I love this, but I suspect that the average person will see the last one and think, "Perfect! An orderly lawn and less insects."
More time and effort. Bottom one takes 30 minutes to mow every 2 weeks. Each and everyone of those plants need to be maintained, trimmed and kept with weekly so it doesn’t look like a disaster. So unless you have 1-2 free hours a day, no one will be actually able to do the top and maintain it so it doesn’t turn to garbage.
Once you have flowers planted they’re pretty easy to maintain. I have a much larger garden area than what’s pictured. Yes, in the spring I give up a couple of weekends to get it all established but after that it’s just watering it once a day (if required) and then enjoy it for the rest of the season.
So, that was a long winded way of telling you that you are wrong.
It's not true for one simple reason: we need to plan NATIVE plants! They require near no maintainence and do extremely well.
All the shit you can buy from a garden store is almost always non natives that weve all been tricked into thinking is somehow better. They aren't. They suck for the ecosystem and they suck to take care of.
There is no care with native plants. There is only beautiful growth and a healthy ecosystem.
Plant. Native.
Lol, plants don't need to be kept with weekly. Maintaining a xeriscape or native landscape is less time and effort than a lawn. I've been slowly converting my lawn to larger and more native beds. I don't have to water, even during exceptional drought. I have to top the mulch up once a year. I weed (usually just grass) just whenever I spot a weed. Depending on the plant, I trim or cut it back to the ground once or twice a year.
I see the top one and think 2 things:
a) That looks like a lot of maintenance
And
b) They conveniently left out spiders, all those other bugs will attract a shit ton of spiders and I hate spiders. I like ladybugs, dragonflies, butterflies and such, but not so much that I'm willing to deal with spiders and wasps.
If someone has a way to solve both those problems I'm all for it lmao
Middle one for me
My landlord exactly. Dude hires people to spray the yard every year because God forbid ants try to approach the building. I've tried convincing him not to but he wasn't having it. I talked to my neighbor and it turns out the guy used to edge the lawn with scissors. Luckily my neighbor is way more agreeable and we're redoing his lawn more in line with the picture
There's a craze for plastic grass in the UK.
It looks awful and you won't even get flies, let alone anything useful. Getting dog shit out of them is a nightmare as well.
I mean.... I agree with all of you...but I hate bugs...unless they are sea bugs those I eat.
Some people just want to see the world burn (or don't know better ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
Shit you’re telling me to get rid of those asshole grasshoppers I just need a straight path?
Yeah this is not really selling it because most people have a negative amount of interest in more bugs
most people have a negative amount of interest in more bugs
Unless they're Ubisoft.
Until people stop and realize that the birds and the bees includes bugs. It's not like we can tell them where to be, but we sure as shit need them to exist.
There is something so desolate when you live somewhere that native bees and butterflies are rare in. You start to realize it's due to the lack of nature, forests. The pesticides you and your neighbors dump on your lawn. The lack of any native plants
If you got rid of the 🗿 you wouldn't have flies. 🗿 Spontaneously generate them.
I don't see mosquitoes, ticks, chiggers, ants (ants especially on the vines on the house) spiders, roaches, centipedes, or a dozen other specialized bugs that eat your vegetable garden.
My yard looks like a mix of 1 and 2, but there's a lot of negatives to your daily life with any of the 3 options and this biased graphic clearly wants you to pick 1 or at least 2 over 3.
As to that, see my comment:
https://old.lemmy.world/comment/8014897
Chiggers are a massive problem I forgot to note! Not sure what to do about those.
What if I want a big stone head and a jungle and a food garden?
Got a couple of acres of swamp down here. Friend of mine won't visit because of the mosquitoes. Makes sense, right? Swamp = mosquitos.
But there are hardly any! Might get buzzed twice at sundown, that's it, far worse at my home. Also, unlike everywhere else in the South, there are zero fire ants. Literally not a single ant to be found.
All because I have a robust ecosystem out there. The tiny "ground attack" spiders, whatever they're called, are legion. You won't see one unless you look for 'em, or shine a flashlight across the ground at night. 100s of thousands per acre, maybe a million+.
I got banana spiders with fat webs for traps, dragonflies and hummingbirds for helicopters and jets. Tiny lizards prowl everywhere. Tiny fish in the "ponds" eat any larva or eggs that get in there, sometimes surface bugs.
All that scales up to snakes (oddly rare), small mammals, raptors, you get the idea.
tl;dr: Healthy system = hellish Deathworld for insects.
One other note: I've cleared about 1,200sq./ft. at the main camp site. Just that tiny bit of clearing is noticeably hotter than 60'-80' down the trail. Haven't taken thermometer readings, but you can feel an easy 5°F drop. Amazing that such a small spot becomes a heat island. Now look at the top and bottom pics. Does the bottom pic look hot to you? Does the top pic evoke feelings of coolness? Yeah. Imagine what our cities, roads and fields are doing to the overall environment.
Not in the same climate as you, but we stopped cutting our grass all the time. We mow about 3-4 times a year. It's really more of a "harvest" than mowing at this point.
While the neighbors may not appreciate the shaggy meadow we cultivated, we now have lightning bugs at dusk in the summertime. The neighboring houses? Practically none. I can only imagine what will happen when we start replacing this stuff with local plants.
The tiny "ground attack" spiders, whatever they're called, are legion.
Some kind of jumping spider, maybe? Jumping spiders are called that because rather than wait for prey to land on their web they actively hunt insects.
You can still add 🗿 to the top. The insects will be fine!
Might prefer it, in fact.
And then the city fines you once a week for “grass too tall”
Why should the city fine me for how my garden looks?
🪰
Kill it!
🗿
Qué le dijo un moai a otro moai? no te moai
I can tell you from experience that if you neglect your garden for about 15 years, it does not look like that top one at all.
Well, yea, the top one doesn't look neglected at all.
Ain’t nobody got time for that.
Who cares about (most) bugs, the first one just straight up looks the best
Please do not let vines grow up your siding if you want your house to last more than 50 years.
I think the second one looks the best. When I move I plan to get rid of most of the manicured lawn but I still think a bit of it is nice to have
