PRESS EDITORIAL: Setting nature free in parks

We northern latitude folks love our lawns.

Maybe that’s because their annual greening is a sure sign that another seemingly interminable gray-brown season is finally ending.

Or because a green growing carpet surrounding our homes is not only pretty but also a requirement of suburban aesthetics whose violation is considered an anti-social affront to neighbors.

Or because, for some, lawn mowing is a satisfying hobby that provides hours of outdoor activity each week, friendly competition with other homeowners in the exercise of lawn maintenance skills and the rewards of beholding verdant perfection when the job is done.

Lawn love is such a force that it overcomes the negative baggage that travels with grass management—the expense of ever more powerful mowing equipment, the harmful emissions from burning fossil fuel and the runoff of fertilizers and pesticides that damage water quality and the racket lawn mowing makes. It is probably safe to say that lawn mowers blast more decibels into the summer air than any other source, not counting motorcycles, which have no peer in noise making, with the possible exception of gas-powered blowers used to clean up after grass cutting.

Manicured grass is held in high esteem even when it’s publicly owned, so Port Washington’s superintendent of parks and forestry had good reason to predict recently that a plan to stop cutting the grass in parts of some city parks would be met with complaints from the public.

“I think people are starting to understand dandelions aren’t horrible,” Jon Crain told the Parks and Recreation Board, “but some people love cut grass and a lot of it. We’re going to hear about it.”

A few complaints will be a small price to pay for the environmental good that will come from letting the grass grow to a wild state in selected areas of city parks, where it will be joined by naturally occurring flora also known as weeds, as well as prairie plants that will be cultivated in the uncut areas.

The result will be botanic diversity that will be home for organisms that produce the pollen insects and birds distribute to nurture desirable plant life.

Among other benefits, especially for those who don’t find dandelions horrible, will be the pleasure of observing the return to nature close up from mowed walking paths.

When they’re mature, Port’s naturalized park areas will be microcosms of the Ozaukee Washington Land Trust’s Forest Beach Migratory Preserve in the Town of Belgium, which was the ultimate lawn—a golf course—before it became a nature preserve.

Its 116 acres of prairie plants, wild grasslands and desirable weeds are accessible by walkers from miles of mowed trails.

The city’s naturalized park areas will be but a small portion of its parkland, and the broad swards of Upper Lake, Veterans and Coal Dock parks and others will continue to be mowed for the picnickers, Frisbee players, dog walkers and other park visitors who appreciate grass in its short form.

Even though it involves a small percentage of city owned-land, creation of the natural areas will also have practical benefit of reducing the city’s spending on mowing and trimming hundreds of acres of grass.

Crain, who has the enthusiastic support of the parks and recreation board in his naturalizing initiative, has been instrumental in putting Port Washington on an environmentally responsible course with his management of city plantings, including prairie plants with identifying labels in Coal Dock Park, a vigorous tree planting program sustained by the city’s own nursery and the establishment of the Birchwood Hills Nature Preserve on the city’s northeast side.

The impact of that work is now being augmented by the Western Great Lakes Bird and Bat Observatory’s program to enlist gardeners to grow pollinator plants to enrich the city’s bird and insect habitat. Naturally, Crain is working with the organization on the project.

These efforts could not be more timely. Just last week, the British scientific journal Nature published a definitive study finding that one of the most effective ways to combat the crises of climate change and biodiversity loss is to let nature reclaim human-maintained land to soak up excess carbon dioxide. The most significant effect would come from converting tracts of cultivated farmland to natural areas, but even such small-scale efforts as letting microsized manicured grass areas go wild can make a difference.

That may be the way of the future, but it’s too soon for lawn lovers to worry. No one is expecting them to give up their grass. Some sacrifices are just too painful to ask for.