Not as big a deal in DC’s climate, but here in often-arid California, it’s generally considered responsible to phase out water-hungry lawns in favor of landscaping that doesn’t require as much water. Drought-tolerant plants, gravel, rock gardens, concrete, whatever.
The lawn was an English custom, and trying to reproduce a little piece of wet England by pouring enough water on arid or semi-arid land day in and day out is kind of wasteful.
If you need the cushiony and rapidly-self-healing properties of lawn because people are running around on it, that’s one thing, but people spend more time indoors than they did historically, and as just a thing to look at, it’s not a great default. Plus, kind of high maintenance.
A factor for a number of Western states.
That being said, this wasn’t the rationale, and frankly, it’s probably basically irrelevant for somewhere like the White House relative to the functional impact.
Not as big a deal in DC’s climate, but here in often-arid California, it’s generally considered responsible to phase out water-hungry lawns in favor of landscaping that doesn’t require as much water. Drought-tolerant plants, gravel, rock gardens, concrete, whatever.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeriscaping
The lawn was an English custom, and trying to reproduce a little piece of wet England by pouring enough water on arid or semi-arid land day in and day out is kind of wasteful.
If you need the cushiony and rapidly-self-healing properties of lawn because people are running around on it, that’s one thing, but people spend more time indoors than they did historically, and as just a thing to look at, it’s not a great default. Plus, kind of high maintenance.
A factor for a number of Western states.
That being said, this wasn’t the rationale, and frankly, it’s probably basically irrelevant for somewhere like the White House relative to the functional impact.
That makes total sense in the West, but in DC, and in the Eastern US more generally, droughts are not nearly as much of a concern.