo lazy….haha lol). While personally frustrating to no end, many people nevertheless create and upkeep lawns that require a tremendous amount of work.
And while owners in the west have begun to convert their traditional-style lawns to native plants or rocks (with the help of incentive payments) to save bundles on water and fertilizer, east coast lawn owners have been much slower to convert. But that is starting to change, as there is a small but growing (ouch) movement to put no-maintenance plants back in your yard.
David Brenner, from Bucks County, PA, has for years used moss as the main ground vegetation in his lawn. And he hasn’t watered it in 40 years. If you’re really stuck on having a traditional-looking American-style lawn, going no- or low-maintenance can take a lot of planning. But, if you’re like most people, and don’t have a putting green in your back yard, stick with native and low-maintenance plants. You’ll save a ton of water (probably more, actually) and never have to mow the lawn again. Who knows, you might even prefer your peaceful, natural looking lawn.
[side note: the super-low-tech two-stroke engines in most lawn mowers pollute way more than any car, which has modern pollution controls and a cleaner four-stroke engine.]
Marc B
Brad L
Another alternative is to go electric mowing, either corded or cordless. The average American lawn is 1/5 of an acre. But since you pointed out, Americans are quite lazy. I wonder how many people needlessly break out the riding mower to mow their 1/5 acre? Quite a few I bet. The moss idea sounds pretty awesome assuming your climate can support it. As for using other plants, I think the main obstacle to that is the design aspect. Most people don’t know the first thing about landscape design so they go for the monkey see, monkey do approach and lawns is what everybody does.