A response by CPI Chair Ross Reddick to Chris McKeown’s August 16, 2025 article entitled: “Are lawns environmentally friendly or harmful? An expert weighs in” Published in the Cincinnati Enquirer

I read the recent article defending traditional grass lawns with both appreciation and concern. I grew up in suburbia, surrounded by neatly trimmed lawns. I never gave them much thought. They were just part of the landscape of Americana, and I assumed that was simply how a yard was supposed to look.

But when I was introduced to permaculture—a landscape design methodology that works with nature instead of against it—I began to see the hidden costs of the American lawn. I began to recognize that what we take for “normal” in our front and backyards is actually quite unusual in the natural world.

I appreciate that the author took time to Google “both sides” and include the specific claims he was responding to. That’s a good instinct, and more intellectually honest than presenting just the side that supports one’s views already. But the internet is full of simplified talking points and catchy slogans, and I felt this question deserved deeper reflection.

The problem with presenting an issue like this as having two opposing sides, pro-lawn and anti-lawn, is that it would seem to force us into an either/or choice, where one choice is clearly the “right” one. As the author pointed out, lawns commonly co-exist with other plantings like trees and shrubs: we can have both, and no one is arguing for paving over your grass. Promoting alternatives to lawns is not an attack on lawns, or an environmental guilt trip, but an invitation to reconsider something that you, like I did in my youth, may have taken for granted.

The author listed out many of the benefits of grass lawns for functions like providing cleaner, cooler air and space for our families to play outdoors. The alternative to grass is not dirty air, unbearable heat, and yards that no one plays in, though. The alternative is adding in layers of trees, shrubs, flowers, and even food crops. In nature, grass is an example of a pioneer species: plants that move in to cover bare soil but are soon outcompeted by taller, thirstier, deeper-rooted vegetation. Maintaining a weed-free lawn means continually fighting back the natural succession of other species, often with chemical interventions, and keeping that patch of earth in an artificial holding pattern.

What grass can do, a diverse landscape can also do, while providing other benefits, at the same time and with the same amount of space. That’s the efficiency of nature. A healthy ecosystem of trees and undergrowth creates a stronger cooling effect than the same square footage of grass could and creates natural habitats for other living things. A thoughtful selection of native plants attracts beneficial insects while deterring unwanted pests. Cover crops like clover can still provide an open green space for our kids and pets to play in, while their roots work under the ground to improve soil nutrition and prevent erosion.

In permaculture, this is called “stacking functions.” The most valuable parts of a landscape are those that can meet multiple ecological needs at once, including the needs of the people who live there. The environmental critique of a lawn, or any monoculture, is not that it is inherently harmful, or doing nothing for the earth—it’s that it could be doing so much more.

None of this is to dismiss the affection people have for their lawns, or the memories that grass evokes. I grew up with them too. I still have mostly lawn in my own yard. But, I’m working on decreasing the overall footprint of lawn in favor of raised beds, dedicated composting areas, pollinator areas, and rainwater catchment to feed it all. My hunch is that children can and do play joyfully in wildflower meadows, food forests, or pollinator-friendly gardens. In fact, these landscapes are more stimulating, offering textures, scents, and colors that a uniform patch of fescue can’t match.

The author summons the American Dream in defense of lawns. I trust that the American Dream is incredibly expansive, and able to include a plurality of visions of what beauty can look like—including what it looked like long before the lawn was widely adopted. My hope is that mere nostalgia and normativity would not blind us to better options. Promoting alternatives to lawns is not “extreme,” but part of the marketplace of ideas. Such freedom allows groups like the Cincinnati Permaculture Institute to educate people about the limitations of the American lawn, and promote a vision of sustainability that both outweighs nostalgia and feeds people.

Lawns may have been one vision of the American dream. But Americans keep dreaming, and today, many of them are dreaming of a more sustainable, less wasteful life, where even small decisions like what seeds to plant and how often one mows the lawn can make a difference. Tomorrow’s dream is already sprouting in backyards across our city, and it looks far richer, healthier, and more alive than even the most beautifully manicured lawn.

Ross Reddick is a Presbyterian Minister in Mason, OH, and serves as the Chair of the Cincinnati Permaculture Institute.