this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2025
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No Lawns
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I dead ass had a pest company come to my door and offer to flush my lawn with pesticide to get rid of all the bugs in it. I said "my guy, did you know that global insect populations are crashing and we're heading towards complete ecological collapse? I recognize everyone's gotta get their bread, but this is pretty bad stuff you guys are doing." He seemed interested and moved on. I doubt he quit the company, but a boy can dream.
Edit: no HOA, and my neighbors dgaf, so I can be a proud dandelion enjoyer. Planting tons of natives, we'll see how it goes.
Or the obvious, these bugs keep the yard healthy
Yeah, fescue is not my friend. I'm looking into growing some native clump grasses and clovers and replacing my lawn with that. There's some downright interesting plants that used to be all over the San Joaquin valley. Drives me batty when people say that nothing used to grow here before it was settled and cultivated.
Right now I've got California Poppies, Black Sage seedlings and Coyote Mint seedlings. There's an epilobium species growing here that might be native and edible or non-native and poisonous (I'm an experienced and cautions forager; seems like epilobiums can be kinda bastards to tell apart, so I'm not going to proceed further there), and red clover. I'm looking into getting some Nodding Needlegrass, Three-awn grass, and some Triteleia spp. I was looking at Owl Clover, but it's parasitic on grasses, and I don't to piss off the neighborhood by setting off an epidemic of parasitic owl clover (my power level isn't quite that high yet).
I edited this in after you posted. Right now I've got California Poppies, Black Sage seedlings and Coyote Mint seedlings. There's an epilobium species growing here that might be native and edible or non-native and poisonous (I'm an experienced and cautions forager; seems like epilobiums can be kinda bastards to tell apart, so I'm not going to proceed further there), and red clover. I'm looking into getting some Nodding Needlegrass, Three-awn grass, and some Triteleia spp. I was looking at Owl Clover, but it's parasitic on grasses, and I don't to piss off the neighborhood by setting off an epidemic of parasitic owl clover (my power level isn't quite that high yet). I've also scattered some nettle-leaf hyssop seeds, but I seem to be coming up zeroes on that front. Now, my neighbor is a heavy irrigator and always floods my side yard after years of asking them to manage it better. Nothing grows there but mud or water-loving non-native grasses, so I got my hands on some cattail seeds (and dill and fennel) and scattered them in there. I'm curious to see if I can get some cattails going.
Lmao, I'm hoping I might get a reaction when swamp plants start coming up on their side of the fence. At any rate, cattails are such a dead useful plant, if I get a good crop of them (or better, a mix of them and dill/fennel), I won't be too mad at the neighbor.
It's taken years of small, persistent effort, and it's an ongoing process. One day, I aspire to become a forest spirit that randomly terrorizes too-well-manicured suburbs and gets featured in creepypastas. Anyone can do it, it just takes time, interest, a bit of applied effort, and some luck. If you find an already experienced botany nerd in your area, you can really give yourself a boost, but YouTube U is a pretty decent substitute. There's lots of good books that your local library can help you get a hold of too!
One that I'm really enjoying (though it's kind of a tome) is "Tending The Wild" by M. Kat Anderson. It goes into the interdependent relationships the native Americans had with the local flora and fauna and how the arrival of European settlement blew that ecology right out of the airlock. There's a lot of really good information both about the horrors of colonialism and genocide as well as the ways that various native species were used and cultivated.
Idk, man, I thought I knew it well enough, but it shook me a few times. One of the things that still haunts me is how the native Americans had this entire cultivated relationship with the ecology here, and the Europeans just wandered in and went "pfft look at these dumb layabouts not cutting down trees, plowing fields, and killing everything that moves when God left it here for them to exploit" and proceeded to perform what amounted to not just regular genocide, but also ecological and cultural genocide by completely transforming the ecology of California.
Also, re: hyper abundance. There's some evidence that suggests that the hyper-abundance encountered by European settlers was actually the result of the collapse of agrarian societies across the continent. De Soto describes organized, settled, agrarian societies when he first encounters the native Americans. 100 years of smallpox later, and the English find what amounts to hunter-gatherer bands. It's entirely possible that a breathtaking depopulation occurred across the American continents that basically resulted in what you'd see when you functionally eradicate the apex predator from a given ecology.
There's a pretty good density of useful information from what I've read. I'm not even halfway through yet, but it's doing a good job of painting a picture around how the ecology was maintained and used, yeah.
Fennel is actually an invasive species in CA so I wouldn't recommend this.
However, foraging for it is great. Plenty to go around already.
This sounds very cool! I am also in the valley, up in Sacramento. It's somewhat of a tough climate for the ornamental native gardener since a lot of stuff turns brown in summer which can piss off the neighbors. Love me some Triteleias though, that might be my favorite native species--since you're a forager you may know the bulbs are edible. I'm also growing Brodiaea, Sanicula bipinnata (which I call wild cilantro, it's edible and tastes similar), milkweed, miner's lettuce, and calochortus. Phyla nodiflora is another great one for a lawn alternative if you want that.
Wow! I'm jealous. I always assumed that calochortus and Triteleias and Brodiaea would be difficult to start from seed; I've only ever seen them growing in the Sierra mountains and foothills, though I've got a book that talks about how the Spanish saw them blanketing vast swaths of the valley. I'll take a note of these, S. Bipinnata and p. Nodiflora are new ones on me. I'm also impressed that you're growing miner's lettuce, I've seen it growing wild in the valley, but it's rare ime.
I've been trying to work up the gumption to try growing narrow leaf milkweed, but I always talk myself down because they seem to be very fickle germinators. Kinda similar, I tried growing some Yerba Santa, but they're also apparently very fickle about sprouting conditions and I didn't get any from the last packet I ordered.
Calochortus has been a bit tricky, the others were quite easy. I just collected some seed from nearby empty open spaces and put them in pots and they grew. You have to know where to find them though--they're mostly in the hills now because those were never plowed, but there are small areas here and there that weren't laser-leveled with the rest of the valley. iNaturalist can be helpful for these.
They seem to do better if you extend the growing season with irrigation in fall and spring but even without they do fine. So far they don't survive when I put them in the ground though, not sure why. Pest issue maybe.
Interesting that miner's lettuce is rare where you are. It's a weed that grows in the sidewalk here. I guess it does like a lot of moisture, and it gets a lot drier further south. We get about 18 inches of rain here which is plenty in winter, and since it dies back in spring it doesn't mind the summer.
Phacelia is another one I've been wanting to try. There's one at a local park that is always teeming with bees.
I just googled Phacelia and holy moly! That looks amazing! Yeah, where I'm at, the miner's lettuce really only grows in partially shady low spots down here, the kind of stuff that's usually overtaken with stinging nettle, sow thistle, and fescue. It's much more common to see it in damp, low lying, shady areas in the hills at my latitude.
This is really great stuff! You know, take it or leave it, I run a Lemmy community for California native plants at https://lemm.ee/c/ca_native_plants (I forget the right way to link a community on Lemmy, sorry). I'd really appreciate it if you'd indulge me with some pictures and updates there! I plan on sharing my own progress as things get out of the seedling stage.
Cool! I just subscribed. I’m not really too fussed about aesthetics so my back yard where I grow this stuff is a total mess that I’d be a bit embarrassed to share but I’ll think about it. Maybe if I get any flowers this spring. Or I could share some of the native plants I see around my neighborhood in other spaces.
Glad to hear it! That's all welcome!
I'm sorry, he wanted to exterminate your garden?
That is the stupidest thing I have heard in ages.
edit: as in, stupid on the pest company.
Yeah, exactly right. I was fucking flabbergasted at first, but I had to make sure dude understood what he was doing to earn his bread
Hopefully you saved some other insects from him.
One can hope
I mean that's a growth market if you can convince people it's something they need.
The best part is it's outdoors, so the bugs will come back and then you get repeat business! I bet you even get some whales who get you out for it every month!
This is actually how "entrepreneurs" think. They'll come up with these evil, manipulative schemes and think they're being clever.
No drop of rain blames themselves for the flood.