this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2023
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Memes

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[–] [email protected] 167 points 1 year ago (11 children)

Not just the bees, all bugs in North America have seen a 75% die off in the last 20 years.

Big shocker that songbirds, which eat those bugs, have also seen a massive die off.

Despite those deniers that still blame housecats, the true culprit is almost certainly pollution and pesticides.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Despite those deniers that still blame housecats

Both things can be true. They aren't mutually exclusive.

Also we have less pollution and pesticide use than we did in the 60s and 70s. Why is it just becoming a problem now?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

less pollution? that cannot possibly be true. according to dr google 1970s world population was 3.7b, now we're more than double that

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

I’m the US, the EPA was created in the 1970’s. We definitely have less pollution (of certain types) today than we did in the past. Some notable examples of how disgustingly polluted American skies and waterways were in the past:

The skies of Pittsburgh, PA

the Cuyahoga River fire

Coal Production has also been declining

And then of course less visible examples like the Montreal Protocol stopping corporations from depleting the ozone layer.

My point is in terms of greenhouse gas production we are much higher than in the 60’s and 70’s, but we have massively improved in a lot of areas. Of course there is still room to improve.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I bet that while we have less general pollution and less dumping trash in the environment kinda things, we have developed much more potent insecticides. And if those insecticides do not degrade within a few weeks they will accumulate in the earth and the water.

Edit: Wikipedia about one type of modern pesticides: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoid

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (4 children)

House cats are making it worse too

Both things are true

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[–] [email protected] 130 points 1 year ago (24 children)

I find grass so useless. Every boomer parent I've known is just obsessed with it, too. They think that not having a green, green monoculture lawn means you've failed morally or something, and that it's how they show the neighborhood how responsible they are. One GF's dad came over to our random Winconsin lawn of grass and weeds and strawberries and was "I WOULD JUST PULL THIS ALL UP AND START OVER". Uh.... no?

Then I had an across the street neighbor (guy with a bumper sticker "I've never seen a FLAG burned at a GUN SHOW") who would mow his lawn every single day with a riding mower. You couldn't even tell what part he had done yet. I went out of town for two weeks and he rode over and mowed my lawn. I left my backyard just go and it was awesome... after a few years, birds started nesting in the middle of the prairie, and I had flowers growing I'd never seen anywhere else.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago

They all seem obsessed with plastic grass now which is even worse.

My garden is mostly weeds. Haven't cut it in 15 years. I pretend to be a trendsetting wild gardener, but really I'm just a lazy bastard.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Did you sue? I'd have been livid enough to try to sue. IANAL, but at a minimum I would hope that would be trespassing.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Some places have bylaws on maximum lawn height and you can actually be fined for letting it go. That's how insane people are about lawns.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean that's probally overkill, that person was either OCD or was thinking he was doing them a favor. That sounds like a great way to have a pissed off neighbor and a potentially hostile neighborhood

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I went out of town for two weeks and he rode over and mowed my lawn.

This happened to me too. grillman are so violently obsessed with inch-high fuzzy green rectangles of obedience that they'll sometimes invade your property to make more of them, overriding any of their own pretenses about the sanctity of private property in the process.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It seems like people used to suburbs see that as the pinnacle of life but of course that's not true.

In my experience rural areas get it because they are farmers and beekeepers with an understanding that working with nature is the way to go

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[–] [email protected] 68 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Is there a nolawns community here?

Weirdly enough, it's small on reddit, and the biggest are on Facebook ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Facebook users typically skew older, so people that are more likely to have established careers, larger spaces and yards to work on. I feel like a lot of Redditors and Lemmings are young and live with parents or in apartments, and are thus less likely to have a yard to care for.

That being said, anyone with a deck or porch can pot a plant or two to try and help local pollinators.

[–] [email protected] 64 points 1 year ago (16 children)

I started doing clover in my yard a year ago and there are so many bees and butterflies now. My neighbor was like “why are you doing that yo your grass??? The previous owners took so long to make that yard look nice”

[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 year ago (1 children)

“Why are you destroying your yard with an abundance of bees and butterflies? This isn’t fantasy land we need nothing but grass here to look nice”

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When I moved in the grass was pretty close to the picture in the meme. I liked it at first but then I realized how expensive it was going to be to upkeep and how bad it is for the local ecosystem. I have successfully undone most of that work literally just by planting clover and not mowing down to the bone.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If only everyone realized that grass is just a weed and not worth the maintenance and effort we put into it, it’s sad how ubiquitous it is in some places

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

I want to make a short film / animation where aliens are approaching earth, the only thing we know about the aliens is that they plan to destroy all life and replace it with their own twisted creation. A few minutes of typical story follows, heroes assemble, go to fight, etc. The heroes lose and the ending scene shows that the aliens have succeeded and replaced all the diverse life on Earth with a perfectly manicured lawn that covers the entire planet. A biological wasteland.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I will admit there is something very pleasing about looking at a well trimmed yard. That said, the percent of the earth's land surface covered by manicured lawns is tiny. The ag industry would love for you to believe your lawn is the problem. It isn't. The problem is the monoculture farm land. Acres of fields with only one type of crop. And probably other things like pollution and such. But industries love to play the "you are the problem" card to divert from themsleves.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, but also: Every little bit of help, well... helps.

Don't let those industries playing the blame game discourage you from dedicating a part of your yard to a bunch of flowers, because then the problem would get ever so slightly worse.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is the correct answer, this shit is „your carbon footprint“ all over again

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (6 children)
[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 year ago (4 children)

This does not require mass weed killer, pesticides, and water though?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

You can pull weeds by hand.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Honestly, that may be better. At least it doesn't use water and it would be fine in a very dry environment out western US.

Native plants would still be even better though.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I live in the desert (Utah). My yard will look like this soon. It's too expensive to water our lawn so we're going with a xeriscape.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago

Remember it's not just about saving honey bees! Honey bees are domesticated, which means that humans will make sure that they have food and shelter and appropriate medicine and care throughout the year to ensure they make honey.

Saving "the bees" moreso means saving wild, native, often times solitary bees like bumblebees or carpenter bees that don't produce honey but that also aren't domesticated - they have no safety net that humans give them.

Those bees along with all other pollinators like bats, birds, and other insects are the ones at risk!

Still, we should all consider growing native yards to return habitat back to these dying species!

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The EU has uncultivated land subsidies. To avoid overproduction of food and overexploitation of the land, the EU pays farmers to keep their land uncultivated. Some countries, like mine, force farmers to uncultivate their land once every N years, and, of course, they get subsidies for this.

In my region, farmers will plant flowers and let weed grow, since they're not putting any pesticide. They let the flowers and weeds die and rot at the end of the season. This way, they dont have to put as much fertilizer the next year. I've always seen these uncultivated fields full of bees and other pollinators in summer.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I stopped cutting my grass and now I have rats :(

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Bold to assume we own yards

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

Your yard in your summer residence then. Jeez

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I have lived at my current property for nearly 7 years now, and while I cut the main area up against the house once a week, I typically let the rest grow out for a month. Never used sprays other than flea and tick for my dog's yard, and never even pulled weeds.

Still, it's almost all completely homogenous grass. Not sure what species, but it doesn't grow very high. 3-5 inches. No wildflowers have encroached, no other grasses except clover, not even weeds other than dandelion. The only other thing that grows anywhere is some English ivy that's pissing me off all over the house. Every time I pull some out and dig up the root, I find more a few days later.

Still, MUCH higher insect, pollinator, and other wildlife activity vs my previous residence. It's been nice seeing fireflies again, even if it's still nowhere near what it was when I was a kid.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I prefer a garden full of grown weeds than a clean grass cutted one. If a weed can grow and prosper without me watering it once a day, I think they deserve the right to be there more than anything my father ever planted on his yard that would die without getting water for 3 days or too much rain water.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We keep the front mowed for the HOA.

The backyard can grow until we worry about snakes affecting our pups.

We have a front garden that gets no care outside HOA recommendations. It came with the house.

Can't wait until I can OWN a house, but the market (with all the influences upon it) isn't there.

I'm saving, and considering moving to another state, if that helps all the pedantic monsters our there.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: [email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Reading all the comments and everyone is like not my yard , its full of flowers but for some reason I don't see any bees or butterfly 🤷‍♂️

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

I only mow at the last possible second to not get a fine, has been working really well for my yard. I have seen flowers, corn, and a beautiful assortment of creepers and clovers start taking over the sterile grass. My neighbors neighbor seems to get butthurt. They take care of my direct neighbors yard whom I share a chain link fence with, she loves my vines with the flowers and strange gourds that wind around the fence. Neither of us planted it but the people who tend her yard destroy it 😭if we just let everything happen naturally some very cool things start to crop up. I've seen some absolutely massive grasshoppers and a bunch of praying mantis as well. My bee hotel never attracts anything but I've seen plenty of bees about which makes me happy.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (4 children)

if I didn't take care of my lawn, I'd have invasive Bermuda grass getting into everything and it would kill all the other plants. I've also looked into overseeding with mini clover but I've read that it doesn't tolerate traffic well. open to any suggestions as I'm fighting a losing battle with fescue and the damn Bermuda.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Mine is an acre of natural meadow.

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