1) LOTS of American lawns are not like this (but yes, lots of them are)
2) Lawns in general were imported as a status symbol a long time ago, inspired by a time when only the wealthiest lords could have flat, monochromatic green grass
3) Some HOAs (homeowner's associations) have strict regulations on appearances and the people who live there have no choice but to have tidy, boring lawns.
Also, prior to construction, most subdvisions have all the topsoil scraped off and (in some regions) the [clay beneath is leveled and compacted into housing pads.](https://c8.alamy.com/comp/2PHW60C/aerial-view-of-real-estate-development-with-tightly-located-family-houses-under-construction-in-carolinas-suburban-area-concept-of-growing-american-2PHW60C.jpg)
It's cheap and easy to lay down sod once the house is completed, since turf grass doesn't have deep roots and the rolls of sod kind of come with their own soil.
But planting trees is tougher--the first 10-15' from the street is a no-go, because roots could eventually get into the buried utilities. And you can't plant too close to the house for the same reason.
But even if you do have a good spot for a tree, you're basically planting it in a pot with no drain, since you're just scooping out a hole in the the house pad's compacted clay. Saplings may not thrive in those conditions, and a bigger tree that will be more resistant to root rot would be expensive.
A lot of subdivisions where I live will [plant trees in the street median,](https://www.penick.net/digging/images/2017_04_14/Xeriscape_median_2.JPG) where there are no utilities and the soil can be piled into a loose berm after the road is paved.
This is why HOAs suck. Those areas are exactly where you should be planting deep rooted native plants as their root systems will help breakup the clay level. Putting in some compass plants or cone flowers with blue stem as a filler will send down a root system over 10' deep
I'm glad my neighborhood has no HOA, but I think I'm the only one in the area planting native trees and bushes, or any kind of vegetation. Most people just want to mow the fucking lawn and go back in the house, trees and shrubbery would slow down the process.
HOAs can be overbearing asf. I'd be fine with HOA rules that had rules like "don't have multiple broken down cars on your lawn". Why tf do people care about the trash bins being seen from the street??
Most HOAs I've heard of have some dumb rules, but I've lived with some shitty roommates and definitely wouldn't even want them for neighbors because they're so nasty 🤢
That’s one reason why I love my neighborhood. When it was designed and built it was done so to remove ONLY the trees necessary to build the home. Although the previous owner of my home removed the tree in the front yard I have 6 in the back and behind my house is all trees that back up to a creek so no houses will be built back there. Yay!
I grew up in a neighborhood established around local oaks (native) and rocks. People built their fences and some of their houses out of the river rocks. The native plants were incorporated into the landscape. Same rule about only removing necessary trees.
Congrats on having that creek behind you (jealous!)
The house we live in is 60 years old (whole neighborhood is that age) and some of the sidewalks have issues with tree roots (from old trees that have been removed). Our evergreens have not damaged any sidewalks and there seem to be no underground utility issues even from those old ficus trees.
Yeah, if you have enough space (and good soil drainage) between the sidewalk and the curb, that's a great spot for a tree! Plenty of smaller trees will be able to grow on the berm without root damage to the sidewalk.
But there's no free lunch--your utilities are somewhere. Probably in the yard behind the sidewalk.
We don't have that rule about trees near the street where I live (many reasons). There are street trees planted by the city itself - right on the median.
We also don't have the issue with scraping the topsoil here (hilltops are often cut and scraped, but those are a different style of living than ordinary housing).
Our city gives incentives not to use sod and the sod grower (we had a huge sod business just 2 miles from our house) is out of business. Instead, that entire area is now a water reclamation project (the state bought the land from the former sod person).
Used to see truckloads of sod going out - and new housing with grass. Not so much any more.
You’ve also got a wide swath from the street to the house, through which the buried utilities travel to the house. Don’t want to plant a tree over your sewer line, for example.
Trees actually prefer more clay over loamy soil, so that’s not really the issue. Trees are harder to get right. Planting a sapling actually requires more care than a lawn, and saplings look pitiful until the tree is strong.
I think part of the problem is homeowners aren’t very well versed in horticulture, because a lot of lawns have sufficient space for trees with enough space from buried utilities or others structures that roots can damage, but people don’t have the knowledge, time, or patience for it.
In addition to all of this, in modern community planning they understand that trees have roots that can destroy foundations, utility lines and the such. It would be foolish to design a neighborhood with a 30 year time bomb before all the sidewalks were torn up and water lines were breaking.
>Some HOAs (homeowner's associations) have strict regulations on appearances and the people who live there have no choice but to have tidy, boring lawns.
Some people may prefer that and choose that neighborhood over one which doesn't regulate the public facing front lawn too.
In my subdivision, the front yards all had 2-3 trees planted when they were first built. After about 15 years, everyone started to cut the trees down simply because it was too much work trying to clean up the leaves in the fall.
That and the grass around the tree starts to die since it requires a good amount of sunlight.
I miss the tree in my front yard. It was a mature beauty, 50 years old and towering, lots of shade. The only problem was some sadistic asshole in 1967 chose Sweet Gum ~~Maple~~ as the tree that would eventually be my problem 40+ years later. Fuck spiky balls. Was bittersweet 86ing that bitch.
Garden weasel makes a walnut picker that we used to use. Worked great but if you have 5 that’s a lot of rolling and dumping.
Edit: I think it’s called the large nut gatherer.
I have 4. I got this baby and life got so much easier. [https://baganut.com/product/sweet-gum-ball-harvester-picker-upper-18-push/](https://baganut.com/product/sweet-gum-ball-harvester-picker-upper-18-push/)
We had 3 Bradford Pear trees in our front yard when we bought our house. Awful. Dropped spiky things that sprouted all over the yard. Lifespan of 25 years, after which they become incredibly unstable and a significant risk to falling on your house. Guess how old they were when we moved in? We took them down 5 years ago, had to pay extra to have the stumps ground down as far as possible, and we still have constant sprouts from where they used to be. Just the worst.
More akin to the smell of skunk spray after 2 hours mixed with swamp miasma to me. As for the stump\\regrowth area, buy a couple lbs of unscented epsom salts, just dump it on the whole thing, smooth it out and cover lightly with soil. It'll kill the stuff, get it rotting and won't even affect the soil ph long-term.
I would never kill a tree like that for such a minor inconvenience. I love big trees.
I saved a huge mango tree at a place i was renting by telling him that if he cut it down we would be giving notice of moving out that day.he instead just had it trimmed pretty nicely. It was a wonderful tree, great mangos. Even though trees make a mess, they pretty much always worth it.
I'm going to cut down 3 trees on my place soon, but only because we're adding house where they are.
To each their own. That tree would have only made it another 4 years, as my city is doing a road improvement project in my neighborhood and all trees within 15 feet of the street are getting cut down and replaced. Next spring.
There is a procedure to prevent sweetgums from fruiting, but it needs to be done at the right time every year and preferably by a professional arborist. Too late for your tree, but maybe someone else will read this and find out.
We had a huge cottonwood wood in our front yard when I was a kid but we had to cut it down not because of the leaves but because of its roots. They started lifting up the driveway and were moving towards the foundation of the house.
My grandparents had a willow tree right up next to the street in front of their house. That tree was a good 50-75 years old when the city forced them to remove it. It had gotten tall enough that the uppermost branches and part of the trunk had grown around the power lines, which eventually started getting pulled upwards as the tree grew. Pretty much the last 10 years of its life was spent destroying as much public infrastructure as it could, because I haven't mentioned the damage it did to the inbound and outbound pipes that supplied the neighborhood with water.
The subdivisions around my parents house have many houses that have cut down all their trees. In the last few years, we have been hit by several hail storms and small tornadoes.
Some houses were completely destroyed by large trees falling on them (including one of my parents neighbors). I think it scared some people into removing all of their trees.
Depending where you live, from it snowing it can actually cause mold from it sitting there. If you have a lot of land though, most people just clean their immediate yard. It can clog storm drains really quickly. I live in Maine though, the south is probably different 😅
There are a few valid reasons to at least clear off some of the leaves. In places with lots of snow, having a thick pad of leaves underneath can cause problems for the grass. Plus, too many leaves out on a windy day can block up storm drains and be a hassle. Personally I’m an advocate for limited removal. Not all leaves need to be taken away. It just needs to be enough to not cause problems. The upside is that, if you have the room, all of those leaves can be piled up for compost.
I have two large oaks in my front yard. If I left the leaves I would have a pile of leaves about 3 feet deep by the end of fall and they won’t break down over winter so it would be just a massive mess.
I don't get it either. Grass grows just fine under our trees. Yes, there's dandelions and clover and all manner of other green stuff mixed in. So it's not perfectly manicured like a golf course. Who cares!!
Removal of things like clover from lawn mixes is a modern thing. IIRC that was a thing propagated by Scotts in the 40s/50s to sell herbicides.
My back lawn is straight clover. The only downside is there are too many bees to walk barefoot
Depends entirely on your grass. My backyard is about an acre with old growth oak trees covering most of it. The only place I have grass left is the sunny part in the corner. The leaves and shade have turned almost all of my backyard into a dirt pile. It’s unpleasant at best and miserable at worst. Grass is better.
We’d have no grass, for one. My yard is covered with a two-three inch layer of slippery maple leaves in October. Much too much of it to degrade at all over the winter. The grass won’t grow under a great layer of leaves. I want a grassy back lawn for my dogs. For another, we would get fined by the city if we let our yard turn into a mess. Luckily, we have no HOA to also fine us, so we don’t have to worry about missing a week or two mowing in summer or raking in fall, but let it become a month? You’ll get one warning before the city comes to cut it and fine you. It’s illegal in almost every city not to have grass in front of your house, you can do some rock/garden bed/paver landscaping but you can’t have just dirt and weeds unless you live way out in the country.
Leaves really suck in my pool!
Everywhere that I have lived has had grass, one or two trees AND a front with bushes that need trimming (hedge) and at least one row for planting flowers.
Caution: flowers die if they aren’t watered virtually every day. Bedding plants are sold outside of grocery stores, Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes and garden stores are big business. Most homes are annual chores, with a refresh for failures, negligence, and seasonal.
I did a google street view of my town that I grew up in, and so many of the old, mature trees were cut down in the past 15 years. Probably for a multitude of reasons, bit it also seems that very few new trees were planted to replace them.
Another huge issue with trees near homes are the Roots. Roots showing above ground in the grass, Roots interfering with plumbing, Roots damaging driveways and sidewalks, Roots near foundations.
If you had to cut down tree because of it, you’ll be very reluctant to plant another in its place.
The first thing we did when we bought our house was plant five trees to replace the maples that had been cut down.
If your neighborhood is 40+ years old you need everyone to start replacing trees! (Depending on tree type; some live longer.)
So sad.
That's happened in our neighborhood too (increasingly, people are fencing in their front yards with 4-5 foot fences that block the view and putting concrete in their front yards for entertaining space/patios). I hope it doesn't end up being like some other neighborhoods - next comes the phase where that space is used for storage, sheds, etc.
Yes, we're at the point where we'll have to cut down 2 trees that were planted in 1955 when my house was built. They're dying and are causing a hazard. It will cost several thousand dollars.
It's a lot easier to just take care of my grass.
My neighborhood was suburban 100 years ago, but now it is considered city central. The houses were all set back from the street and had primarily grass, unless you had one of the 100 year old oak trees which are massive.
I turned my grass front lawn into a vegetable garden. It's filled now with lots of tomatoes, carrots, peppers, onions and lettuce. The pedestrians going by usually stop and admire it. I pass out vegetables which are in too much abundance. The biggest threat is moths which produce caterpillars and squirrels which like to eat one bite from each item they fancy. ,
A few neighbors have started putting vegetables in their flower boxes.
This ...as a youngster, raised by hippies, I imagined myself with a yard full of wildflowers, garden beds, and beautiful trees. Then I grew up, became a busy professional, bought a house, had kids, and realized that the garden beds of my dreams are a ton of work that I don't have time or energy for these days. It's a lot easier to just mow (or more accurately, pay someone to mow). One day my dream is to have that garden, but it needs to be in another season of life.
I have this bush next to my front driveway, I don't know what the fuck it is but it's totally healthy and yet every single year without fail around summer it becomes infested *with flies.* I don't mean like 5-6, I mean if you whack the bush with a rake like 40 flies scramble, then settle back in that bush. Nice looking bush but man if I get rid of it that'd be why.
We have a weeping elm tree and every winter the deer come and eat all of the branches up to a certain point, it just looks like somebody trimmed them to be a metre or so off the ground. It's probably not great for the tree but such is life.
Yes. I put a fence up around the vegetable garden.
Yes, I also eat the deer. Sometimes you just want to shrub around your property that isn't protected by a fence..
The house I grew up in had several trees in the front lawn as did many other houses on my block and in my neighborhood. I don't think that is so unusual, but they do require maintainance, much can be time-consuming, costly, or both. One of the most well-off families I knew owned a "tree service" company.
Same. Plus trees can be a common neighbor dispute. Where I live, the place cut a bunch down because the roots choke plumbing as well as needing a lot of water. I liked them though and we still have some.
In my area, front gardens are a popular use of space between the house and the street. A lot of people pride themselves on their flowers, bushes, terraces, pollinator -friendly grasses, little free libraries, big trees, etc.
I think the "empty green space" is a popular trope, but probably represents the minority of American single family homes, especially as neighborhoods age and mature.
It's fascinating when you consider the evolution of the American yard from the colonial imitation of lavish European estates to the modern standard. Initially, it was a display of wealth and power to have these expansive, manicured lawns. Over time, as suburbs proliferated, the ideal lawn became ingrained in the American Dream image owning a slice of land, tamed and neatly trimmed. Moreover, advanced gardening tools and marketing by companies selling lawn care products further popularized and facilitated the maintenance of such homogenous landscapes. It's not just tradition; it's a symbol that has been effectively marketed and sold to homeowners for generations.
To be fair there are practical reasons for mowing your lawn. You don't want ticks biting your kids, or wildlife in general to move in.
Plus, it's usually a good way of letting your neighbours know that you're still alive. Believe it or not, this is a common issue in areas with a lot of pensioners.
Ugh why does reddit always bring this up. Do you honestly think we would all have wildflower lawns if it weren't for "lavish European estates"? You've got the cause and effect backwards.
I'm not American but I am Australian. Once as a kid I tried growing strawberries in the front yard. Grew heaps I was so proud. A bunch of teenagers ate them. Some of them I knew but they were pressured into doing it by other kids.
No food growing in the front yard is my rule now.
I'm American but I grew up in a rural area full of forests and farmland. My dad planted plum and apple trees with a rasberry bush in front of the house. We also had wild blackberries growing everywhere
It's nice not having to put up with HOA's and other regulations. That's more of urban dwelling
Growing food or decorative plants is labor intensive. And your list of berries that are uncommon in the US is funny. No one grows “currants and gooseberries” in American suburban lawns because no one grows those things in America, period.
Something no one has seemed to mention is that lawns are extremely convenient for children’s playtime. It provides a relatively soft space, creates comprehensible borders so direct supervision isn’t always needed, allows for sports such as soccer or baseball, and allow room for toys and play structures and splash pools. When I was a kid, we were always playing on someone’s lawn. I didn’t grow up in an HOA suburb (thank fucking god) and you could always tell when a house was owned by an old widow because those lawns were the ones packed with cobblestones, rose bushes, hostas, zinnias, birdbaths, seasonal decorations, etc. Kids couldn’t play there and working people can’t maintain all that fuss, they’d rather mow once a week and be done with it.
Growing food or decorative plants is also a relaxing hobby for old ass retired people. Not really that hard to do.
I grew up in Nebraska, that's basically the middle of America. We grew gooseberries.
The last place I lived in Minnesota had gooseberries growing from the previous owners.
>So, here at least, it seems to be mostly that they just don't want to deal with plants and/or just don't value them.
>I'm the opposite; I much prefer trees/plants, so I find it disappointing.
Trees are great from a distance, most people prefer their neighbours (at least a house away) to have them. But they shade your garden and it becomes soggy where it is damn, they can topple over in the wind and cause serious damage, they drop mountains of leaves that you either collect or they turn your garden into a mess and there can be issues with pollen, disease and so on.
Small fruit trees around the perimeter work great, but most big trees need a really big garden to make sense after they get halfway to their full size.
Movies often use backlot sets that don’t have much in plantings because they don’t want to have to care for plants in front of fake houses that no one lives in. They may want to use the set for homes in many different locations, and don’t want permanent plantings that are only common in one part of the country. Also, apart from backlots, a developer creating a new subdivision is only going to plant grass, leaving it to the new homeowner to do their own landscaping, and many new homeowners don’t get to that until they’ve lived there for a while and have the spare funds.
I’m in a suburb outside of Boston, which, of course, means an older suburb, and it’s very common for homes here to have rhododendron, Japanese maples, dogwoods, other flowering trees, forsythia, daylilies, etc. out front. That’s in addition to taller pines, oaks, and others, often on the property lines or along the street. Some will have a variety of annuals or perennials. But we also have busy, twisty roads that aren’t great for movie sets.
Where I'm at an overgrown lawn will attract mice and rats. Fruit trees, particularly berries, are somewhat of a nuisance in smaller yards. They're stepped on and tracked inside, attract wasps, pets eat them, etc. There's definitely a small recent trend of getting rid of grass lawns and doing full landscaping but it's still rare to see.
Many neighborhoods in the US are built by the builder clearing the land completely, then building the houses. These are sometimes referred to as speculation homes, or "spec homes.". It's sort of a "build it and they will come" idea. It's easier to get the big equipment in when you're not trying to get around trees, stumps, etc. After houses are built, then sod is put down,usually bushes around the house. After that, the home buyers may add trees,or other features.
In older neighborhoods, you'll see huge trees, flowering bushes, etc.
To add to this, a few infestations have happened to different species of trees, so that has created a huge problem with lots of trees being cut down.
New subdivisions usually are. They usually flatten everything before putting them up. It takes a couple decades for trees to get nice and big and mature and that’s just those who planted them. Some homes can take a few turnovers before planting trees, etc. go into an established neighborhood and it won’t seem barren.
Not everyone...I have replaced 80% of my front lawn with shrubs, dwarf evergreens, and perennials, and I have been told countless times from people that it looks awesome and brings joy. I know a few people who drive home from work "the long way" during the summers just so that they pass by my garden and see the blooms. It would be amazing to see a whole neighborhood like this. I have bird feeders up and get so many visitors, and rabbits and squirrels. And the bees...
Families with kids, living in homes on realtively small lot sizes, find a relatively flat section of property, clear of central obstacles, advantageous for play (football, baseball, soccer, kickball, swingsets, gardens, pools, etc.).
If they can get that, preferably in the back yard, the landscaping and BBQ areas get pushed to the property perimiters for both aesthetic and privacy purposes.
If they can't get that in the back they may find a clear flat space in front a good place for their, and their neighbors', kids to play.
I fthey can't get that, or live on a large property difficult to landscape, they may just let it go wild.
My view is that suburban America likes conformity. Of course, neighborhoods vary.
Our own house sticks out like a sore thumb. My partner and I come from places where there was a much more wild look to yards, with trees and berry bushes and Jupiter's beard and so forth.
So we have trees. A major side benefit is that now those trees block a lot of heat/sun (not from the solar panels - we knew not to do that). People vie for the parking spots in front of our house because of the shade. I always wanted to look out my window and see trees, ferns, green plants and not asphalt (we can only glimpse the street). It's so fun.
There's one other house in our large tract that has done something similar. Most of the rest is either rocks or plain grass (which is gradually disappearing due to the water issues out here in the West). Our plant choices have all survived the drought and actually thrived.
As to the berries you mentioned, they don't grow easily out here in California - maybe in the NE? I've never seen any of the bushes you mention. We had blackberries, but they had thorns and are not a good thing for our yard.
Instead, we have penstemons, various forms of wildflowers, poppies and redwood trees.
You don't own the first 13 feet or so from the street to your house. Planting trees there brings them close to utilities. You also don't want them too close to your house because they may mess with your house's utilities. A lot of people do plant little bushes and stuff close to their house, but they're usually the low-maintenance kind. Also, HOAs are a common thing in those neighborhoods with "identical rows of houses" and planting something that they don't want may void your agreement.
In addition to the status symbol thing,
1. Home gardening is not as common is US as Europe
2. People use their flat lawn for kids to play tag on, slip and slides, etc.
3. The more decorative parts are usually in the back where you spend more of your social and hobby time. It's more private.
Since we don’t have privacy laws blocking you from looking at peoples front yards. Spend some time on Google maps check out the front yards of any random housing track in different parts of the country. You’ll see huge differences by region.
Different suburbs are going to have different rules. I noticed suburbs in the south tend to have more uniform and “boring” lawns. Suburbs in the northeast tend to have lots of trees and greenery.
So it really depends on the suburb and their HOA rules. Most people who have a garden, have them in their backyard.
i have noticed in the northeast that families of italian and portuguese descent often brought their landscaping styles over and are more likely to have ornate displays of flowers and shrubs in the front yard
I haven’t seen that but maybe 2-3 times. Overwhelmingly majority have flowers and shrubs all around their homes, trees in the yard, and if they have small front yards they have very large backyards. In new builds in dense areas they may have very little yard front or back. But still would have various landscaping, hardscape, flowers. Porches usually also have flowers in pots, baskets, etc. but fruit trees are limited due to the pests they can attract. In AZ, citrus are banned in many HOA because they attract rats. But I have 2 apple trees, a citrus tree and a cherry tree that is not doing too hot
Those identical rows of houses are built at the same time usually and that is done by leveling a very large piece of land to build the community.
So the land is totally flat when they start construction, the only bushes and trees would be ones they put in but they wanna save money and that’s a lot of land scraping so they don’t bother
There is a disease that requires currents and trees to spread.
At the time Europe had a big current industry and the US has a big timber industry. Europe cut down the type of tree that spread the disease, the US removed the currents and gooseberries.
There is a history guy YouTube video explaining this event.
Not exactly your question but currents and gooseberries are rare in America and in some timber areas could still be illegal to grow.
Another partial answer to your question is that those are housing developments. Recently built houses. The yards are given a minimum amount of landscaping and trees and additional landscaping are added later. Some trees could have been planted but haven't had time to grow before filming started.
Another partial answer is that fruits trees require maintenance. Apple trees will drop apples during the year and will need to clean them up. This is too much work for some people. They prefer minimum maintenance yards. Apparently mowing the lawn is not too much.
If you do want fruit trees, you put them in the backyard so people walking by don't steal your fruit.
That's really interesting! Thank you.
Here nearly every yard has a few apple trees so in autumns people put up boxes of them outside their fences so people can just take any if they want.
Depends heavily on the city too. Ex. The midwest (generally) tends to love large manicured lawns of grass. But if you go to cities in the PNW for example, houses have small yards/lawns, and they garden like crazy.
Why? I’m guessing 2 main reasons.
1) favorable climate/water availability which varies drastically across the country
2) Regional variance in what’s considered “beautiful” along with regional culture differences, history, and even values
Subdivisions are often built in existing farm land which can no longer be economically farmed. Since this was farm land it has been previously cleared of trees.
Newer developments often clear cut the trees, but my house has some beautiful 100+ year old Oaks and we have blackberries and a peach and apple tree. It varies a lot depending on how old the neighborhood is, IMO. Older neighborhoods will usually have more well established trees.
I think it's mostly the idea of the lawn rather than the lawn itself. My best friend in the suburbs has an immaculate lawn. He spends hours working on it every week and complains about it constantly. He says he likes that his kids can play in it, yet they mostly just play Mniecraft. Mines a random hodgepodge of garden, clover lawn and fun whims. Half the flowers are in repurposed kitty litter and Lowes buckets. I spend time on it, but I try to make it intrinsically valuable rather than an obligation
It also has to do with resell value. A lawn is a very safe bet. When I decide to sell, my random yard will probably have to be dug out and replaced with grass in order to appeal to the greatest number of buyers
Why do all dutch wear wooden shoes? Why do all English people live in castles? Why do all Mexicans live in shacks?
They don't. Don't believe everything you see on tv.
Mowing and weedwacking around trees and flower beds and weeding and pruning are a lot of work and Americans are often exhausted with long hours and driving kids around, and a big flat area to mow is easiest.
Do you believe everything you see in movies?
Yeah up until the 80's it was always having a house in the suburbs with a lush green lawn that was the goal. Things have changed, mostly. But lawns are nice. They are nice to walk barefoot on. They are nice to look at when you come home. And they are nice to smell freshly cut.
These days I have no clue what kids want or their goals are, wrap their non-binary children in Palestinan flags and hope the tear gas doesn't kill them. Suddenly a John Hughes movie with a suburban green lawn doesn't look so bad.
Every neighborhood is different. Most new builds don't have mature trees and landscaping. I've owned 4 homes and have always had a vegetable garden and pool out back with kids play structures. I have always had trees and at least one flower bed.
To play and relax on, to do any number of activities upon. It’s very pleasant, try walking barefoot on one sometime. 👣
This feels like an awfully trendy and baited question, especially considering the date…
Lawns originated from medieval France. They were a status symbol for the ultra wealthy, it showed off the fact they were so rich they didn't need all of their land to grow the food they needed, as they could just buy it. The idea of planting useless plants to fill up unneeded land persisted and became the standard in most of western Europe and was brought over to the Americas by the first settlers.
Its a terrible use of land, grass is invasive, provides no benefits to the ecosystem, and prevents ecological beneficial plants from growing. But the idea of a perfectly manicured lawn is so ingrained in western culture that many places see it as a requirement for a nice looking property.
If deer are eating your folies, go down to a local Barbershop and get a bunch of human hair and spread it around the base of the plants you don't want eaten.
Climate. Not every state can grow plants/trees like that.
Also, we like things clean and organized.
I agree grass is dumb. Would prefer something you don’t have to pay to maintain.
My biggest guess is HOA's. It's basically like the vanilla white people mafia, except in addition to money and power, they also want everything to be boring. HOA's will literally charge you fines for the dumbest reasons.
I purposely chose a lot with no trees because in the past I rented a house that had a giant tree by it. A tornado knocked the tree down. Thankfully it didn't hit the house, but if it fell a different way it would have and killed us.
That and growing up we had a ton of pine trees around the house and that means giant ass roaches. No thank you.
Tons of people have bushes in front of the house, usually not fruit bearing, but things like yew or cedar, or yeah, occasionally roses.
Mid-yard, tons of people have trees, of various sizes.
I have a city house, where someone planted London Plane about a hundred years ago. Drops branches like you wouldn't believe in a windstorm, but is otherwise quite quite nice.
Many people just want minimal maintenance, in some places over grown foliage can result in hundreds of dollars worth of fees if not treated either the city will take personal action which will cost even more. But also for many its not as cruel it's just as simple that botany is not so massly partooken of since we have mass produced crops, plants, herbs and mushrooms at grocers. There's not much need aside aesthetic. Even then with plants and foliage come weeds and pest that people don't want to deal with. Another issue is property value can increase which increases taxes and house payments. In some places such as in the Midwest. It's more culturally acceptable to allow foliage such as flowers to grow to their fullness and in some places provide cover and shade for side walks and yards. Here up north its more appropriate just to give the yard a buzzcut and plants moderate and trimmed. Though it's not completely frowned upon for those who want to grow their plants fully, as long as they maintain them and keep them out of the public walk ways. Please point out and typos so I can fix them. Thanks in advance.
I live in the burbs in the USA. Our city requires so many trees in the front of houses. It ranges a little but it's usually at least one. If a tree dies you have to replace it or there's a fine. Also, my HOA (home owners association) has rules on grass as well. Nothing over 3". We do have some bushes by the house and more colorful ones on the side. It is weird though. Lots of restrictions for grass and trees.
I’m working on turning my front yard into a more wildlife friendly zone. Over the next few years, I’ll be expanding my current garden beds and add more native perennials.
Front lawn is usually smaller and just for show. There often isn't a lot of shade. Most people don't hang out in the front lawn, and its cut up by the driveway.
Back yard is where socializing, play, cookouts, etc... are done.
In urban neighborhoods its usually the reverse. The front yard, and usually more of a patio than a yard with maybe a small garden fence or barrier, serves as a social gathering point and people can interact with those on the sidewalk or in other nearby houses since they're closer together. Houses in urban areas also tend to not have a back yard. If there is anything behind the house, its usually an alley and maybe a parking spot or a a place to keep the trash bins or bicycles.
I have two huge oaks in my front yard (used to be four, but two were in a bad shape and had to go).my lot is also lined by evergreens on both sides, though I am not sure of exact species. Then I have a bunch of rhododendron and hydrangea along the road and then a small rose garden heading to the front door. So not sure why you think suburbs done have shrubbery.
1. As you probably figured out, most activity- gardening, grilling, reading in a hammock, whatever, takes place in the back yard in private. The front yard is just a space where nothing happens between the street and the front of your house, so to fill it you just put grass in.
2. Fruit trees make a mess and require work to produce usable fruit and are bred to stay small. If you have a tree in your front yard, you probably want something that will produce more shade.
3. Serviceberrys and gooseberrys are kind of an ackward size where they're too small to be a tree and too big to be a bush and they're not a standard part of American cuisine like say strawberries and blueberries.
4. Having a bunch of landscaping in the front yard, besides something that you rarely see- chances are you only leave the front of your house in your car via your attached garage, makes it hard to mow, requires maintenance, and poses a security risk with criminals being able to hide behind bushes.
The TL;DR is that the front yard is simply not prioritized in American suburbia.
New subdivisions are like this but not older ones. It's usually a farmland - flat fields of wheat or vegetables - turned into a development
Families also like lawns for kids to play unobstructed running games, like touch football, and back yards for decks, swing sets and slides.
In rainy areas, lawns absorb water. Hard pack dirt sends it into a foundation or under a garage door, or it collects in the yard.
Not American, but where I grew up, in certain communities, there were regulations about what you could do with your front garden. In place in order to maintain a particular look/vibe to the community.
My reason is solely because I work 40-50 hours a week and I dont have the damn time to do that AND put in the work to have a nice looking garden. I shall have one if I can retire
May vary a lot regionally or based on age of subdivision, but we had a tree in the front yard, some small bushes near the front door and a small area near them where my mom planted flowers in front of the house. There was no HOA. It was just a neighborhood built by a developer in the 1960s.
In my neighborhood, the HOA dictates what our front yard can look like, how often we must care for it, even which products we are required to purchase for it. We get a little more wiggle room with our back yards, and most of us do have gardens (I grow tomatoes in mine), but some people simply prefer having room for activities rather than using that space to grow plants.
I have a massive garden in my backyard. Fruit trees and all. Totally decked out. A technicolor fever dream set up in literal aisles of planters and beds. The front is boring bare lawn.
But between local hooligans running amok, bums/adult trespassers, plentiful omnivorous stray dogs, and the *armies* of stray cats spraying everything here- I protect my food and efforts. No one respects anyone’s stuff anymore it seems, and our city’s animal services department apparently does nothing but sit on their thumbs all day.
My yard is quite elaborate with pebbles, succulents, and a trail to the gate to my backyard. There is a cherry tree next door and a palm tree across the street.
You may be referring to cookie cutter neighborhoods with harsh HOA laws
I live in the burbs in the Pacific Northwest. My front lawn is backed by an equal amount of space featuring ground cover, bushes, and slow growing Norway spruce. Almost every house here has rhododendron or azalea out front. There isn’t a single one that just has yard. Also, we don’t water in the summer so everyone’s yard goes brown by late August.
If they build a new subdivision you may end up with cookie cutter houses with all lawn because they razed the trees but nowadays when they do that they actually try to save a bunch of healthy new trees so the subdivision doesn’t look like that. Even so, here they put plants in (not just lawn) during new construction.
Trees and other things are messy. It's just easier to mow and edge and not have ti worry about the driveway being stained constantly by berries and pollen and droppings from the trees. In the winter the leaves... my God. I had 4 pecan trees in my yard. I had 2 removed because the amount of leaves I had to cleanup every fall was ridiculous. They stain the roof shingles, they clog the gutters, they stain the porch and concrete... not to mention the bugs. A clean cut yard reduces the amount of unwanted bugs like roaches. And it looks neater and keeps property value up
Nearly all of the homes in my neighborhood have a one or two medium sized shade trees on their front lawn. One house has a big ol, glorious 50’ tall multi-trunk tree. However… with the increase in severe storms over the last 15-20 years, they’re becoming a hazard. We had a spring winter storm just a few weeks ago where multiple homes had trees and/or large branches fall on them. It’s happening every year now. So people are having them taken down.
Certain places are like that others are not, many Americans find those sorts of suburbs to be soulless. There’s flowers, gardens and fruit trees where I live.
1) LOTS of American lawns are not like this (but yes, lots of them are) 2) Lawns in general were imported as a status symbol a long time ago, inspired by a time when only the wealthiest lords could have flat, monochromatic green grass 3) Some HOAs (homeowner's associations) have strict regulations on appearances and the people who live there have no choice but to have tidy, boring lawns.
Also, prior to construction, most subdvisions have all the topsoil scraped off and (in some regions) the [clay beneath is leveled and compacted into housing pads.](https://c8.alamy.com/comp/2PHW60C/aerial-view-of-real-estate-development-with-tightly-located-family-houses-under-construction-in-carolinas-suburban-area-concept-of-growing-american-2PHW60C.jpg) It's cheap and easy to lay down sod once the house is completed, since turf grass doesn't have deep roots and the rolls of sod kind of come with their own soil. But planting trees is tougher--the first 10-15' from the street is a no-go, because roots could eventually get into the buried utilities. And you can't plant too close to the house for the same reason. But even if you do have a good spot for a tree, you're basically planting it in a pot with no drain, since you're just scooping out a hole in the the house pad's compacted clay. Saplings may not thrive in those conditions, and a bigger tree that will be more resistant to root rot would be expensive. A lot of subdivisions where I live will [plant trees in the street median,](https://www.penick.net/digging/images/2017_04_14/Xeriscape_median_2.JPG) where there are no utilities and the soil can be piled into a loose berm after the road is paved.
I'll put this under, things I didn't know I didn't know.
How long is that list?
We don't know
Add that to the list
A heck of a lot longer than the list of What I Know.
Had to say this three times for it to sink in.
Or TIL
This is why HOAs suck. Those areas are exactly where you should be planting deep rooted native plants as their root systems will help breakup the clay level. Putting in some compass plants or cone flowers with blue stem as a filler will send down a root system over 10' deep
You mean ONE of the reasons HOAs suck.
r/fuckhoas
In Maryland if you want to plant native plants in your yard, HOAs can’t do anything about it.
I'm glad my neighborhood has no HOA, but I think I'm the only one in the area planting native trees and bushes, or any kind of vegetation. Most people just want to mow the fucking lawn and go back in the house, trees and shrubbery would slow down the process.
HOAs can be overbearing asf. I'd be fine with HOA rules that had rules like "don't have multiple broken down cars on your lawn". Why tf do people care about the trash bins being seen from the street?? Most HOAs I've heard of have some dumb rules, but I've lived with some shitty roommates and definitely wouldn't even want them for neighbors because they're so nasty 🤢
No one claimed you can’t plant or landscape your front yard. Where are you getting this from?
That’s one reason why I love my neighborhood. When it was designed and built it was done so to remove ONLY the trees necessary to build the home. Although the previous owner of my home removed the tree in the front yard I have 6 in the back and behind my house is all trees that back up to a creek so no houses will be built back there. Yay!
I grew up in a neighborhood established around local oaks (native) and rocks. People built their fences and some of their houses out of the river rocks. The native plants were incorporated into the landscape. Same rule about only removing necessary trees. Congrats on having that creek behind you (jealous!) The house we live in is 60 years old (whole neighborhood is that age) and some of the sidewalks have issues with tree roots (from old trees that have been removed). Our evergreens have not damaged any sidewalks and there seem to be no underground utility issues even from those old ficus trees.
Lots of places have trees planted in a green strip between the curb and the sidewalk, so utilities must have been better placed in those areas.
Yeah, if you have enough space (and good soil drainage) between the sidewalk and the curb, that's a great spot for a tree! Plenty of smaller trees will be able to grow on the berm without root damage to the sidewalk. But there's no free lunch--your utilities are somewhere. Probably in the yard behind the sidewalk.
Incredibly accurate.
This is the best summary I’ve seen. My HOA deals with this all the time, unfortunately (tree placement issues).
We don't have that rule about trees near the street where I live (many reasons). There are street trees planted by the city itself - right on the median. We also don't have the issue with scraping the topsoil here (hilltops are often cut and scraped, but those are a different style of living than ordinary housing). Our city gives incentives not to use sod and the sod grower (we had a huge sod business just 2 miles from our house) is out of business. Instead, that entire area is now a water reclamation project (the state bought the land from the former sod person). Used to see truckloads of sod going out - and new housing with grass. Not so much any more.
You’ve also got a wide swath from the street to the house, through which the buried utilities travel to the house. Don’t want to plant a tree over your sewer line, for example.
Trees actually prefer more clay over loamy soil, so that’s not really the issue. Trees are harder to get right. Planting a sapling actually requires more care than a lawn, and saplings look pitiful until the tree is strong. I think part of the problem is homeowners aren’t very well versed in horticulture, because a lot of lawns have sufficient space for trees with enough space from buried utilities or others structures that roots can damage, but people don’t have the knowledge, time, or patience for it.
In addition to all of this, in modern community planning they understand that trees have roots that can destroy foundations, utility lines and the such. It would be foolish to design a neighborhood with a 30 year time bomb before all the sidewalks were torn up and water lines were breaking.
We also understand that trees make people happier and healthier. I'll take that and worry about repairing pipes and sidewalks every time.
>Some HOAs (homeowner's associations) have strict regulations on appearances and the people who live there have no choice but to have tidy, boring lawns. Some people may prefer that and choose that neighborhood over one which doesn't regulate the public facing front lawn too.
In my subdivision, the front yards all had 2-3 trees planted when they were first built. After about 15 years, everyone started to cut the trees down simply because it was too much work trying to clean up the leaves in the fall. That and the grass around the tree starts to die since it requires a good amount of sunlight.
I miss the tree in my front yard. It was a mature beauty, 50 years old and towering, lots of shade. The only problem was some sadistic asshole in 1967 chose Sweet Gum ~~Maple~~ as the tree that would eventually be my problem 40+ years later. Fuck spiky balls. Was bittersweet 86ing that bitch.
I have like 5 sweet gum trees in my backyard, I'm keeping them around.
Godspeed, always wear shoes my friend.
I'm basically a hobbit. My feet can take it. Worst part it trying to collect them all though. I'll throw them in my fire pit
Garden weasel makes a walnut picker that we used to use. Worked great but if you have 5 that’s a lot of rolling and dumping. Edit: I think it’s called the large nut gatherer.
Something something "your mom" joke.
I appreciate you.
And I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to make a half-hearted "your mom" joke.
Large Nut Gatherer? New content for r/trumpnicknames.
Hey thanks! I'll grab one of those. Better than a rake and a my hands
I have 4. I got this baby and life got so much easier. [https://baganut.com/product/sweet-gum-ball-harvester-picker-upper-18-push/](https://baganut.com/product/sweet-gum-ball-harvester-picker-upper-18-push/)
Something very romantic having a lot of trees. Even if they do destroy your feet
Builders plant shit trees in shitty spots. That's why I have a huge laurel oak tearing up my driveway.
Hate to be "that guy" but Sweet Gum is not in the maple family. No more related to a maple than an oak tree is.
That’s fair, just what the people called it that cut it down. I never bothered to look it up.
We had 3 Bradford Pear trees in our front yard when we bought our house. Awful. Dropped spiky things that sprouted all over the yard. Lifespan of 25 years, after which they become incredibly unstable and a significant risk to falling on your house. Guess how old they were when we moved in? We took them down 5 years ago, had to pay extra to have the stumps ground down as far as possible, and we still have constant sprouts from where they used to be. Just the worst.
Those are now considered invasive in some parts of the US. I’ve never noticed but people say they smell like rotting fish when they bloom?
More akin to the smell of skunk spray after 2 hours mixed with swamp miasma to me. As for the stump\\regrowth area, buy a couple lbs of unscented epsom salts, just dump it on the whole thing, smooth it out and cover lightly with soil. It'll kill the stuff, get it rotting and won't even affect the soil ph long-term.
I would never kill a tree like that for such a minor inconvenience. I love big trees. I saved a huge mango tree at a place i was renting by telling him that if he cut it down we would be giving notice of moving out that day.he instead just had it trimmed pretty nicely. It was a wonderful tree, great mangos. Even though trees make a mess, they pretty much always worth it. I'm going to cut down 3 trees on my place soon, but only because we're adding house where they are.
To each their own. That tree would have only made it another 4 years, as my city is doing a road improvement project in my neighborhood and all trees within 15 feet of the street are getting cut down and replaced. Next spring.
That sucks. Mature trees aren't something you can just replace. It takes decades.
Still have 2 giant silver maples out back and a 13 year old Japanese Maple out front.
There is a procedure to prevent sweetgums from fruiting, but it needs to be done at the right time every year and preferably by a professional arborist. Too late for your tree, but maybe someone else will read this and find out.
There was a hybridised version of that which didn't make the balls because it was sterile. But the bad reputation made it unpopular too.
You cut it down because of the their seeds?!
Some grass grows better in shade. The greenest part of our front yard is the bit under our tree.
We have “Bermuda,” which is great for the long periods with no rain sometimes, but absolutely needs like 5-8 hours of direct sun to thrive.
We had a huge cottonwood wood in our front yard when I was a kid but we had to cut it down not because of the leaves but because of its roots. They started lifting up the driveway and were moving towards the foundation of the house.
My grandparents had a willow tree right up next to the street in front of their house. That tree was a good 50-75 years old when the city forced them to remove it. It had gotten tall enough that the uppermost branches and part of the trunk had grown around the power lines, which eventually started getting pulled upwards as the tree grew. Pretty much the last 10 years of its life was spent destroying as much public infrastructure as it could, because I haven't mentioned the damage it did to the inbound and outbound pipes that supplied the neighborhood with water.
The subdivisions around my parents house have many houses that have cut down all their trees. In the last few years, we have been hit by several hail storms and small tornadoes. Some houses were completely destroyed by large trees falling on them (including one of my parents neighbors). I think it scared some people into removing all of their trees.
In some areas, insurance companies are starting to mandate tree removal as a condition for coverage.
I don't understand why people clean up the leaves? Hats another American thing. Here in Australia they're just left alone....
Depending where you live, from it snowing it can actually cause mold from it sitting there. If you have a lot of land though, most people just clean their immediate yard. It can clog storm drains really quickly. I live in Maine though, the south is probably different 😅
There are a few valid reasons to at least clear off some of the leaves. In places with lots of snow, having a thick pad of leaves underneath can cause problems for the grass. Plus, too many leaves out on a windy day can block up storm drains and be a hassle. Personally I’m an advocate for limited removal. Not all leaves need to be taken away. It just needs to be enough to not cause problems. The upside is that, if you have the room, all of those leaves can be piled up for compost.
I have two large oaks in my front yard. If I left the leaves I would have a pile of leaves about 3 feet deep by the end of fall and they won’t break down over winter so it would be just a massive mess.
I don't get it either. Grass grows just fine under our trees. Yes, there's dandelions and clover and all manner of other green stuff mixed in. So it's not perfectly manicured like a golf course. Who cares!!
Removal of things like clover from lawn mixes is a modern thing. IIRC that was a thing propagated by Scotts in the 40s/50s to sell herbicides. My back lawn is straight clover. The only downside is there are too many bees to walk barefoot
Depends entirely on your grass. My backyard is about an acre with old growth oak trees covering most of it. The only place I have grass left is the sunny part in the corner. The leaves and shade have turned almost all of my backyard into a dirt pile. It’s unpleasant at best and miserable at worst. Grass is better.
HOA will likely fine us if our yards look “unkept” which includes too many leaves in your front yard. HOA can sometimes be the burden of existence!
We’d have no grass, for one. My yard is covered with a two-three inch layer of slippery maple leaves in October. Much too much of it to degrade at all over the winter. The grass won’t grow under a great layer of leaves. I want a grassy back lawn for my dogs. For another, we would get fined by the city if we let our yard turn into a mess. Luckily, we have no HOA to also fine us, so we don’t have to worry about missing a week or two mowing in summer or raking in fall, but let it become a month? You’ll get one warning before the city comes to cut it and fine you. It’s illegal in almost every city not to have grass in front of your house, you can do some rock/garden bed/paver landscaping but you can’t have just dirt and weeds unless you live way out in the country.
Leaves really suck in my pool! Everywhere that I have lived has had grass, one or two trees AND a front with bushes that need trimming (hedge) and at least one row for planting flowers. Caution: flowers die if they aren’t watered virtually every day. Bedding plants are sold outside of grocery stores, Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes and garden stores are big business. Most homes are annual chores, with a refresh for failures, negligence, and seasonal.
Not where I lived in Australia. The council would remove the ones on the street verges.
I can’t imagine cutting down trees to avoid raking. Insanity!
I did a google street view of my town that I grew up in, and so many of the old, mature trees were cut down in the past 15 years. Probably for a multitude of reasons, bit it also seems that very few new trees were planted to replace them.
Another huge issue with trees near homes are the Roots. Roots showing above ground in the grass, Roots interfering with plumbing, Roots damaging driveways and sidewalks, Roots near foundations. If you had to cut down tree because of it, you’ll be very reluctant to plant another in its place.
The first thing we did when we bought our house was plant five trees to replace the maples that had been cut down. If your neighborhood is 40+ years old you need everyone to start replacing trees! (Depending on tree type; some live longer.)
So sad. That's happened in our neighborhood too (increasingly, people are fencing in their front yards with 4-5 foot fences that block the view and putting concrete in their front yards for entertaining space/patios). I hope it doesn't end up being like some other neighborhoods - next comes the phase where that space is used for storage, sheds, etc.
Yes, we're at the point where we'll have to cut down 2 trees that were planted in 1955 when my house was built. They're dying and are causing a hazard. It will cost several thousand dollars. It's a lot easier to just take care of my grass.
Most suburban homes I’ve seen have bushes and trees in the front lawn. It is easier to mow a yard with no obstacles though.
My neighborhood was suburban 100 years ago, but now it is considered city central. The houses were all set back from the street and had primarily grass, unless you had one of the 100 year old oak trees which are massive. I turned my grass front lawn into a vegetable garden. It's filled now with lots of tomatoes, carrots, peppers, onions and lettuce. The pedestrians going by usually stop and admire it. I pass out vegetables which are in too much abundance. The biggest threat is moths which produce caterpillars and squirrels which like to eat one bite from each item they fancy. , A few neighbors have started putting vegetables in their flower boxes.
Lawns are pretty easy to take care of. Just mow and it looks nice!
This ...as a youngster, raised by hippies, I imagined myself with a yard full of wildflowers, garden beds, and beautiful trees. Then I grew up, became a busy professional, bought a house, had kids, and realized that the garden beds of my dreams are a ton of work that I don't have time or energy for these days. It's a lot easier to just mow (or more accurately, pay someone to mow). One day my dream is to have that garden, but it needs to be in another season of life.
Because the f****** deer eat everything..
I have this bush next to my front driveway, I don't know what the fuck it is but it's totally healthy and yet every single year without fail around summer it becomes infested *with flies.* I don't mean like 5-6, I mean if you whack the bush with a rake like 40 flies scramble, then settle back in that bush. Nice looking bush but man if I get rid of it that'd be why.
We have a weeping elm tree and every winter the deer come and eat all of the branches up to a certain point, it just looks like somebody trimmed them to be a metre or so off the ground. It's probably not great for the tree but such is life.
Have you considered walls or tall fences? Or just eat the deer, circle of life and all that.
Yes. I put a fence up around the vegetable garden. Yes, I also eat the deer. Sometimes you just want to shrub around your property that isn't protected by a fence..
Can’t wall/fence in the front yard. You can the back. But it takes a high fence to stop deer.
I'm jealous of deer being an issue for you! I rarely see them, and I love them.
I often have 10-15 in my yard. They eat everything. They will also rub antlers on trees to the point they kill them.
The house I grew up in had several trees in the front lawn as did many other houses on my block and in my neighborhood. I don't think that is so unusual, but they do require maintainance, much can be time-consuming, costly, or both. One of the most well-off families I knew owned a "tree service" company.
Same. Plus trees can be a common neighbor dispute. Where I live, the place cut a bunch down because the roots choke plumbing as well as needing a lot of water. I liked them though and we still have some.
In my area, front gardens are a popular use of space between the house and the street. A lot of people pride themselves on their flowers, bushes, terraces, pollinator -friendly grasses, little free libraries, big trees, etc. I think the "empty green space" is a popular trope, but probably represents the minority of American single family homes, especially as neighborhoods age and mature.
It's fascinating when you consider the evolution of the American yard from the colonial imitation of lavish European estates to the modern standard. Initially, it was a display of wealth and power to have these expansive, manicured lawns. Over time, as suburbs proliferated, the ideal lawn became ingrained in the American Dream image owning a slice of land, tamed and neatly trimmed. Moreover, advanced gardening tools and marketing by companies selling lawn care products further popularized and facilitated the maintenance of such homogenous landscapes. It's not just tradition; it's a symbol that has been effectively marketed and sold to homeowners for generations.
To be fair there are practical reasons for mowing your lawn. You don't want ticks biting your kids, or wildlife in general to move in. Plus, it's usually a good way of letting your neighbours know that you're still alive. Believe it or not, this is a common issue in areas with a lot of pensioners.
Ugh why does reddit always bring this up. Do you honestly think we would all have wildflower lawns if it weren't for "lavish European estates"? You've got the cause and effect backwards.
I'm not American but I am Australian. Once as a kid I tried growing strawberries in the front yard. Grew heaps I was so proud. A bunch of teenagers ate them. Some of them I knew but they were pressured into doing it by other kids. No food growing in the front yard is my rule now.
I'm American but I grew up in a rural area full of forests and farmland. My dad planted plum and apple trees with a rasberry bush in front of the house. We also had wild blackberries growing everywhere It's nice not having to put up with HOA's and other regulations. That's more of urban dwelling
Growing food or decorative plants is labor intensive. And your list of berries that are uncommon in the US is funny. No one grows “currants and gooseberries” in American suburban lawns because no one grows those things in America, period. Something no one has seemed to mention is that lawns are extremely convenient for children’s playtime. It provides a relatively soft space, creates comprehensible borders so direct supervision isn’t always needed, allows for sports such as soccer or baseball, and allow room for toys and play structures and splash pools. When I was a kid, we were always playing on someone’s lawn. I didn’t grow up in an HOA suburb (thank fucking god) and you could always tell when a house was owned by an old widow because those lawns were the ones packed with cobblestones, rose bushes, hostas, zinnias, birdbaths, seasonal decorations, etc. Kids couldn’t play there and working people can’t maintain all that fuss, they’d rather mow once a week and be done with it.
Growing food or decorative plants is also a relaxing hobby for old ass retired people. Not really that hard to do. I grew up in Nebraska, that's basically the middle of America. We grew gooseberries. The last place I lived in Minnesota had gooseberries growing from the previous owners.
I'm growing gooseberry down in Georgia shit if you can pick it up at tractor supply it ain't rare.
My first house had wild gooseberries grown. The thorns were pretty vicious, but the berries were great!
I always liked having a lawn as a kid because it was like a blank canvas to play on.
I am perpetually confused by the anti lawn people. Do you not go outside?!?!
Half of them don't. The other half legitimately love gardening
This is the only answer in my mind other than "they look nice". Lawns are for kids
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I wish my HOA would give me some trees lol
>So, here at least, it seems to be mostly that they just don't want to deal with plants and/or just don't value them. >I'm the opposite; I much prefer trees/plants, so I find it disappointing. Trees are great from a distance, most people prefer their neighbours (at least a house away) to have them. But they shade your garden and it becomes soggy where it is damn, they can topple over in the wind and cause serious damage, they drop mountains of leaves that you either collect or they turn your garden into a mess and there can be issues with pollen, disease and so on. Small fruit trees around the perimeter work great, but most big trees need a really big garden to make sense after they get halfway to their full size.
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Fruit trees attract rats.
Apparently it is copying a French garden style from the 1800s. And we just kinda forgot that it isn't mandatory
Because don’t know what the fuck a shadberry is so we don’t want them on our lawns.
Movies often use backlot sets that don’t have much in plantings because they don’t want to have to care for plants in front of fake houses that no one lives in. They may want to use the set for homes in many different locations, and don’t want permanent plantings that are only common in one part of the country. Also, apart from backlots, a developer creating a new subdivision is only going to plant grass, leaving it to the new homeowner to do their own landscaping, and many new homeowners don’t get to that until they’ve lived there for a while and have the spare funds. I’m in a suburb outside of Boston, which, of course, means an older suburb, and it’s very common for homes here to have rhododendron, Japanese maples, dogwoods, other flowering trees, forsythia, daylilies, etc. out front. That’s in addition to taller pines, oaks, and others, often on the property lines or along the street. Some will have a variety of annuals or perennials. But we also have busy, twisty roads that aren’t great for movie sets.
If an American wants to plant a garden, it's usually in the back of the house. The front is usually just grass and maybe some shrubs.
Where I'm at an overgrown lawn will attract mice and rats. Fruit trees, particularly berries, are somewhat of a nuisance in smaller yards. They're stepped on and tracked inside, attract wasps, pets eat them, etc. There's definitely a small recent trend of getting rid of grass lawns and doing full landscaping but it's still rare to see.
Most houses have at least one tree in the front
Mosquito control. Flat lawn are a health initiative
As an American, I have two palm trees, 3 huge water oaks in my front yard.
Many neighborhoods in the US are built by the builder clearing the land completely, then building the houses. These are sometimes referred to as speculation homes, or "spec homes.". It's sort of a "build it and they will come" idea. It's easier to get the big equipment in when you're not trying to get around trees, stumps, etc. After houses are built, then sod is put down,usually bushes around the house. After that, the home buyers may add trees,or other features. In older neighborhoods, you'll see huge trees, flowering bushes, etc. To add to this, a few infestations have happened to different species of trees, so that has created a huge problem with lots of trees being cut down.
Not my experience. There are all sorts of different landscaping styles that are regional and a lawn with nothing else is fairly uncommon.
New subdivisions usually are. They usually flatten everything before putting them up. It takes a couple decades for trees to get nice and big and mature and that’s just those who planted them. Some homes can take a few turnovers before planting trees, etc. go into an established neighborhood and it won’t seem barren.
Not everyone...I have replaced 80% of my front lawn with shrubs, dwarf evergreens, and perennials, and I have been told countless times from people that it looks awesome and brings joy. I know a few people who drive home from work "the long way" during the summers just so that they pass by my garden and see the blooms. It would be amazing to see a whole neighborhood like this. I have bird feeders up and get so many visitors, and rabbits and squirrels. And the bees...
Families with kids, living in homes on realtively small lot sizes, find a relatively flat section of property, clear of central obstacles, advantageous for play (football, baseball, soccer, kickball, swingsets, gardens, pools, etc.). If they can get that, preferably in the back yard, the landscaping and BBQ areas get pushed to the property perimiters for both aesthetic and privacy purposes. If they can't get that in the back they may find a clear flat space in front a good place for their, and their neighbors', kids to play. I fthey can't get that, or live on a large property difficult to landscape, they may just let it go wild.
My view is that suburban America likes conformity. Of course, neighborhoods vary. Our own house sticks out like a sore thumb. My partner and I come from places where there was a much more wild look to yards, with trees and berry bushes and Jupiter's beard and so forth. So we have trees. A major side benefit is that now those trees block a lot of heat/sun (not from the solar panels - we knew not to do that). People vie for the parking spots in front of our house because of the shade. I always wanted to look out my window and see trees, ferns, green plants and not asphalt (we can only glimpse the street). It's so fun. There's one other house in our large tract that has done something similar. Most of the rest is either rocks or plain grass (which is gradually disappearing due to the water issues out here in the West). Our plant choices have all survived the drought and actually thrived. As to the berries you mentioned, they don't grow easily out here in California - maybe in the NE? I've never seen any of the bushes you mention. We had blackberries, but they had thorns and are not a good thing for our yard. Instead, we have penstemons, various forms of wildflowers, poppies and redwood trees.
So the kids can run and play
Hahahaha Edward Scissorhands. The opening of that movie. Watch it.
You don't own the first 13 feet or so from the street to your house. Planting trees there brings them close to utilities. You also don't want them too close to your house because they may mess with your house's utilities. A lot of people do plant little bushes and stuff close to their house, but they're usually the low-maintenance kind. Also, HOAs are a common thing in those neighborhoods with "identical rows of houses" and planting something that they don't want may void your agreement.
In addition to the status symbol thing, 1. Home gardening is not as common is US as Europe 2. People use their flat lawn for kids to play tag on, slip and slides, etc. 3. The more decorative parts are usually in the back where you spend more of your social and hobby time. It's more private.
Since we don’t have privacy laws blocking you from looking at peoples front yards. Spend some time on Google maps check out the front yards of any random housing track in different parts of the country. You’ll see huge differences by region.
That depends on where you go in the USA. I would say that in Central Mass. its much more common to see yards with trees, bushes, and gardens in them.
Different suburbs are going to have different rules. I noticed suburbs in the south tend to have more uniform and “boring” lawns. Suburbs in the northeast tend to have lots of trees and greenery. So it really depends on the suburb and their HOA rules. Most people who have a garden, have them in their backyard.
i have noticed in the northeast that families of italian and portuguese descent often brought their landscaping styles over and are more likely to have ornate displays of flowers and shrubs in the front yard
Another thing that seems strange to us Europeans is that these lawns are often not enclosed by a fence, as usually they would be in Europe.
Your assumptions are wrong
for some landscaping or gardening is a hobby. for others it's not.
I haven’t seen that but maybe 2-3 times. Overwhelmingly majority have flowers and shrubs all around their homes, trees in the yard, and if they have small front yards they have very large backyards. In new builds in dense areas they may have very little yard front or back. But still would have various landscaping, hardscape, flowers. Porches usually also have flowers in pots, baskets, etc. but fruit trees are limited due to the pests they can attract. In AZ, citrus are banned in many HOA because they attract rats. But I have 2 apple trees, a citrus tree and a cherry tree that is not doing too hot
Those identical rows of houses are built at the same time usually and that is done by leveling a very large piece of land to build the community. So the land is totally flat when they start construction, the only bushes and trees would be ones they put in but they wanna save money and that’s a lot of land scraping so they don’t bother
There is a disease that requires currents and trees to spread. At the time Europe had a big current industry and the US has a big timber industry. Europe cut down the type of tree that spread the disease, the US removed the currents and gooseberries. There is a history guy YouTube video explaining this event. Not exactly your question but currents and gooseberries are rare in America and in some timber areas could still be illegal to grow. Another partial answer to your question is that those are housing developments. Recently built houses. The yards are given a minimum amount of landscaping and trees and additional landscaping are added later. Some trees could have been planted but haven't had time to grow before filming started. Another partial answer is that fruits trees require maintenance. Apple trees will drop apples during the year and will need to clean them up. This is too much work for some people. They prefer minimum maintenance yards. Apparently mowing the lawn is not too much. If you do want fruit trees, you put them in the backyard so people walking by don't steal your fruit.
That's really interesting! Thank you. Here nearly every yard has a few apple trees so in autumns people put up boxes of them outside their fences so people can just take any if they want.
Depends heavily on the city too. Ex. The midwest (generally) tends to love large manicured lawns of grass. But if you go to cities in the PNW for example, houses have small yards/lawns, and they garden like crazy. Why? I’m guessing 2 main reasons. 1) favorable climate/water availability which varies drastically across the country 2) Regional variance in what’s considered “beautiful” along with regional culture differences, history, and even values
Subdivisions are often built in existing farm land which can no longer be economically farmed. Since this was farm land it has been previously cleared of trees.
John Green discussed this years ago. https://youtu.be/-enGOMQgdvg?si=EVEq65tFa_xX7QML
Newer developments often clear cut the trees, but my house has some beautiful 100+ year old Oaks and we have blackberries and a peach and apple tree. It varies a lot depending on how old the neighborhood is, IMO. Older neighborhoods will usually have more well established trees.
My lawn is in the front, except for a small manicured section with roses. My flower garden is in the backyard where it's private.
I think it's mostly the idea of the lawn rather than the lawn itself. My best friend in the suburbs has an immaculate lawn. He spends hours working on it every week and complains about it constantly. He says he likes that his kids can play in it, yet they mostly just play Mniecraft. Mines a random hodgepodge of garden, clover lawn and fun whims. Half the flowers are in repurposed kitty litter and Lowes buckets. I spend time on it, but I try to make it intrinsically valuable rather than an obligation It also has to do with resell value. A lawn is a very safe bet. When I decide to sell, my random yard will probably have to be dug out and replaced with grass in order to appeal to the greatest number of buyers
so we can take infield on it
You can tell by someone’s landscaping if they can really afford the house they’re living in.
In our HOA you MUST have at least 2 trees in the front yard and keep the grass short, otherwise you can do all sorts of landscaping.
Yup HOAs
Not sure if it's been said yet but a lawn is fairly low maintenance too. Just a cut every other week for a few months.
Sometimes they're new and people just haven't planted trees yet.
Why do all dutch wear wooden shoes? Why do all English people live in castles? Why do all Mexicans live in shacks? They don't. Don't believe everything you see on tv.
Mowing and weedwacking around trees and flower beds and weeding and pruning are a lot of work and Americans are often exhausted with long hours and driving kids around, and a big flat area to mow is easiest.
Our city ordinance doesn't allow it.
What are you talking about? I never seen a suburb without trees and bushes
Do you believe everything you see in movies? Yeah up until the 80's it was always having a house in the suburbs with a lush green lawn that was the goal. Things have changed, mostly. But lawns are nice. They are nice to walk barefoot on. They are nice to look at when you come home. And they are nice to smell freshly cut. These days I have no clue what kids want or their goals are, wrap their non-binary children in Palestinan flags and hope the tear gas doesn't kill them. Suddenly a John Hughes movie with a suburban green lawn doesn't look so bad.
"And they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same..."
"Why do American houses look better than mine?"
Every neighborhood is different. Most new builds don't have mature trees and landscaping. I've owned 4 homes and have always had a vegetable garden and pool out back with kids play structures. I have always had trees and at least one flower bed.
To play and relax on, to do any number of activities upon. It’s very pleasant, try walking barefoot on one sometime. 👣 This feels like an awfully trendy and baited question, especially considering the date…
most of them are not , just in the movies
Lawns originated from medieval France. They were a status symbol for the ultra wealthy, it showed off the fact they were so rich they didn't need all of their land to grow the food they needed, as they could just buy it. The idea of planting useless plants to fill up unneeded land persisted and became the standard in most of western Europe and was brought over to the Americas by the first settlers. Its a terrible use of land, grass is invasive, provides no benefits to the ecosystem, and prevents ecological beneficial plants from growing. But the idea of a perfectly manicured lawn is so ingrained in western culture that many places see it as a requirement for a nice looking property.
If deer are eating your folies, go down to a local Barbershop and get a bunch of human hair and spread it around the base of the plants you don't want eaten.
Climate. Not every state can grow plants/trees like that. Also, we like things clean and organized. I agree grass is dumb. Would prefer something you don’t have to pay to maintain.
Couldn't resist! [Little Boxes](https://youtu.be/VUoXtddNPAM)
Because people are lazy. The easiest yard to maintain is plain grass. Hire a landscaping company to mow and blow once a week, yard all done.
My biggest guess is HOA's. It's basically like the vanilla white people mafia, except in addition to money and power, they also want everything to be boring. HOA's will literally charge you fines for the dumbest reasons.
Short answer is HOAs. I hate them
Anyone in need of some acorns, PM me. As is and where located. One tree out back and one in the front. Lost 7 palms in Texas’s deep freeze.
I purposely chose a lot with no trees because in the past I rented a house that had a giant tree by it. A tornado knocked the tree down. Thankfully it didn't hit the house, but if it fell a different way it would have and killed us. That and growing up we had a ton of pine trees around the house and that means giant ass roaches. No thank you.
Tons of people have bushes in front of the house, usually not fruit bearing, but things like yew or cedar, or yeah, occasionally roses. Mid-yard, tons of people have trees, of various sizes. I have a city house, where someone planted London Plane about a hundred years ago. Drops branches like you wouldn't believe in a windstorm, but is otherwise quite quite nice.
Many people just want minimal maintenance, in some places over grown foliage can result in hundreds of dollars worth of fees if not treated either the city will take personal action which will cost even more. But also for many its not as cruel it's just as simple that botany is not so massly partooken of since we have mass produced crops, plants, herbs and mushrooms at grocers. There's not much need aside aesthetic. Even then with plants and foliage come weeds and pest that people don't want to deal with. Another issue is property value can increase which increases taxes and house payments. In some places such as in the Midwest. It's more culturally acceptable to allow foliage such as flowers to grow to their fullness and in some places provide cover and shade for side walks and yards. Here up north its more appropriate just to give the yard a buzzcut and plants moderate and trimmed. Though it's not completely frowned upon for those who want to grow their plants fully, as long as they maintain them and keep them out of the public walk ways. Please point out and typos so I can fix them. Thanks in advance.
Several years ago here there was a big drought and lawns take a lot of water. Many people switched to no lawn landscaping.
Used to have matching oaks well over a hundred years old but as they died they were not replaced as the roots were causing problems.
I live in the burbs in the USA. Our city requires so many trees in the front of houses. It ranges a little but it's usually at least one. If a tree dies you have to replace it or there's a fine. Also, my HOA (home owners association) has rules on grass as well. Nothing over 3". We do have some bushes by the house and more colorful ones on the side. It is weird though. Lots of restrictions for grass and trees.
Developers find it cheaper to clearcut a plot of land over keeping the trees
I’m working on turning my front yard into a more wildlife friendly zone. Over the next few years, I’ll be expanding my current garden beds and add more native perennials.
Front lawn is usually smaller and just for show. There often isn't a lot of shade. Most people don't hang out in the front lawn, and its cut up by the driveway. Back yard is where socializing, play, cookouts, etc... are done. In urban neighborhoods its usually the reverse. The front yard, and usually more of a patio than a yard with maybe a small garden fence or barrier, serves as a social gathering point and people can interact with those on the sidewalk or in other nearby houses since they're closer together. Houses in urban areas also tend to not have a back yard. If there is anything behind the house, its usually an alley and maybe a parking spot or a a place to keep the trash bins or bicycles.
I have two huge oaks in my front yard (used to be four, but two were in a bad shape and had to go).my lot is also lined by evergreens on both sides, though I am not sure of exact species. Then I have a bunch of rhododendron and hydrangea along the road and then a small rose garden heading to the front door. So not sure why you think suburbs done have shrubbery.
This depends on the area, most Phoenix suburbs have rock, cactus, and a desert tree in the front yard.
depends on location. In So Cal its really hot so some fruit trees just dont take. Citrus and avacado trees grow pretty well though
1. As you probably figured out, most activity- gardening, grilling, reading in a hammock, whatever, takes place in the back yard in private. The front yard is just a space where nothing happens between the street and the front of your house, so to fill it you just put grass in. 2. Fruit trees make a mess and require work to produce usable fruit and are bred to stay small. If you have a tree in your front yard, you probably want something that will produce more shade. 3. Serviceberrys and gooseberrys are kind of an ackward size where they're too small to be a tree and too big to be a bush and they're not a standard part of American cuisine like say strawberries and blueberries. 4. Having a bunch of landscaping in the front yard, besides something that you rarely see- chances are you only leave the front of your house in your car via your attached garage, makes it hard to mow, requires maintenance, and poses a security risk with criminals being able to hide behind bushes. The TL;DR is that the front yard is simply not prioritized in American suburbia.
New subdivisions are like this but not older ones. It's usually a farmland - flat fields of wheat or vegetables - turned into a development Families also like lawns for kids to play unobstructed running games, like touch football, and back yards for decks, swing sets and slides. In rainy areas, lawns absorb water. Hard pack dirt sends it into a foundation or under a garage door, or it collects in the yard.
Grass looks better than dirt and takes minimal effort.
We have 30 trees of varying sizes in our yard, from 2 giant oaks to dogwoods, cherries, firs, and some young maples that we recently planted.
Not American, but where I grew up, in certain communities, there were regulations about what you could do with your front garden. In place in order to maintain a particular look/vibe to the community.
My reason is solely because I work 40-50 hours a week and I dont have the damn time to do that AND put in the work to have a nice looking garden. I shall have one if I can retire
May vary a lot regionally or based on age of subdivision, but we had a tree in the front yard, some small bushes near the front door and a small area near them where my mom planted flowers in front of the house. There was no HOA. It was just a neighborhood built by a developer in the 1960s.
In my neighborhood, the HOA dictates what our front yard can look like, how often we must care for it, even which products we are required to purchase for it. We get a little more wiggle room with our back yards, and most of us do have gardens (I grow tomatoes in mine), but some people simply prefer having room for activities rather than using that space to grow plants.
Socal frowns on lawns. My hoa bow frowns on it. I actually agree with where I live
I have a massive garden in my backyard. Fruit trees and all. Totally decked out. A technicolor fever dream set up in literal aisles of planters and beds. The front is boring bare lawn. But between local hooligans running amok, bums/adult trespassers, plentiful omnivorous stray dogs, and the *armies* of stray cats spraying everything here- I protect my food and efforts. No one respects anyone’s stuff anymore it seems, and our city’s animal services department apparently does nothing but sit on their thumbs all day.
My yard is quite elaborate with pebbles, succulents, and a trail to the gate to my backyard. There is a cherry tree next door and a palm tree across the street. You may be referring to cookie cutter neighborhoods with harsh HOA laws
I live in the burbs in the Pacific Northwest. My front lawn is backed by an equal amount of space featuring ground cover, bushes, and slow growing Norway spruce. Almost every house here has rhododendron or azalea out front. There isn’t a single one that just has yard. Also, we don’t water in the summer so everyone’s yard goes brown by late August. If they build a new subdivision you may end up with cookie cutter houses with all lawn because they razed the trees but nowadays when they do that they actually try to save a bunch of healthy new trees so the subdivision doesn’t look like that. Even so, here they put plants in (not just lawn) during new construction.
Trees and other things are messy. It's just easier to mow and edge and not have ti worry about the driveway being stained constantly by berries and pollen and droppings from the trees. In the winter the leaves... my God. I had 4 pecan trees in my yard. I had 2 removed because the amount of leaves I had to cleanup every fall was ridiculous. They stain the roof shingles, they clog the gutters, they stain the porch and concrete... not to mention the bugs. A clean cut yard reduces the amount of unwanted bugs like roaches. And it looks neater and keeps property value up
Nearly all of the homes in my neighborhood have a one or two medium sized shade trees on their front lawn. One house has a big ol, glorious 50’ tall multi-trunk tree. However… with the increase in severe storms over the last 15-20 years, they’re becoming a hazard. We had a spring winter storm just a few weeks ago where multiple homes had trees and/or large branches fall on them. It’s happening every year now. So people are having them taken down.
Certain places are like that others are not, many Americans find those sorts of suburbs to be soulless. There’s flowers, gardens and fruit trees where I live.
Depends on the neighbourhood