In a sea of brown lawns, why some natural gardeners are bringing messy back

As abnormally dry weather sweeps across much of the country this summer, you may have found yourself staring despondently at the brown, crispy patch of fried earth you once called your front lawn, felt your fingers twitch in the direction of the hose and wondered: Should I? Am I even allowed?

But environmental and horticultural experts, as well as proponents of the no-lawn movement, say the question is actually whether it's responsible to have a full grass lawn at all anymore.

The David Suzuki Foundation has previously estimated there are about 6.2 million lawns across Canada, and calculated that anywhere from 8.2 to 22.7 per cent of several large Canadian municipalities are turf grass. In 2021, two-thirds of Canadian households reported they had a lawn, according to Statistics Canada.

These lawns are "biodiversity deserts," according to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, supporting very few insects and wildlife. They're also notorious for their water waste and contribute to water scarcity. Maintaining them often involves harmful pesticides and fertilizers, while frequent mowing emits greenhouse gases.

And with many Canadian cities experiencing prolonged dry conditions, many lawns are looking ... parched.

The case for leaving the perfectly manicured lawn behind

Feel hopeless about our planet? Here's how you can help solve a big problem right in your own backyard

Enter the no-lawn, anti-lawn or re-wilding movement, a sustainable approach to landscaping and an attempt to shift our perspective on what yards can look like — and their purpose. This can include a naturalized yard, a habitat garden, using yards to grow food, or even just converting a section of your lawn to dedicate to native plant species and pollinators. 

"There's a crazy amount of lawn out there, like tens of millions of acres in Canada and the United States, dedicated to growing just turf grass," said Brendon Samuels, a postdoctoral fellow with the Ecological Design Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University.

"Which is an imported, non-native group of species that has no real ecological value, that is very expensive to maintain and that doesn't look so nice when you're in the middle of a heat wave in the summer.